Some of you read my thread about the $700 blend door. Well - even though my truck is old & has a lot of miles, its paid for & it's mine & I want it to be right.

So I take it to Sam Leman Dodge in Morton IL & leave it for the day to diagnose the issue. They call me & say $700 blend door.

I don't bat an eye & say how quick can you get it done. I don't have a ton of money - but you get what you pay for you know. As deep as this door is burried I don't want some hack taking my truck apart.

So I drop it off this am & get a ride to work. Fast forward 9 hrs & I'm back to pick it up.

Its not quite done, but close so they have me wait. After about 20 minutes its ready & I pay then pick up my truck.

Right off the bat. Airbag light is on. It wasn't on (nor any other light or indicator) when I dropped it off. So I pull right back into the service door & say 'it isnt right'.

They ask me to wait in the waiting room. Half an hour later they tell me the tech went home & I'd need to bring the truck in tomorrow.

Wait a minute I say - is the truck safe to drive with out the airbag. Perfectly safe he says not a problem. I respond 'unless I get in an accident'. Can you believe this guy had the nerve to say -'lets hope that doesn't happen'.

So now I'm really mad. I say 'your going to make this right' he responded. 'We'll fix it unless its something serious or there is something wrong with the airbag.'

I calmly explained that the airbag & the rest of the truck was in perfect working condition when I dropped it off & they would fix it no matter what it costs.

He asked me to bring it back in the morning.

So I'm driving home wondering what else was broken, unplugged or just plain left off. I start trying things, cruise works, radio is good, turn signals. Then I see this huge scrape across the head liner & a hole like someone stuck a screwdriver through it right by the sun visor.

They not only broke the airbag they actually damaged the head liner.

I can tell you friends it will be a long day for someone tomorrow. I'm very tempted to take the day off & stand in the service department & yell at everyone who comes near me.

Can you believe they would tell a customer 'lets hope you dont' have an accident'!!!

Am I just being stuck up or should I have expected them to trash my truck for the premium price I paid for the repair?

 

Now that I'm on a roll I'll add this.

Shouldn't they have told me they damaged things? If I had driven this truck off the lot they would have told me it was my issue. I feel like they were trying to cheat me by not telling me they broke things.

There is no way my wife would have known they messed it up. I hate it when dealers are dishonest.

 

i would have just took up the corner of the dash and made sure the connection was in the air bag socket. plus the guy at the counter usallsy isnt the one working on your truck so its the mechanics fault for not telling the guy at the counter he effed up the head liner. for alll you know the counter guy thinks the headliner is fine.

 

You should not have taken it off the lot...

I would not recommend being an a-hole upon your return...their out is "it was fine when it left, those problems happened AFTERWARDS..." and they seem like they would be willing to use it...

I had a Ranger once. Took it to the Ford Stealership to get an alignment (they were on sale for $30, and I had just bought new tires that very day). Walked across the road to Wally World while it was getting worked on. Came back, the service writer says "Well, you owe me $30 and some change, and I owe you some work."

That didn't register at first. As I am paying at the cashier, it clicks. "You owe me some work???? What work?"

"Well, it seems your truck fell off the rack. But its not too bad."

My ****. Box obliterated, radio ejected from the dash and dangling by the remnants of the harness, and strange looking fluid dripping out of a small metal tube back by the rear wheels.

"Is it safe to drive?" I ask.

"Sure."

"With no brakes? Are you stupid??"

I threw a fit right then and there. I don't know what they would have done or said had I taken it off the lot, but they seriously were trying to get me to leave with it. In retrospect, I honestly believe they were trying to stick it to me.

Fast forward 10 years and I have come to learn that once it leaves the lot, you will never win a suit against a dealer claiming they damaged your car while it was in their possession.

I hope this is not the case with your dealer. I hope they do right by you. But, keep in mind, if they want to be dinks about it, they have a lot more money to pay their lawyers than you likely do to argue about when it got damaged...

 

Man, that sucks.

First of all, they probably left a connector unplugged for the airbag, it likely is not broken. They may have left a connector loose under the steering column. If they removed the HVAC box to replace the blend door, they had to drop the steering column to the floor to get the dash panel out. There are a lot of connectors and plugs to unplug and a fair amount of nuts and bolts to remove to take the dash and the HVAC housing out.

Second of all, they owe you a headliner. It will be hard to prove now that you took the truck from the dealership, but someone at the dealership damaged it. How in the world they could poke a hole in it is beyond me. When you remove the dash, it kind of pivots on the main mounting bolts in the kick panels and you sort of roll it down toward the floor. You can let the passenger's side of the dash rest on the middle and passenger's seats while you remove the HVAC housing. The only thing I can think of on this one is they tried to lift the dash up toward the roof while someone else unbolted the HVAC box, and the guy holding the dash up had a sharp object like a screwdriver in his hand and poked the hole in the headliner. This would explain why the hole is near the sun visor. The same scenario could also account for the scuffed headliner.

