Car repair wait time? *UPDATE*

When you take your car to a dealership for warranty repair, what is a reasonable amount of time for it to get done? I took my wife's Jeep in to get a new condenser/trans cooler because hers was leaking. That was last Tuesday. Still not done. Called today, and they said part hadn't come in yet. I'm no mechanic, as y'all know, but I do know that stuff like that can be basically overnighted if not just picked up at a local NAPA the same day. I went up there last week to see if it was done, and the service guy said it took a while to get it in the shop to get diagnosed. I literally pointed to the leaking part and showed it to him when I brought it in. There was no "diagnosis" needed.

Did they provide a loaner car?

Ask yourself, why would they care? It helps me in times like these

About a month.

Well, I took mine in on a Monday morning. Air compressor failure. I picked it up that evening, took it back the following evening. It was fixed the next morning at 10:30 a.m. They had to have the compressor shipped overnight.

If they value your business they get it done quick and provide you a loaner if need be.

If they dont value your business they tell you the parts hadnt come in and they never offered you a loaner car to begin with. Its just that simple.

Go betch at the service manager, if that dont work climb the ladder of authority and betch at them.

not important enough to them when they cant upsale a bunch of unneeded services......... i would tell the service manager I would not be coming back due to the time it took for the repair. and make sure they know you are going to give them a bad review on the survey they will want you to do afterwards.

I always ask how long they expect it to take before turning it loose.

This ^^^^

They don't care....I'd take it elsewhere and make it known

Take your band up there and practice in the dealership until they return the jeep. They need an incentive.

Try Amazon.

If it's warranty work you may not have too many options.

I have been hearing horror stories from two of my staff dealing with warranty work with Ford.

Its weeks... and no, they wont give you a loaner.

I just had the fuel pump replaced on my Terrain under recall, took it in @ 9 AM on the 11th and picked it up the next day

depends on the vehicle, especially right now. There's a lot of parts that are still slow in transit if coming from Houston area. Toyota parts are still a bit slow as most ship out from Gulf Shores Toyota down south.

That does seem a bit unreasonable in terms of time to order/receive parts however. The replacement of those parts is not all that time consuming a task. couple hours at most.

Funny you should say that. In fact, they asked us a few years ago to take the drummers up to their company Christmas party at a hotel convention center to play for a major award they were giving out and told us they'd make a large donation to the band program. Me and 20 drummers sat outside for over 3 hours in freezing weather because they wanted it to be a surprise when we came in. Played for about 5 minutes, they didn't feed the kids, and no donation was ever made. The hotel staff that was in charge of the event felt so bad about them making us wait outside that they went and made all our drummers hot chocolate and kept apologizing, even though it wasn't their fault.

Just saw it said her Jeep. Perhaps there's not yet a large quantity of replacement parts since its such a new vehicle?

Hope they resolve it quickly for yall.

JB Weld?

Does Mudshark do warranty work?

You are in east texas and all the rules dont apply there. Its kind of the land that time forgot.

This is just wrong in so many ways, someone needs to be notified.

As far as your original question, If we have to wait over 3 hours, they offer a loaner vehicle.

Sometimes it takes me a week for parts depending on what it is. And Chrysler seems to be the worst.

I wouldn't release vehicle till parts had been ordered and recieved.

And if they say you can't keep driving it, tell them what is my loaner cause I am still making payments.

Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge sux anyways.

My State Farm policy pays for a rental car if the vehicle is in a shop for repairs the same as in a wreck,

Welcome to the Dealership World .

Just part of owning a dodge.

no, its even worse than this

^^^

I had my air bag recalled....took 30 minutes eventhough they told me one hour.

Passenger side is recalled now....they say it's a 2 hour project. I will find a day soon to take it in.....throw the bike in the back and ride for a couple hours till it's ready.

Life is good in Longview for repairs.

Sometimes parts are on back order. If that's the case it doesn't matter what dealer you take it to because they all get the parts from the same place. Dealers can't use aftermarket parts so they don't go calling around town to find one. Manufactures want certain standards in the manufacturing of parts and Napa does not. The dealer/manufacture has to stand behind the parts and repairs. Napa will only give you a new one and not pay labor.

The time it takes to do a recall or ANY other type of repair on other vehicles is not the same as the condenser on your vehicle so there is no comparison.

As for the Diagnosis you did, that is useless to us techs. I don't care if a vehicle was brought to me by another shop, I always diagnose them before I order parts. Ordering parts cost money and I'm responsible for doing it correctly and not the customer. I'm also responsible for fixing it correctly the first time. More than half the times a customer tells me what is wrong with their vehicles they are wrong.

Also shop load plays a big part. Some stores are busier than others and sometimes we are all slammed with work. The guy that does recalls might be sitting around drinking coffee with nothing to do but the AC guy could be two weeks behind. Especially during the summer.

That's just a few reasons. Could be it's just a bad dealer. If they don't offer loaners then they aren't very customer oriented.

