Sales vs. Service (or lack of)

[A hunt 2 remember]

I'm writing this wondering if it's only me? Or do others see the same thing? When I went in to get my Outlander serviced and started the process of purchasing Bear, the dealership was ALL ABOUT service... But since Bear has been purchased? CUSTOMER SERVICE HAS BECOME MIA!!!! AND THE TECHNICIANS ARE A JOKE!!! I was having issues with a brake not responding correctly and not allowing the brakes to be bled. After a month of trying to diagnose the issue with NO SUCCESS!!!! I took him to a local CanAm dealer for diagnosis. Made an appointment for a Saturday (a week after the call) and Bear sat until Wednesday to be even looked at. THEN WHY DID THEY HAVE ME BRING IT IN ON SATURDAY??? (Their reasoning for bringing him in Saturday was they didn't have room for him before that, yet he sat five days until anyone looked at him) All that being said, they came back with a diagnosis that my rotor and hub were bent. But worse yet, the front diff was WASTED!!! So.... I ask about warranty on the diff and they tell me they don't replace BROKEN PARTS..... WHY THE "F" WOULD I NEED A WORKING PART WARRANTED???? CROOKED BASTARDS!!! But back to the brakes.... I order the parts THEY said were junk. After recieving the parts and going to replace them..... The rotor did NOT look bent at all so I placed it on the NEW ROTOR.... Guess what? ROTOR WAS PERFECT!!!! Well, maybe if the hub is JACKED bolting the rotor to it would warp it??? So I place the old hub on the new hub and guess what??? NOTHING WRONG THERE EITHER!!!! So lets see, I take my rig to the dealer, pay 180.00 plus the 150.00 in parts only to find out the guide rods that the caliper rides on are tweaked and it will not slide back and forth easily which holds the caliper from staying closed down on the rotor.... Requiring the pedal to be pumped to get the brakes working correctly.  Which I had to figure out MYSELF!!! WHAT A SCAM!!!! TOTALLY LOSING FAITH IN CANAM AND THEIR DEALERS!!! Kinda don't see why I should be responsible for the diagnosis fees!!! Considering what is wrong HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THEIR DIAGNOSIS!!! SHAME ON YOU #SKNORTHWEST

 

[Andystoy19]

Sorry to hear about your dealer issues, I am fortunate enough to be doing business with the same dealership here in Canada for the last 25 years. Some of the staff have changed but their business philosophy is that they try their best to look after the customer. They have grown to multiple dealerships throughout western Canada but the main one where it all started is still going strong.
 
Just recently I contacted BRP Care in Canada and had a very good response from them and the dealer.
My suggestion is that you contact BRP Care in the USA and see if they will help.
Keep your info simple and factual and ask for help in trying to get to a resolution?
 
The link below should take you to a contact form that you fill out and they respond to:
https://www.brp.com/en/forms/contact-us.html
United States T: 715.848.4957.
Good luck

 

[A hunt 2 remember]

At this point this is the second dealer I've been too. What I'm finding is they don't seem to have QUALIFIED help in the Defender lineup down here. More Moto and Razor techs... I guess what gets me the most is that when a customer takes their rig to the dealer for a diagnosis and the diagnosis was TOTALLY INCORRECT what type of confidence would you have in any of their work?? What would have happened had I not called their bluff??? And left it there to be worked on..... would I have paid for parts??? (Oh you needed those Mr. Schulz...) Then we noticed your caliper backing plate was also bent and you can only get that on a complete caliper..... So your entire parts bill is 600.00 and labor of 720.00 (6 hours) and another 100.00 in shop fees... for a total of 1420.00...... for what it seems will be a caliper that will cost 350.00.... How would someone know??? Upsets me a bit really... yesterday when I called them on it... He comes back with, "well, the differential seemed to be locked up so they couldn't spin the wheels and SUSPECTED the hub and rotor were bent"..... 

