RAM dealerships refuses to service my vehicle due to low survey score (long post)

When I got my first oil change at the dealer I purchased my Ram from back in 2012, I gave them some low marks because they left greasy gorilla prints on my hood.
I got a personal call from the service manager wanting another shot at making me happy.
That's a heck of a lot better than the tech calling you and trying to wheedle a better result before escalating to threats.

I don't get sent any surveys at all from my dealer, I guess I've made it pretty clear I don't like their service. Are all ram dealers required to send these out?

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I don't think I've ever received a survey for dealer service, either.

I would definitely reach out to TV stations, also. I'm curious as to where this goes once you've contacted the BB and the AG office. I'd make sure to get everything settled, but like was already mentioned, I wouldn't be taking my truck back there agian. No matter what the outcome is. You're a marked person/vehicle at that dealer now. I'm afraid it will just keep going downhill from here on out.

Ive received the same treatment before from my dealership after leaving a bad feedback.
I did not get a call back but the next time I went to the service department it was let known I had left a bad feedback.
I left a bad feedback because my oil change that I had an appointment for took more than 2+ hours, so next time I took my other car in for service the service advisor personally came up to me and told me they got it done early so I won't leave a bad review I was surprised when he told me that. The way he said it was kind of rude making seem like I'm at fault. If only they would do there job in a timely matter I would've left a good review

Now every time I take a vehicle in for service I can feel the tension because the previous service advisor is now a service manager so yea he sure does remember me.

I'm wondering if this a dealership thing that only affects dealers that sell new vehicles I got mine from a Dealer that only sells used vehicles and if they ever did I would give them a great rating for what little they were able to fix in the early months of getting my ram, hell the service manager even hooked me up with a full tank of gas after doing some test runs on my truck when he say that I was really low on gas.

Devin1349 said:

I'm wondering if this a dealership thing that only affects dealers that sell new vehicles I got mine from a Dealer that only sells used vehicles and if they ever did I would give them a great rating for what little they were able to fix in the early months of getting my ram, hell the service manager even hooked me up with a full tank of gas after doing some test runs on my truck when he say that I was really low on gas.

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Mama always said "Dealerships are like a box of chocolates....you never know what you're gonna get".[emoji52]

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Wow, though I cannot say I'm surprised. Luckily I have about 7 Ram dealerships within a 80 mile radius to pick from. I can afford to **** a couple off over something like this.

There are 2 dealerships within reasonable distance from me. My dealership is great, the service dept is great, the sales staff are not pushy... all and all a good experience. The other one... well this is different. The Larson Auto Group is huge in my area and in all honesty that I think is what makes the service there so poor. If they lose one today no buggy there are plenty more around to make up for it. Their sales staff is pushy, and I think deaf... tell them that black is a no go color and the only vehicle they can find with my needs is... wait for it... black. the parts department guy was rude, when he found out I only wanted to price something out he told me he has paying customers he needs to help... there was no one else in the department.

So while I have a good dealership backing me, and I wish you did too, this is not the way all of them are.

Sounds like its time to go to another dealer. I know we are now a generation of instant gratification and our opinions are instant and long lasting. I'm not defending what the dealership is doing, but from someone who runs a dealership I understand the unknown part of the story. If a customer comes in and we try to help, not every tech is perfect and they trash a survey, we simply part ways with the customer. Some people can not be made happy, some people will let a bad experience dictate the future of every visit. As stated a new vehicle dealer has a lot of reasons to keep up a reasonable score on surveys. Some times you need to part with a customer to derail a bad relationship.

Just like a restaurant, if you walk in and sit down with your "yelp,bing,goole" review on your head, and for example you always complain enough to get a free meal, do not leave a tip, and steal the silverware, they wouldn't serve you would they? Unfortunately for the businesses we do not have that luxury. It is coming though, I promise you that.

All in all, your dealer didnt help you, didnt fix what was requested. Move on. There are plenty more out there, its not worth the stress, headaches, or the time to spend. BBB wont do anything, the attorney general wont, as well the news channels will do a 2am puff piece if there isn't anything else going on in your town. Just move on to a better dealer there are happier days coming.

@williamS as someone who runs a dealership what is your thought on the rude tech who tried to force a customer to resubmitt a better review to actually service a vehicle, this aint no mafia sh*t with blackmail and threats. however I do agree that the OP should go to a different dealership, but do managers actually care if they lost customers due to situations like this or like stated above by MDmassey no biggy someone else will come along to make a sale.

As someone else stated, Chrysler is actually starting to take these surveys very seriously in the past few years. Its funny because, in the process of Chrysler trying to root out **** dealers, they are also making them even worse in a way. Because now they are trying to blackmail customers LOL. What a fail.

OP def did the right thing with contacting BBB and putting in official complaints with Ram etc. Scummy dealer practices need to go. These reflect horribly on the Mopar brand, which is doing epic things in the industry otherwise right now. FCA really needs to punish this dealer and others like it and reward dealers that dont have any record of pulling crap like that.