The best recourse in this kind of situation is don't deal with the Service Writers. They have no power to help you and no authority to help you. To be honest, they probably don't really care whether the truck is fixed or whether you are satisfied with the work. They get paid to sell service and write repair orders. It's a commission thing. The tech that worked on your truck is paid on a flat rate by the job, not by the hour. Not to knock any techs out there but the faster they get the job done, the more money they make. That sometimes adds up to sloppy and incorrect work and in this case, gross negligence from the techs. I don't know how many times I have heard a tech say, "it ain't my car (truck), I don't give a ****" or, my personal favorite, "you can't see it from my house".

The dealer needs to own up to what they did. Don't stand in the Service area yelling at people. It won't make anything happen, except maybe the dealer will call the police on you. And don't talk to the guys in the Service Drive. Ask for the Service Manager. He is one of the few people there at the dealership with the ability and interest to make this right. The other 2 people who can help are the General Manager and the dealership owner. Hopefully you won't have to go that far up their ladder. Tell them you will request a CSI (Customer Satisfaction Index) survey from Chrysler if they don't send you one first and you will rip the dealer a new one on the survey. Chrysler/Dodge reads every single one of those surveys and they do respond to the bad ones. Tell the Service Manager you know that if the dealer gets eonugh bad CSI surveys they can and will lose their 5-Star status with Chrysler/Dodge. Dealerships live and die by their CSI, it controls everything from their 5-Star service staus to their allocations on each different model of vehicle they sell to the amount of incentives and financing they receive from Dodge.

The tech (or any tech in the shop) can find the problem and get the airbag light corrected. The dealer can sub out a headliner to an upholstery shop for not a whole lot of money. They may even have a trim technician or accessories installer/tech who can do it on-site. Either way, it won't cost them a lot to make you happy.

If that doesn't work, you can always take them to small claims court. You can get pictures and statements from the dealer where you bought the truck that the headliner and airbag and everything else in the truck was fine when you bought it. If I remember your other post, you just bought the truck very recently from a used car dealer. You can also get statements from friends to verify the condition of the truck before the dealer got hold of it. And the real proof is, if the truck had a damaged headliner and the air bag light was on when you brought it in, why was it not documented on the repair order you signed when you dropped the truck off for service? Damage that bad would surely have been documented before any repairs were done, to protect the tech and the dealer from any liability for it.

Good luck. I hope they fix it and make it right for you. Let us know how it turns out.

Jimmy

 

Yes dealers are bad really If it was me I would of refused to take the truck home I would of demanded that I get a rental. This is why my truck never see's a dealer or shop for that matter.

 

Thanks for the support guys. I didn't yell at anyone this morning when I dropped it off. I did however happily announce I wasn't killed.

I showed the head liner to the service guy & he played the ol' He wasn't working up there bit. I think I'll give the service manager a call.

Honestly I am very easy going right up until I think someone is trying to screw me then I get angry. Then I have to calm down before dealing with whoever or I'll blow my top.

I'm all over the CSI Survey. Good or bad - if they fix it right I'll give them props - if they pretend it wasn't them I'll let them have it.

I get so frustrated with this - I payed a premium price. They didn't even set the clock on the radio.

I did just buy the truck from a Dodge dealer last Saturday. I'm sure if push came to shove they would send me their inspection report from when it ran through the shop showing the AB was good.

I'll keep you up.

 

Its like come on why can they just take the extra time to make everything nice and so far we have had two vehicles at the dealer the jeep was washed and swept and when we bought our ram they forgot to put a new inspection sticker on it so when it went back in they washed it, swept it(even tho it was still clean)armor all the tires and gave us a free oil change just for the hassle of having to come back the next day. Hope it goes well for you

 

Here is the latest update. I called George the service manager. He was aware of the issues I was having & was very polite (as was I). I asked for the CSi survey. He explained that was no longer in use & there was no possible way I could put in a satisfaction report under the current Dodge method. He said they are random phone calls & cant request they call me.

I told him that sounded fishy.

I then explained that it was a matter of trust. I understand the tech just left the bag unplugged - I understand he was in a hurry as it was late in the day. But I expected them to tell me these things, not let me drive away with a busted truck. If it had been my wife she may not have noticed that it wasn't done right. I shouldn't have to inspect the entire vehicle to make sure they are doing it right.

He assured me he would make it right & they were looking at the head liner too.

Now the truck is not new & there were some other holes in the head liner too - but not this one. My guess is they will tell me I'm all wet on the liner because of that.

So - in the end he gave me his word it will be right. I'll accept that (as long as its right).

I just don't want to wonder if there is something about to go because they did a job in a hurry.

I'll keep you posted.

 

I didn't know Dodge had stopped sending CSI surveys in the mail. If that is true, I am sorry for telling you the wrong thing. But whether it is done by mail or phone, the process is still the same. Dodge contacts random customers when they buy a new car or truck and they contact random customers who had their vehicle serviced at the dealer. They do it to find out about your experience with the dealer- good, bad or ugly.

Hopefully the dealer will take care of this problem for you. If they don't fix the headliner, it's not very hard to do it yourself, or an upholstery shop can do it for probably $300.00 or less.

Let us know what happens.

Jimmy