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Welcome to another In-Wheel Time podcast.
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This is your place for all things automotive, the award-winning In-Wheel Time Car Talk Show.
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Just ahead, our story of the week.
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Later, Jeff has the racing calendar, Mars has this week in auto history, and I'll have the stories made in the automotive news headlines.
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Howdy, along with Mike Out of This World Mars.
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We always need more Jeff Zeken, Chief Engineer David Ainsley, and Don Armstrong.
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So glad that you could join us for our live version of this show right here on this Saturday morning.
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It's a pleasant Saturday here in Houston, Texas.
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We've got a big cruise in coming up next week.
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It's the Easter tailpipes and tacos cruise in at the Lupi Tortilla in Katy.
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Time now for our story of the week.
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Okay.
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Gather round the stuff.
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Mr.
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Morris, are you back with us?
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Yes, sir.
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Okay.
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Because uh I'd like for you to participate in this if we have a little discussion here.
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Oh, I got lots of things to say today.
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Apparently not.
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Oh my god.
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But uh that's you're talking about here.
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Oh, okay, okay.
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Well, I'm I'm not sure about here, there, or anywhere at this point of the day.
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I understand.
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So um here's the story of the week.
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Communication breakdowns topped customer complaints about dealership service departments in 2025 appearing in nearly half of all negative online reviews.
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Um this is a story from automotive news.
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That finding is prompting service managers to mine social media feedback for operational fixes.
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And some, including Shanahan Westfall, are responding to every review personally.
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Westfall, general manager of Heron Gear Infinity in Jackson, Mississippi, takes social media comments about his dealership seriously.
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He sees them as an opportunity to improve customer experience, especially if they're negative.
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He says, You may get a review in there where you're like, oops, we goofed up on that one, he said.
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And that's an opportunity for him, me, he says, to pick up the phone and just talk to that customer.
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Clear and consistent communication is crucial to good customer experiences, as experts say.
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Unclear or infrequent information is still a major gripe customers have with their service experience.
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The 2026 Voice of the Consumer Report, my reputation management firm, Wide Whale found.
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The two biggest drivers uh of consumer uh experience are communications and staff.
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Um communication friction was the top issue customers had with the service department in 2025, according to Wide Whale.
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Staff-related concerns ranked second.
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A report analyzed dealerships monthly Google reviews in 2025 and identified specific topics and keywords to determine which issued which issues appeared and whether they were positive or negative.
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In the report, communication was mentioned in 49% of negative service reviews, followed by staff mentioned in 40% of negative reviews.
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Jeff, I don't like the way you talk to me.
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That kind of stuff.
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Well, if you ask the service department, so how long do you think this repair is going to take?
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And they say 10 minutes.
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I'm going, who did you talk to?
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How do you know?
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Well, uh, it's right here on uh my rundown on my screen.
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Did you actually call and talk to somebody about that?
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Is it true in ten minutes?
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I don't know of a dealership that fixes anything in ten minutes.
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Well, you gotta park the car in ten minutes.
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Pretty much.
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Speed is no longer a differentiator, it's a baseline expectation.
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It recommends fixed ops teams pivot from managing the clock to managing the experience.
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Other dealerships are following a similar approach.
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Stevens Cook Toyota, part of American Motors Group.
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American Motors Group?
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Okay, that's a group of dealers, I assume.
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Negative social media comments helped Joe Castellano, the group's vice president of fixed operations, identify where his Toyota dealership was letting customers down on wait times.
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The Northern California group has three Toyota dealerships, two Volkswagen stores, and a single Chevy Cadillac and Alfa Romeo store.
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His Toyota dealerships advertised a 45-minute oil change, but a customer complained on social media that theirs took an hour and a half.
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That prompted Castellano to say, let's go really take a look at where we messed up.
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By keeping the parts in the bays and having a 99% accuracy in parts billing, they were able to shave off 15 to 20 minutes in an oil change, he said.
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They trimmed an additional seven minutes from 12 minutes to five minutes off the oil change by using a quick drain plug that they installed in all of the cars that they sold.
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He shouldn't even have to do that.
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There's a process problem right with the dealership.
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And if it's a large dealership, you would need well let me back this up.
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If it's a small dealership, I get what he's doing, a personal touch.
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Hey, me and you, Monoway Mana, let's go for a cup of coffee, blah, blah, blah.
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If it's a large dealership or a chain, say like your classics or your group ones, you're gonna have a committee that does that.
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If you've got multiple locations like your your Honda, your Chevy, your Cadillac, all that you name there, you got a committee for that.
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You've got a CSI committee, you've got phone numbers that relate just for those complaints.