Then why when they called me to pick him up and let me know of the "bent parts"..... didn't they say, "Unfortunately Mr Schulz it seems that your differential is locked up so we really could do a brake diag. We "suspect" it may be a bent hub and or rotor..... How long have you owned your Defender? We could check on possible warranty coverage of your differential. We will need to pull into the diff. and inspect the visco-lok.... while we're doing that we can possibliy find out more on the brakes situation.... to do this.... it's gonna be another 4 hours.... How would you like to proceed?"

 

[Andystoy19]

I suspect that customer service or lack there of is similar through out different parts of the industry. I am fortunate enough to buy all my toys and vehicles etc. new and once the warranty runs out I do my own service. I can ask the service manager or shop mechanic if I need some assistance before replacing my own parts and in return the dealership sells me oem parts at an expensive price.

I do my own tire rotation on the highway vehicles, oil changes and other minor service such as brakes, bulbs or lights, plugs and filters etc. 

My wife took her car in for a recall and asked the service department to put her small mud flap back on that fits behind the front wheel and is held on with 2 push pins, they charged her $80 for doing that??? 

In general the parts replacers now called "techs" who work under the supervision of a licensed tech do the work on your vehicle and get charged out at $100-$125/hr. Gone are the days of a mechanic doing the work and charging $30-$40 hr. The connection you had with the mechanic whom you talked to and explained the problem are gone also, now its service writers, shop foreman and "techs" as well as huge overhead for the show room etc?

 

[A hunt 2 remember]

I suspect that customer service or lack there of is similar through out different parts of the industry. I am fortunate enough to buy all my toys and vehicles etc. new and once the warranty runs out I do my own service. I can ask the service manager or shop mechanic if I need some assistance before replacing my own parts and in return the dealership sells me oem parts at an expensive price.

I do my own tire rotation on the highway vehicles, oil changes and other minor service such as brakes, bulbs or lights, plugs and filters etc. 

My wife took her car in for a recall and asked the service department to put her small mud flap back on that fits behind the front wheel and is held on with 2 push pins, they charged her $80 for doing that??? 

In general the parts replacers now called "techs" who work under the supervision of a licensed tech do the work on your vehicle and get charged out at $100-$125/hr. Gone are the days of a mechanic doing the work and charging $30-$40 hr. The connection you had with the mechanic whom you talked to and explained the problem are gone also, now its service writers, shop foreman and "techs" as well as huge overhead for the show room etc?

SO TRUE!!! SAD!!! BUT TRUE!!! The days of having PRIDE in your work are gone also... Back when a man's WORD meant something... Now the word is lawyer/lawsuit...... SO SAD...

 

[Hogisland42]

Not sure how big the dealership is that you are dealing with and I know cars and trucks are different than atv and utv but my family owns a small ford dealership next to some rather large ones and we have more service work than we can handle because the big dealers only care about selling large numbers of vehicles. Could care less about the people after they sign on the dotted line

 

[Rudy]

Had this same issue with the dealer I purchased my unit. Told them my unit went into limp mode in high gear. Found bad speed sensor and swapped from my maverick sport to verify issue and I was still placed on a 2 month waiting list since they had no room for my defender. Asked to ship new speed sensor but they said they had to make sure it was a bad sensor even though I had already done that. Just ordered new speed sensor and fixed it myself 

 

[A hunt 2 remember]

Had this same issue with the dealer I purchased my unit. Told them my unit went into limp mode in high gear. Found bad speed sensor and swapped from my maverick sport to verify issue and I was still placed on a 2 month waiting list since they had no room for my defender. Asked to ship new speed sensor but they said they had to make sure it was a bad sensor even though I had already done that. Just ordered new speed sensor and fixed it myself 

Definitely NO GOOD!! Pretty sad they don't cover (basically ANYTHING) things like that on the word of the customer considering they don't have time to get the rig in.... Like we just want to pull out and replace working parts??? My dealer flat out told me that CanAm just makes it a PITA to cover parts.... Like REALLY??? Not like we're asking for new motors/clutches.... or their GARBAGE AXLES!!!