WilliamS said:

Sounds like its time to go to another dealer. I know we are now a generation of instant gratification and our opinions are instant and long lasting. I'm not defending what the dealership is doing, but from someone who runs a dealership I understand the unknown part of the story. If a customer comes in and we try to help, not every tech is perfect and they trash a survey, we simply part ways with the customer. Some people can not be made happy, some people will let a bad experience dictate the future of every visit. As stated a new vehicle dealer has a lot of reasons to keep up a reasonable score on surveys. Some times you need to part with a customer to derail a bad relationship.

Just like a restaurant, if you walk in and sit down with your "yelp,bing,goole" review on your head, and for example you always complain enough to get a free meal, do not leave a tip, and steal the silverware, they wouldn't serve you would they? Unfortunately for the businesses we do not have that luxury. It is coming though, I promise you that.

All in all, your dealer didnt help you, didnt fix what was requested. Move on. There are plenty more out there, its not worth the stress, headaches, or the time to spend. BBB wont do anything, the attorney general wont, as well the news channels will do a 2am puff piece if there isn't anything else going on in your town. Just move on to a better dealer there are happier days coming.

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I agree that you can't make everyone happy and you sometimes have to just move on.

I don't care that they didn't fix it the first time or that they said nothing was wrong. I would have happily taken it back gone for a test drive and did a demonstration for them to show them the issues.

The main and big issue here is a dealership calling me and threatening me with not servicing my vehicle just because I gave a bad review. I don't need someone to kiss my butt and give me free stuff. What I expect and I thibk any business who truly values their customers regardless of size would agree that it's expected that a business at least tries to make things right with a customer. One unhappy customer can lead to more unhappy etc. Etc. Like I said it's not about me being right, 100% happy or me having the last say. It's about the way they treated me and tried to bully me into giving the a good review without earning it. If they are willing to do this to me, how many others have they done it to? How many others hve they made change surveys and then bring their vehicles back in to service and tell them the same story that nothings wrong or they don't ever service them again? If it happens once it's happened before I can almost guaranteed this wasn't a fluke.

Maybe it's this day and age where people don't really care about each other anymore and all they see is dollar signs. But they just lost a long term customer. Not only in the service department but also in the sales department.

I obviously have zero intentions of ever going back to this dealership. It's obvious to me that they are not a fit for me.

On the other hand, just playing devils advocate here, another dealer would have just parted company with you one way or another as, from their perspective, you seem to be the type that is never satisfied, or expect perfection from an imperfect system. It would be impossible to score well, so they wouldn't want to take the chance. Thats the age old problem with metrics. If done right, they will help improve product. But its not easy to do right as humans are involved that take things personally and are perhaps anxious about their jobs. So in the real world, metrics get modified, often as part of peer reviews.

The dealer was nice enough to offer a plan for reconciliation, which you have taken offense to. IMHO, no one else may listen as there are always a few dissatisfied customers writing nasty reviews and complaints.

Just another side of the coin... but the truck is modified, right? Dealers don't want to deal with the subjective part of fixing things that are modified. Always been that way, OEM is more clear cut, nothing subjective, no fingers to point, easier to get paid from FCA.

By the way, I give my dealer 10s, suggest giving the techs more time or money to do warranty repairs, and the next time I'm in they seem motivated to do good things

ColdCase said:

On the other hand, just playing devils advocate here, another dealer would have just parted company with you one way or another as, from their perspective, you seem to be the type that is never satisfied, or expect perfection from an imperfect system. It would be impossible to score well, so they wouldn't want to take the chance. Thats the age old problem with metrics. If done right, they will help improve product. But its not easy to do right as humans are involved that take things personally and are perhaps anxious about their jobs. So in the real world, metrics get modified, often as part of peer reviews.

The dealer was nice enough to offer a plan for reconciliation, which you have taken offense to. IMHO, no one else may listen as there are always a few dissatisfied customers writing nasty reviews and complaints.

Just another side of the coin... but the truck is modified, right? Dealers don't want to deal with the subjective part of fixing things that are modified. Always been that way, OEM is more clear cut, nothing subjective, no fingers to point, easier to get paid from FCA.

By the way, I give my dealer 10s, suggest giving the techs more time or money to do warranty repairs, and the next time I'm in they seem motivated to do good things

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Nothing really sure where you came to that conclusion as I literally just said that I can understand the dealerships side in not finding the issue in their opinion and not wanting to waste time. But they could easily have called me and told me this very quickly after my truck got there instead of letting it sit for 8 hours like they did.
I have worked on every vehicle I've owned and know that it's not easy to track down that shake or that squeak or that noise that doesn't always happen.

Okay so for the modify part. Let's say we forget about the things "effected" by the modified vehicle. So they disregard the tire winch (I can live with that tires in my bed now anyways). And they disregard the battery since I removed it (i think this is wrong but sure I csn live with this). That still leaves the squeak up front, the door locks not working and the Bluetooth issue.

Last time I checked the Bluetooth and door locks are not effected by larger tires. Therefore either when these are covered under warranty. Thetefote i believe that they should fix and diagnose the issue.

