How to choose the right car service?

Choosing a good car service for your car is, frankly, not an easy task and is akin to finding “your” doctor. I will try to dwell on some, in my opinion, important points when choosing a car service and, of course, on the standard mistakes of potential customers.

First, let's look at the notation of services:

• tech center,

• service station (SRT),

• car service,

• auto repair shop,

• car repair service, etc.

With all responsibility I declare that there is no fundamental difference, even a repair shop, even a repair plant, even a car repair shop - any collective car service is essentially an enterprise with all the consequences and all of the above designations do not carry any semantic load, except for the understanding that this organization is engaged in technical car service. Learn more at https://johannesburg-gt-za.global-free-classified-ads.com/auto-repair-cid-692. An individual mechanic or a loner

is another matter  ... even if he has a partner (friend, son, brother or matchmaker), this is a completely different matter. I will briefly outline the fundamental difference between a single master and a full-fledged car service - the main disadvantages of a “garage” master are  queues

if the master is really a pro (we will not consider armless and headless ones). A good master always has work to do, but it takes time to complete it, and there are only two hands ... I hope the idea is clear?

Let me explain just in case - even with a banal oil change in the engine or pads, you just can’t jump in. The master can be busy with another machine, and if the amount of work is large, as an option, the engine bulkhead, then the chance to get to him today or tomorrow is zero, which does not add optimism when the pressure lamp is on or the pads scraping the disk.

The second, no less important point is the  guarantee. Again, consider a good, responsible master who is responsible for his mistakes. Believe me, only the one who does nothing does not make mistakes ... and there is a hole in the old woman. Any megamaster can mess up, we are all human. So, he would be happy to fix it, but he has another machine at work and possibly again with a large volume, which means you will have to wait for the weather by the sea for who knows how long. If he undertakes to fix your problem, how will the client react, whose car was “pushed into the far corner”? A vicious circle ... and, as a result, one of the two will definitely be dissatisfied and you will not know the first or second.

Another aspect of the guarantee is  money.! It is not always possible to solve (correct) a mistake made with one hand, sometimes it is necessary to replace a spare part, if we are talking about a collar or a light bulb - it's nonsense, but if the cost of spare parts required to eliminate a defect amounts to tens of thousands of rubles? Let me remind you that we are considering a decent craftsman who will not send the client back home, but no one knows how long he will save money and fix the problem, unfortunately. Here you can counter, they say, and the service can pull with repairs or “kick back” the customer if there is no desire to solve the problem. Everything is correct, only there is one “BUT” - a cash receipt and an order for work performed, with these documents, after an examination, you can safely go to court and receive compensation, incl. and for non-pecuniary damage, plus payment of expertise and legal costs. How do you imagine the same with a private trader? That's right - no way.

By the way - there are private masters whose cost of work practically does not differ from the services of the service, in this case, choosing in favor of an individual does not make sense at all. In fact, there are much more nuances in the work of a lone mechanic, but if you continue, it will be difficult to read the text to the end, and therefore I will move on to car services, as such.

So,  car services  can be divided into three groups:

1. official dealers (white) ,

2. "regular" car services (gray),

3. "black" service stations . 

Well, everything is clear with the first ones - these are  service centers at car dealerships of dealers of specific brands . Among the advantages of these services, one can note the level of service for the CUSTOMER (not a car!) - clean, tidy, sometimes sterile, a lot of service personnel, most often useless and ignorant, an excellent client area, a cafe and the use of the full potential of the manufacturer for the maintenance of a particular brand, using only original spare parts.

It seems that everything is fine and there is nothing to be desired, but for the time being, while you are only going through planned T.O.

Even an apprentice car mechanic can handle changing oil, pads and filters, although at the checkout you will leave an amount comparable to that if at least a candidate of technical sciences was involved in your car. You certainly have to pay for comfort, so it's up to you whether it's worth it or not. How about a guarantee? I do not want to jinx it, but if you come across anything serious, remember my words. If the warranty touched on small things - count the order-orders for planned maintenance, compare with similar work not at the dealer's service, and often resolving the issue at your own expense, and not under the guarantee, will allow you to save a lot.
You will really think about whether it is worth visiting the dealer when the car starts having problems that do not fit into the scope of scheduled maintenance.

Unfortunately, the specifics of the work of any dealer technical center - the replacement of consumables and a “step to the side” drives the masters into a stupor - they are simply not ready for this. Why? After all, there is highly specialized training in dealer training centers. That's right, specialists are trained, but it is impossible to keep employees with knowledge and experience on meager salaries, naturally, specialists do not stay at dealers and go to an employer that appreciates professionals.