I own a right hand drive Jeep which is a double nightmare of obtaining parts, anytime I need something, the parts are in California and they can have them 7-8 days. Chrysler/ Jeep/ Fiat/ whatever can kiss my asss on any future purchases of their rolling pieces of apparently one off parts.

The first time I called, they told me they'd send it to the Dodge dealership in town because they were so far behind. Then, they said since I bought my warranty with them, they had to fix it.

The diagnosis I gave them was correct. I understand that a tech must see it, but it shouldn't have taken 4 days to come to that conclusion and order parts. It was literally seeping fluid out of the side of the condenser. THEN they said they had to see if my warranty would approve it before they'd order anything. The warranty was through them and specifically states the condenser on the warranty. This is apparently a common problem on these Jeeps so it kind of makes me nervous to get another OEM condenser if it's of the same quality as the original.

Jacob- the dealerships have much more volume than 5 or even 10 years ago. You are in line. Help (mechanics) is slim pickens, economy is good and dealerships are feeling the effects. I'd simply ctfo and wait. Ford, Chevy, Ram...they all are swamped with work and not enough guys to get it done. I know you are in ET where things are a bit slower paced, but they will get you handled, you just sometimes have to realize a lot of other things are going on.

Jacob, tell him no. I don't wait. Neither should you.

wife just came home. Said she talked to one her coworkers and they've had her car for a month.

Did I mention this is my wife's car? Momma ain't happy...therefore...

This is why we drive Toyotas. Service in Nac at any of the dealers is a crapshoot. Good luck getting it fixed.

Month wow fast there, I bought a NEW 4x4 SD Ford in 2003 yes 03 lost an engine at 1200 miles they had it 4 months before I got a new truck, they asked me what I needed to drive and got the same, plus Ford paid for my fuel for the time gone from me. I got a new 04 back. I did not gripe any. They just traded and did all paperwork even.

Sorry I might have missed the part about an aftermarket warranty. Those can be good or bad. I've only seen ones that can be used at any dealer or independent certified auto repair shop. A lot of them will want to send an adjuster out to make sure its a part failure rather than rock damage so that can make you wait a few days. They can also use aftermarket parts so no worries with back orders.

I'm not sure about this warranty thing and a dealer that would offer that. You might have gotten screwed and I'm not sure what you can do other than call your warranty your self and ask if you can take it somewhere else. That just doesn't sound right.

yall need to know whats really going on at the dealership its not the dealership its the manuafactor they put a lot of rules on how the car is repaired if its not done there way the dealership is not paid

Sure....that's the only thing, definitely not the dealerships fault in any way

dealerships are sometimes at fault I do work on the cars I no way saying iam the best but I do fix a lot of cars but the warranty side is missed up from the factory there are many hoops the dealerships and the techs have to jump through to make the claim get paid the factory is sending out audit teams to reject claims all the time and the audit guys are paper pushers they have never worked on a car they don't even know what parts do on the car I have to show them all the time. just telling you the techs are going away from the dealerships because of the red tape

I'm out of breath after reading that.

there a lot of things that that are unknown to the public

He is 100% correct. Dealerships are going to have nothing but oil changers trying to diagnose and fix cars probably in the next 10 years. Kids now days don't want to work on hot cars in the heat for a living. I spend about as much time with a computer hooked to a car as I do turning wrenches. Anybody that has good computer skills are going to office jobs and not greasy shops.

UPDATE:

So, I called yesterday asking about the car. I was told it was supposed to be done this past Saturday, then Monday, then Tuesday, then Wednesday. When I called yesterday, no one answered, but I got a voicemail about 30 minutes later saying the car would be ready today. Been expecting a call today. Just called and now they're telling me tomorrow because they were waiting on part. I took it in on the 12th! It's the 21st!! Then I asked if my warranty was only good through them, and he said no, I could take it anywhere. But the first thing I asked when I brought it to them is if I could just take it to the Dodge dealership and he said "No, we take care of our warranty customers unless it's still under factory warranty." By that statement, I was led to believe that I couldn't take it anywhere else. I surely will from now on though!

are you an alcoholic yet?

Trying to be.

the automotive industry will do it to you... especially if you work in it.

If you think that's a long time I hope you never have an issue with a boat.

I took my boat once to get worked on. Picked it up two weeks later and fixed it myself. It's amazing how you learn to fix stuff when you want to fish!

Warranty is paying them for a rental, but it's a Buick Encore. If the car seat is in it, I can't ride or drive in it. Car seat pushes into the back of the front seats even with them all the way forward.

So you are not out of a vehicle right now right??

I'm out of MY vehicle that we just bought a little over a month ago.

My gripe is not being out of a vehicle. It's the dishonesty. If they would've just said, "Hey, man, it's probably gonna be a couple weeks," that would have been fine. But, they kept telling me it would be done "tomorrow" for over a week. So, everyday I'm making plans with my wife to pick it up before they close, and it's not even ready.

Don't know where you bought it but how about a loaner or rental???