And even if they aren't going to fix the squeak under warranty they should still diagnose the issue at hand and tell me what it is. I mean after all that is why I took it there is it not?

AND if the fact that my truck was modified (larger tires) voided the warranty then they should hve been up front about it. If they came out and said hey im sorry but with those bigger tires and rims we can't guarantee the tire winch and squeak will be covered under warranty but we will check it out still I would have said okay no worries. I mean a truck with 33" tires on 20x12 rims doesn't just get missed. It's very obvious it's got different tires. The issue of modification NEVER became an issue until the phone call. Yes he blamed the larger tire for the tire winch initially but in my opinion that's an excuse for them to not fix it.

I am a very reasonable person and generally easy to please. I dont expect perfection because I'm not perfect. What I do expect is someone to have integrity and be forward with me. It would have taken someone very short and easy explaining by the dealer and them spending maybe 5 minutes extra to let me show them the issue to have gotten all 10s.

UPDATE-

Spoke direct with RAMCARE on the phone. I've said it before and I'll say it again. They are wonderful and truly listen to the customer. They truly do try to satisfy the customer, listen to the customer and advcote for the customer. They are very up front about everything and very helpful.

I wil be taking my truck to a different dealership in September once I get back from my trip to Alaska.

I will keep you guys all posted on progress as it goes on.

Devin1349 said:

@williamS as someone who runs a dealership what is your thought on the rude tech who tried to force a customer to resubmitt a better review to actually service a vehicle, this aint no mafia sh*t with blackmail and threats. however I do agree that the OP should go to a different dealership, but do managers actually care if they lost customers due to situations like this or like stated above by MDmassey no biggy someone else will come along to make a sale.

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its a catch 22 really. The tech is not in the right by not assisting the customer further, at the same time no matter what happened in that situation the customer will not change the survey regardless of what they will tell you. Im on both sides as I still have to get my cars worked on and its the same for me. Mangers do care as they are responsible to help the customer to make them satisfied, but at the same time if you know a customer isnt ever going to be happy then you cut the cord.

In today's internet world companies use reviews to penalize a dealership. Not every repair, sale, or negotiation will be perfect. I have the largest Ford dealer in the south east US within 10 miles of me, they will flat out kick out a customer if they do not guarantee a perfect survey because there is a mountain of money from the OEM behind a high score and volume. My store isnt that lucky so we kiss butt daily, and regardless of what the customer says 1% once you have bent over backwards, give them stuff, fix all issues will actually give you a good survey.

I can tell you, I will go out of my way to help a customer who is nice, vs the guy who thinks volume gets results. Ive had easy things Ive passed on becuase the customer wants to yell and scream. Ive had expensive issues that cost me money directly because its bottom line that the person who just nicely asks for the assistance I will do whatever I can. That customer will be loyal forever, bring you customers, and wont stab you in the back.

Like I said before though with the restaurant. If you knew the customer before they came in would you serve them? Its a gamble every time.

The sad reality is everyone on the other side will say yes Id help them, but once you are penalized for it more than once you change quickly when it costs you a mortgage payment because some one isnt happy over something you cant control.



If you are not happy with service somewhere, I promise you there is another close by.

WilliamS said:

Sounds like its time to go to another dealer. I know we are now a generation of instant gratification and our opinions are instant and long lasting. I'm not defending what the dealership is doing, but from someone who runs a dealership I understand the unknown part of the story. If a customer comes in and we try to help, not every tech is perfect and they trash a survey, we simply part ways with the customer. Some people can not be made happy, some people will let a bad experience dictate the future of every visit. As stated a new vehicle dealer has a lot of reasons to keep up a reasonable score on surveys. Some times you need to part with a customer to derail a bad relationship.

Just like a restaurant, if you walk in and sit down with your "yelp,bing,goole" review on your head, and for example you always complain enough to get a free meal, do not leave a tip, and steal the silverware, they wouldn't serve you would they? Unfortunately for the businesses we do not have that luxury. It is coming though, I promise you that.

All in all, your dealer didnt help you, didnt fix what was requested. Move on. There are plenty more out there, its not worth the stress, headaches, or the time to spend. BBB wont do anything, the attorney general wont, as well the news channels will do a 2am puff piece if there isn't anything else going on in your town. Just move on to a better dealer there are happier days coming.

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Sounds like you are defending the indefensible. Hmmm. [emoji19]

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dhambyst121 said:

Sounds like you are defending the indefensible. Hmmm. [emoji19]

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Its a service industry, we are always wrong.

I give this thread a rating of 2.... but if op sends me $500, I'll raise my rating to 9

I gave my local dealership 2 attempts at good service. They failed both and I now drive 60 miles to a dealership I trust and 60 miles back. Good Luck !

wiggy999 said:

I give this thread a rating of 2.... but if op sends me $500, I'll raise my rating to 9

I gave my local dealership 2 attempts at good service. They failed both and I now drive 60 miles to a dealership I trust and 60 miles back. Good Luck !

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Haha. Nah man you'll have to find a different thread!!!!!!

Yeah I'm happy to drive 15-20 miles to a different dealership. I know there are a few in the area at that distance