Unfortunately, the specificity of dealers is "sharpened" for the sale of cars and for warranty service, but it is not economically profitable for them to deal with complex cases. Therefore, good salaries from dealers rely solely on the management and support team for the sale of cars, accessories (the so-called "special stages"), while the service for the dealer is an obligatory component, but not the main source of income, although looking through the orders and paying attention to the line "total" , it appears that this is far from the case.

It is not uncommon for outside specialists to be called in to find out and fix a malfunction, when an “insoluble” problem happened during the warranty period - consider yourself lucky, otherwise weeks of waiting are provided, and it’s not a fact that the problem will be fixed.

And one more aspect is that any dealer has a full-time lawyer to solve the problems that have arisen with the client. I agree, there are different clients, sometimes so “different” that it is simply impossible to communicate with them through a lawyer, in a simple human language. But these are such rare cases that it is quite possible to hire a lawyer for one case every few years. Dealers, on the other hand, keep a lawyer on staff, and I note with a rather immodest salary, which is more logical to pay a car service specialist so that a lawyer is not needed in principle. Dealers think otherwise. Reason to think. Think a car dealership needs a lawyer? What for? Does the dealer sell stolen or damaged cars? Doesn't return paid cars? Clients have been waiting for their PTS from customs for years? So isn't it easier to work honestly? Why am I? And besides, if a business is insured in advance by hiring a lawyer,

Now I’ll tell you about the most common,  ordinary car services . They, in turn, are also divided into two subclasses, the first -  services by brand  or by production market, for example, American cars, Korean or French, etc. Or the so-called  multi-brand services .

The first , narrowly focused ones, of course, are a priority since they have been dealing with the same cars for a long time, most of the standard problems are known and often after listening to the client by phone, the scope of work to fix the problem is already clear.

In any case, having arrived at such a service, you will not see the scene “ram and new gates”, which cannot be said about the multi-brand.

Although with these services, too, not everything is so simple. Some brands come more often, some less often ... and of course, knowledge with experience, somewhere it can be on a par with a single-brand service. Yes, and masters in a multi-brand do not come from the street, and as a rule they have good experience in repairing and diagnosing one or two brands. We are now talking about specialists with experience, “apprentice pioneers” in any service have a minimum of knowledge and usually change oils and brake pads, which in general usually does not require special skills regardless of the manufacturer.

In short, if you are not the owner of an exclusive "rare earth" car, then a multi-brand service may also be a good option.

"Black" services do not imply the work of employees with a different skin color or neglecting personal hygiene, they are black in essence of legal relations with the state, or rather in their complete absence. Such services usually work without any documentation, without cash registers and customer service contracts.

Despite the fact that competent specialists may well work there, the resolution of disputable and conflict situations is possible only at the level of personal communication and at the discretion of the management, in the legal field, solving the problem with the “black” service is doomed to failure due to the lack of documents confirming the performance of any service by the service. or work on your vehicle. Even in the case when the “black” car service is a club one, there is no guarantee of the correct development of the situation and it all depends on who the forum community believes the “plaintiff” or “respondent” more, and this is not always an objective judgment, you can believe. And the solution of the issue depends precisely on which side the majority of the members of the forum will be on, if on the side of the service - from the gate, if the teammate is supported - the service will solve the problem so as not to lose customers. Note,

If contacting such a service involves a long stay on its territory without your presence - engine repair, painting, etc. be prepared that at one point you will arrive at the closed gates and ... at best, you will see a sign “we have moved”, at worst, you will not even be able to get through by phone.

But even if the service did not disappear without a trace, then an emergency move can affect the quality of services far from for the better - not all craftsmen are ready to roam with the service and it is not known who will finish the work started by others, and in fact such a specialist may not be in principle, part spare parts may be lost, etc. Yes, and the move itself and its subsequent full-fledged functioning is not a matter of one day, and sometimes not even a week. In general, it is worth thinking about such an option and possibly refuse.

So, how do you choose a good car service? Where to start looking?

There are a huge number of options for choosing a car service, but they are most often based on the experience of customers, and I will tell you about the options for choosing from the side of the serviceman, so to speak, from the other side of the barricades. Of course, the Internet is our everything, but for starters, I would advise you to ask friends, acquaintances and work colleagues who and where services their cars, provided that they own cars of the same brand. I would listen to their recommendations, and if everything is ok, then we can actually stop there. Recommendations of relatives and friends always deserve special trust. Incidents happen in this version, but it makes no sense to pay attention to isolated cases, but in general this is the best  version of word of mouth .

