F you Chrysler. F you for closing small dealerships.

[Blaise]

Don't get me wrong, this may make sense in a business sense, but I still don't like it. At least here in Philadelphia, Chrysler has decided that they no longer want any smaller dealerships to exist, as they only sell Dodges, or only sell Jeeps, or only chryslers, or only two out of the three. This apparently is unacceptable.

So what do they want, you ask? Superstores! Big, huge, salesperson armed factories that have all three brands under one roof. Apparently, Chrysler thinks that these places are more welcoming to customers. My ass, I would never willingly subject myself or a friend to a huge building with that many salespeople! However, I can't afford to buy a new car. So why am I ranting?

BECAUSE I HATE MEGA-CHAIN CAR PARTS PLACES. Autozone, Advance, Parts Counters at the aforementioned mega-chain dealerships, etc. I hate all of them. At least these nation-wide stores are cheap, which makes their slow-minded staff worth dealing with, but they don't carry stuff like rod bearings which I need right now to fix my car (see other thread), which means that I'm stuck with calling a dealer.

I've been getting all of my Mopar-brand stuff from a small local dealer called McGarrity & Moser (who only sells Dodge), and have had very good results, but the parts guy told me last friday that they were actually closing by June because of them being small and all. I took this to mean that they were on their last day and said goodbye.

So instead, after spending an hour on the phone telling various Autozone and Advance Auto parts employees what a rod bearing was and getting frustrated with being on hold, I decided to call some of the dealerships that weren't closing. I actually called more than one but I'm lazy and don't feel like typing them all out. Here's the best of the three:

Gary Barbera's Dodgeland
Them: Garry Barbara's Dodgeland where our service is the best and we are running some sort of promotion that will take me at least 30 seconds to spit out before you can start talking to me on the phone, how may I help you?
Me: Parts Please!
Them: Ok Hold
Music: Ba ba ba ba ba Barbara. Ba ba ba ba ba ba Barbara. Gary Barbaaaaaaaaaraaaaaaa Garyyy Barbaaaaraaaaaaaaaaaaa Gary Barbaaaaraaaaaaaaa (ba ba barbara)
Them: Parts, can you hold? *click*
Me: Not rea-- (Damnit, too late.)
Music: Ba ba ba ba ba Barbara. BA BA BA BA BA BARBA-
Them: Parts, what do you need?
Me: Rod Bearings for a '96 neon, 2.0 sohc.
Them: Ok hold.
Music: BA BA BA BA BA BARBARA. BA BA BA BA BA BARBARA. Music continues for five minutes
Me: *click, redial*
Them: Garry Barbara's Dodgeland where our service is the best and we are running some sort of promotion that will take me even longer to spit out than last time so you won't be able to say anything because my boss said so, how may I help you?
Me: Parts.
Them: Ok Hold.
Music: Isn't Barbara the best? Boy, I guess. GARRY BARRBAARAAAA---
Them: Parts, how can I help you?
Me: Yeah, I called about those rod bearings?
Them: We don't have them, you'll have to order them.
Me: Ok, how long will that take?
Them: For what car again?
Me: 1996 neon, 2.0 sohc.
Them: Hol-
Music: BA BA BA BA BA BARBARA

:thumbdow: :thumbdow: :thumbdow: :thumbdow: :thumbdow:

Finally, I gave up and called back McGarrity & Moser. Turns out they aren't closing until the END of june (thank god). Took me less than a minute to order everything I needed, was never put on hold or asked to repeat what I needed, and everything will be there by tommorrow, special order, with no up front payment.

F you Chrysler. If they can sell your cars, why do you care how big they are? Maybe this crazy concept of staying small and personal is what kept places like this afloat for more than fifty years? Or am I crazy?

[alachua]

welcome to the new america way of doing business...customer service is secondary to revenue. They are likly closing the dealerships due to some sort of crap like 'the small dealers erode our new brand image', or because they are of the mindset that they are willing to lose a few more dollars to actually sell the car, because they have to. This means that they 'undermine the inherant value of the product', causing the big dealerships to have to react to these prices, thus driving down the average selling price.

The parts guy who knows what is going on and cares about making your service visit as bearable is on the way out, replaced by the guy who can't really do anything else, but has been there for so long, they figure the parts counter is as easy a job as he can get.

Not all of the big dealers are bad...but it takes a lot of infuriation to find the good one.

-Cliff

[smoger]

let me be the first to say...

if you get information from someone at a dealership that they arent reading off a computer screen, take it with a grain of salt.

in the course of buying my car i realized rather quickly that dealers dont know sh*t

example: all srt-4's come with an alarm which was to be enabled before the car is sold but for whatever reason it wasnt. someone figured this out and posted the instructions online. i printed the instructions, took it to my dealer, parked outside and walked into the service dept and told them i had my srt-4 outside and i wanted my alarm activated. the tech got his manager who explained to me that i had to take it to a chrysler dealer because they dont work on pt cruisers. in the following 10 minutes they could not understand that an srt-4 is not a pt cruiser.

on another occasion my headlights developed small cracks all over them, being that my fascia had no major rock damage i knew it wasnt road hazard rtype stuff.. took it to my dealer, and all of a sudden the tech is a kung fu expert or something, as he inspects and calmly explains that the cracks are due to the headlights being punched... riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

took it to barbera and the lights were replaced immediately and without question.

so,.. dont blame chrysler because your dealer is closing, they may be blowing steam up your a$$

[SilverTurboRidin]

Yeah i agree with smoger. 100%

[noreaga0221]

http://www.trademotion.com/partlocat...?siteid=213975

[Blaise]

Originally Posted by smoger

so,.. dont blame chrysler because your dealer is closing, they may be blowing steam up your a$$

It's not just that dealership, ALL smaller dealerships are closing.