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So in this particular case, if he's doing that and making sure that they have the proper parts and the on time in the in the bays, that's a process problem for that dealership.
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That's not a people problem.
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The people need to learn and they need to be instructed on how to do that.
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Yeah.
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We we used to have uh call it process improvement committee and they would look at it and say, here's this function that we do.
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How can we make it better, streamline it, whatever.
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Yeah, let's have a meeting to find out when our next meeting is.
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That can be lost.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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Well, back in my day, which was a long time ago, uh, the guy's name was Charlie, and he was the blacksmith?
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He was the quote unquote dispatcher.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So all of the cars that came in with multiple problems, he put all this stuff down on his sheet along with all of the other stuff that was in the shop.
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And then he would assign, you know, this repair guy to do this job, this repair guy to do this job, and this repair guy to do that.
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Today I think it's much simpler, and most of the guys that do these things, other than oil changes and routine stuff like that, that one guy does it all.
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I think he had an AC tech or two techs.
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That's all they did was the AC jobs for that shop or front end or whatever they did.
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Front end line, yeah.
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Exactly.
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Yeah.
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But I think but but these days I think that you know the main line mechanic does all of the heavy duty stuff like front end alignment, brake jobs, uh, you know, uh intake manifold stuff.
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They do it all.
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They have apprentice programs, they have internships, so make them part of that process to improve that dealership.
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You know, you got somebody that's maybe being paid minimum wage, they they're you know, uh a sponsorship or a co-op through a school, let them be part of that process and have those wins when they make things better for the dealer.
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Yes.
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Hello, Lawrence.
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I will say one thing though that about the story that I'm I'm kind of not real thrilled with.
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I mean, they're using feedback through social media, and that's where they're getting their comments from.
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And and when I worked for a uh a big communications company, we learned that people hiding at the time.
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What communications company was that?
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Well, it used to be called Southwestern Bell before it got overtaken by ETT.
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But we learned that, you know, I had people in New York and people in California, so we did a lot of conference calls.
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We learned that people would hide behind the phone.
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I mean, they can sit there and say a lot of things if they're not looking at you eye to eye.
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They got a lot more guts to say something.
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Exactly.
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And it and if you're hiding behind a keyboard, it's even more.
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I mean, just look at any of your social media accounts and see how nasty people are.
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A lot of things they would never say that to somebody to their face.
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But they'll say it on the keyboard.
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So you have to kind of look at what you're you're trying to work with, how much value is it?
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Because it's costing you at least$150 an hour if you're a dealer.
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But Mike, I think with these things, these are actual compliance.
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These aren't people just making stuff up just to diss somebody's dealership.
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I think these are actual, yeah, I did have a problem with that with a 10-minute order change or whatever the case.
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Yeah, I understand, but I'm that's what I'm saying.
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You got to kind of balance that because I I used to spend some time at the Chevrolet dealer because I grew up with a guy that was a service manager and we would trade stories during the day.
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And and I watched a lot of people that he knew that we went to school with, real nice guys out on the street, but it's like they put a foot on that parking lot of that dealership, they became total jerks.
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Yeah.
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And and they would stay that way, and then you'd see them later on in the evening at the restaurant or something.
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Hey, how are you doing after they just cuss you out all day?
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I'm familiar with that.
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Yeah.
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Not in a dealership, though.
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Yeah.
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But I am familiar with that attitude thing.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Have somebody kiss you on the cheek and then turn around and reprimand you and threaten you with your your job.
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Yeah.
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What is that?
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It's it it and it's of course how they do it and stuff.
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I mean, it's one thing for somebody to tell you they had a problem with something that happened in your shop, but it's another thing for them to tell you you're a low lying rotten SOB because they had the problem in your shop.
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I mean Mike, somebody said that to me.
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But they meant it in a good Christian way.
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In a good Christian way.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's when I started calling in quarterly meetings.
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Everybody came in to San Antonio.
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We sit down across from the table.
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Now, what do you got to say?
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And uh things changed a little bit.
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Yeah, no doubt about it.
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Well, um, I think that part of being a manager is to understand that, hey, I've got a problem here because everybody we we tout the fact that these are 30-minute oil changes to compete with all of the oil change places out there.
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We're a dealership, we should do better than that.
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It's a person waiting for an hour and a half.
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Where did that break down?
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We told them that it would be 30 minutes, and now they're waiting an hour and a half to have the oil changed.
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Uh no.
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And if they're if they've got an oil change special and they screw that up, shame on them because they don't make a lot of money, if money at all, on a oil change.
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It's a halo effect.
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They want to pull your brakes, they want to look at your exhaust system, they want to check your car out.
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Or get you in a new car showroom for a few minutes while you're waiting.