The next recommended option in finding a car service is undoubtedly  the clubs of car lovers of a particular manufacturer . Find a club of your brand, register, ask questions, consult. Don't be shy, even if you've never been a club member. Read reviews of teammates about the services they use. These reviews can be trusted much more than impersonal recommendations, or vice versa, the negative that abounds in numerous "revocable" sites on the network.

In general, reviews about the service are an ambiguous thing, now I will explain some of the nuances - to write a review about the service, you most often need to register on the resource, and this time and therefore usually the bulk of the reviews will be sharply negative. And it’s not at all because the service is bad, it’s just that if the work is done perfectly, this is considered the norm and there are few who want to write rave reviews about it on the network. Naturally, there are people who will write, but against the background of dissatisfied customers, there are many times less of them ... approximately it looks like this - out of 100% satisfied customers, a maximum of 1% will write a positive review, and out of 100% dissatisfied - 90% will consider their duty to share their "grief", and not always the problem is really in the service, but oh well.

Another nuance of revocable network sites: as you understand, these sites are created for subsequent monetization, well, no one will spend their time for free, pay for a domain, hosting and promote a resource in search engines. To take money from customers who write reviews is stupidity and nonsense, but to “skin” a service with a “undermined” reputation is the sweetest thing. And such merchants begin to besiege services with offers of their services. The owners of a resource that discredits the honor and dignity of a car service simply offer to “clean up karma” for a certain monthly payment, completely removing unpresentable content, which is expensive.

It is somewhat cheaper to write positive reviews to push the negative as far as possible from the potential reader. And in order to maintain this or that option of taking money from the service, these “comrades” do not disdain to periodically add negative things from themselves so that the service does not change its mind about leaving the monthly dues. Summary - reading reviews about car services on impersonal sites, from incognito clients, is a counterproductive thing . Reviews about services you can trust are best read on  Facebook ,  Drive2 or on the websites of fans of a particular brand - these are reviews of real people with whom, if desired, you can chat and discuss a specific service. Do not be too lazy to first look into the person’s account and make sure that he is registered not only to write one review.

So, with the reviews finished, let's move on. Regardless of which way you found a service where you can service your car, read a few more recommendations to understand the full picture of the correctness of your choice. It's no secret that it's impossible to please everyone in principle, even if it's not about service, but about food .... a store .... finally, a woman has a taste and color, as they say, all felt-tip pens are different and each person has his own priorities. Someone is satisfied with the location of the service, someone with the work schedule, pricing also plays a role in the choice (more on this below), but the main point that is in demand by almost everyone is customer focus.

So let  's check the car service for customer focus. Of course, it will not be superfluous to come and talk with the receiving master, but I recommend starting with a phone call and / or email. Immediately a lyrical digression - this option never works with an individual mechanic, a person turns the nuts in splendid isolation and telephone chatter, like correspondence, is simply contraindicated for him, you won’t earn money over the phone. We dial the phone number of the service, you can start from afar - they say I'm going to buy a car of such and such a brand, what can you say ... recommend, dissuade, etc. From the completeness of the answer, the desire to talk about this topic and the manner of communication, one can already form some idea of ​​​​the organization. All of you for the service are not even a client ready to use the services, but just a “passer-by”.

Further it is recommended to contact the selected car service with a “specific” problem, it can be fictitious (chat with friends and come up with a defect that you want to fix). If the master with whom you communicate is limited to an invitation to come to the service and deal with the problem, then from experience I will say that it is better to refuse to visit. Any service dealing with cars of your brand has the necessary experience and experience with typical, and not typical, failures, which means that even by phone, the master inspector usually asks leading questions “what, how, under what conditions” and based on the information received, it is quite may already during a conversation give out possible solutions to the problem with the approximate cost of work and spare parts. Feel free to ask if they have experienced something similar, what happened in the end, etc. The master avoids answering and insists on coming - we'll see, we'll feel.

Well,  the final stage of  confirming the correctness of the choice of service is  a trial repair . Such repairs should be very simple, so that in the event of unskilled intervention, the damage is minimal, and very cheap - to understand whether the service is ready to provide inexpensive services to customers or they are not interested.
I offer a choice of changing the oil in the engine, replacing the pads, or replacing the light bulb in the headlight. Spare parts in any of these options must be your own , do not forget to mention this when contacting. A refusal or an offer to come in a week will put everything in its place, and if you are signed up for repairs, great, read on.

We arrived at the service, filed an application for work (if this is not provided, decide for yourself to continue or turn around), the car was driven onto a lift. Contact the master for permission to be present during the work, if there are no questions - great, if you are asked not to interfere and are not allowed into the repair area - the choice is yours, even if you are not interested, the first "introductory" time is still better to look. A lot depends on how the master will deal with your car. If the master immediately takes the right tool and starts working with the usual perfected movements, you can go and drink coffee in peace, you have come to the pros. If the mechanic walks for a long time and "aims" where to start, tries on keys or screwdrivers one after another for a long time - the car is clearly not familiar to him, and even if he does everything carefully, then with a more serious treatment, problems are possible. Again, it's up to you to decide.

And finally  , pricing. Usually, the prices for the main types of services are on the service website, it’s quite enough to understand the general policy, but changing oil or pads on average in Moscow costs about the same. Try to monitor more voluminous work with several items. By ear, such information is perceived with difficulty, both by the master and the client - write a list of works and send it by e-mail. But I recommend calling the service and telling about it, firstly, your letter may go to “spam”, and in general, usually the mailbox is clogged with various nonsense every day to such an extent that such letters can simply go unnoticed and go unanswered. You will get the impression that you have been ignored. Next, you will get several different options for prices for the same types of work, but you should not draw conclusions based on this. Why? Everything is actually very simple - some services indicate the final cost, taking into account all the nuances of a particular model, including age, while others only indicate the cost of work according to existing standards, not taking into account possible welding and locksmith work, as well as lubricants and cleaners. This means that in the end, the cost may well turn out to be comparable or even higher than that of the service, which initially took into account additional costs in the calculations. I recommend clarifying such things by phone, so as not to be surprised later when paying at the checkout. that in the end, the cost may well turn out to be comparable or even higher than that of the service, which initially took into account additional costs in the calculations. I recommend clarifying such things by phone, so as not to be surprised later when paying at the checkout. that in the end, the cost may well turn out to be comparable or even higher than that of the service, which initially took into account additional costs in the calculations. I recommend clarifying such things by phone, so as not to be surprised later when paying at the checkout.

Any self-respecting, and even more so client, service performing repair work, faced with the need for additional costs, whether it be metalwork and welding operations or the like, will definitely contact and agree with the customer an increase in cost or refusal to perform them. If necessary, a photo or video is taken for clarity. Of course, this is true if the client is not present during the repair. Replaced spare parts are handed over to the client upon request, if desired, the car can be raised on a lift and the amount of work performed is demonstrated (if this is not a bulkhead of the engine, automatic transmission, etc.). 

Never flatter yourself with promotions like “free diagnostics”, “free oil change”, “free tow truck”  - free cheese, as you know, is only in a mousetrap!

Let me explain from my belfry -  free diagnostics , that is, in other words, people should work for free ... do you believe in this? And it’s right that they don’t - everyone wants to eat, which means that after the “free diagnostics” there should be a list of works, which will include “free” diagnostics. And if everything is OK with you and there are no problems, then this will be a banal deception, or, as they say now, a divorce.

Free tow truck - the same thing, imagine that your fuse on the control unit has blown, the wire on the starter has rotted, or even the retractor has jammed. None of these works will cover the average price tag for delivering the car to the service, which means, as I wrote earlier, you will pay for the evacuation, but only with far-fetched works and spare parts, not every service is ready to honestly describe the situation - take 300 for work and ask for payment separately evacuation. And the point is even more likely not the decency of the service, but the understanding that with 99% confidence the client will stand his ground, they say they promised a free tow truck - keep your promise. That is why our service never promises anything for free, yes ... we can provide a discount based on the results of a large amount of work, but “inventing” a defect and then “eliminating” it is not in our rules. For that we can honestly say

The most common erroneous option for finding a good car service is advertising. Advertising, of course, is the engine of trade, but this is the most expensive option for promoting goods and services, for which, as you understand, the consumer pays. Therefore, if, when searching for a car service on the Internet, you are haunted by advertising of the same service, this only indicates that the owner is moving with the times and advertising in his business is not the last item on the list of expenses. Think about that too.

Try to correctly formulate the request and get the right selection from the search engine. Good luck on the road and in choosing a good car service!