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If you're screwing something up that simple, sh maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
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Yeah.
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Well, you yeah, you definitely got a problem there.
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Uh unfortunately, you know, the the way that new cars are sold today, you especially if you're on a lease holder, then you're gonna go into the dealership when a car says it's time for an oil change, and you expect the oil change to happen quickly, not all day.
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Yeah, if you got particularly if you got an appointment.
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Oh yeah.
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Oh yeah.
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Yeah.
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And and most dealerships, I think I think most people these days are used to the fact that you really need to have an appointment.
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What and what's wrong with that?
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I re We didn't have appointments.
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We had a line of cars all the way out to the feeder road.
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That's for why, for instance, mine's through uh General Motors, through a Buick dealership, Buick GMC.
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I do make an appointment because it is that brand.
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If you were a guy off the street and like uh the maverick going into a Cadillac store, yeah, they're gonna treat you a little different and probably put you behind.
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When I think of Mavericks, all I I can all I think of is not the truck.
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I think the original.
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Which we're very cool, also.
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I'd drive one.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Yeah, but you wouldn't be fixing it.
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You'd have Mars auto mechanics.
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Mars wouldn't touch it.
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No, not Mars.
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His mechanic.
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No, not a forward.
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Uh no.
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Um but no, you're right.
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I mean, most of the walk-ins back in in our day was everybody.
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You didn't make many appointments, but nowadays I believe that if you break you don't make an appointment, you just go to the dealership.
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Uh otherwise, it is by appointment, as far as I know, all of them.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Once you're in, once you got your foot in the door and the car's in the loop, so to speak, then they pretty much take it from there.
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And it's up to the service advisor, if you want to call them that.
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I guess that's what you call them today.
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Yeah, I think they still call them that.
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Yeah, then it's up to that service advisor to relay to you the information.
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Hey, uh our tech looked at your car and they're gonna have to pass it on to another tech.
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He's a little bit backed up, so it's gonna cost us a few more hours today.
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Uh hopefully we'll have it back, but I wouldn't bank on that.
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I think that tomorrow would be a better timeline for you.
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Or depending on the issue, too.
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If it's electrical, it's gonna take a little longer to chase that down.
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If it's something like uh maybe a a mapping unit or sensing unit or something, they could probably knock that out for you.
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But depending on the issue, too.
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Yeah.
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Well, there is that.
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Yeah, those computers.
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Of course, who who replaced your uh exhaust manifolds on the on the truck?
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Uh shop here in town.
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Uh most of the time.
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So it's not a dealership?
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No, no, no.
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I I wouldn't go to a dealer for that.
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I mean it was it was expensive, but I went to somebody so why wouldn't you go to a dealer for that?
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Because I I found somebody that had done it on his own truck and knew what to do, and he had ordered and bought the proper tools to do it.
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Is he is he a a mechanic that other people go to or is he uh Yeah, no, no, he's he's got a he's got a shop that that he runs.
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He wouldn't he doesn't do any more of them.
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I mean, he did mine because I take the granddaughter's cars in there when I can't fix something, so he did it as a favor, but he's he won't normally do it because it's if he he's afraid he'll break a bolt.
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And even though he's got the tap and die, and he it's it's a like a template that he puts on the motor so that he can keep everything straight.
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And uh, but he's afraid if he ever does break one that he's liable to buy somebody a motor, so he don't do it very often.
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I see.
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:24.639
Okay, well, it's interesting to note.
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Thank you, sir.
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Yeah, that was good.
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Yeah, all right, just ahead.
00:14:28.799 --> 00:14:31.039
Jeff has the racing calendar.
00:14:31.360 --> 00:14:35.360
Mars has this week in auto history, and I got lots of news stories.
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We're gonna get a few of them in here coming up on the In Wheel Time Card Talk Show.
00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:40.960
We'll be back right after this.
00:14:45.759 --> 00:14:53.519
The Easter Bunny's coming to the tailpipes and tacos cruise in at the Loopy Tortilla Tex Max in Katie, April 4th, 8 to 11 a.m.
00:14:53.840 --> 00:14:55.120
And you're invited to.
00:14:55.440 --> 00:14:56.799
Bring the kids and grandkids.
00:14:56.879 --> 00:14:59.120
It's a cruise in like you've never attended before.
00:14:59.279 --> 00:15:03.039
With a donation to Shirley's kids, you'll get a free Loopy Tortilla breakfast taco.
00:15:03.279 --> 00:15:09.120
There'll be coffee and adult beverages, plus chili pepper trophies for the best hot rod, best modern classic, and best classic.
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There's no entry fee and no registration.
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Just bring your ride and the kids.