CrashMurphy

Any opinions on the service department there? Good, bad or indifferent? After my experience today, I doubt I'll ever go back there again. I'm just hoping SMP isn't as bad or worse as we don't have a lot of options here.

cranemaster

Sherwood seems really disorginized and understaffed you could say, every time I deal with them it seems to take longer than it should (more or less with any shop lol..) but the actual service is great. When my car was in I must have phoned 15 times over the 3 weeks, each time they seemed happy to hear from me and gave me a status update.

I have been taking all my cars ive ever owned to SMP for warrenty claims, they are really good for that, they take alot of the stress away when dealing with things like hail damage or even broken into vehicles. So I say there service and follow through are good.

I didnt end up buying my cobalt from either, but I do like SMP more.

I got my cobalt in pa

CrashMurphy

Well since I just got mine 2 weeks ago (from a private party), I haven't had to deal with either yet until today. I came across something on Google about the power steering recall so I call them up on Monday afternoon and had an appointment scheduled for this morning at 11. Told them it was important I get out of there before 4 so I could get my car in to have winter rims/tires put on elsewhere. Service guy says not a problem.

So I get down there and they get all my information and whatever. I tell them my e-brake isn't working properly and it doesn't hold on anything but a flat surface. He says they'll take a look. I also mention I'd like a general inspection to make sure everything is working the way it should be as I just bought the car and wanted to make sure nothing serious needs to be fixed. Not a problem, it can be gone through while they're fixing the power steering.

So they wheel my car into the shop about 11:10am. It never occurred to be to grab my house key off the ring and shuttle home for the afternoon. I was assured I'd be out before 4. So surely I could go grab a bite to eat, coffee at Tim's, mosey around Wal-mart or Home Depot for an hour or two and be good to go. Well after screwing around Stonebridge until about 3:30, I go back and wait. And wait. And wait some more.

A little after 5 I get called over. They didn't have the proper parts to fix the power steering recall issue. Have to order a new motor, be here next Friday and we can get you in the following Saturday or Monday (If you didn't have the required parts, why did you schedule me in for an appointment?). E-brake doesn't work because a caliper is screwed up and needs to be replaced (okay, fair enough). Oh, and by the way your cruise control doesn't engage, might want to get that looked at (wait, what? It worked fine before I brought my car in to you guys).

So all in all, not only was the initial problem which prompted the service appointment not fixed (power steering), the car left in worse shape than it showed up (cruise control). I am extremely displeased so far and will not give them another dime of my money. On the service form, it says GM may email me a satisfaction survey but they didn't even copy down my email properly so I'll probably never get it. But one way or another, they'll be hearing from me. I've never been overly impressed with any dealerships I've dealt with, but nor have I felt this shafted before either.

Snakes709

and thats why i dont go to dealerships unless its a last resort. I would be raising hell with the manager of why the cruise control doesnt work. Explains why they took so long. From my understanding they have to take the whole stearing colum out to do that power stearing fix. They probaby broke the cruise control in the process, so tried to fix that, ran out of time and said **** it.

soundjunky

iTrader: (4)

just replying with my two cent's worth...

that in and of itself sounds ok...

So basically you asked them to do stuff in addition to what he appointment was booked for??

Again, you asked for a general inspection, as well as for them to look at the e-brake;.

The PS issue is (as it's been explained to me) essentially a resistance test that should take no more than an hour;

• if the wrong resistance is observed, then shims are added;
• if the motor is deemed to be from the bad batch or the correct resistance cannot be observed, then they are supposed to replace it;
• the replacement electric motors are (last I heard) on back order to the point that no dealer has them in stock.

It's getting the inspection (which would include a short drive in which the cruise would have probably been tested), and having the emergency brake looked at that is the real issue I see here.

I explained this above;

If you missed it, please re-read.

ok - sounds fair.

Did you test it yourself?

I didn't realize that the cruise will not engage until the brake had been used at least once from starting the car...
on a manual transmission car, this is an easy mistake to make...

again, if you missed it, please re-read...

I highly doubt this is the case;
The cruise control is essentially a programming thing;
Rather, I suspect the tech screwed up, and the cruise works;
Test it yourself, and you will know if it's not working, or if something was possibly disconnected during your appointment;
If you brought it in working, and the car left w/o it working, then you have a reason to either talk to the service manager, or contact GM-Canada about it.

You went in for a small booking, and they accommodated you asking for roughly quadruple the work - IMO, they already did you good there.

Were I in their shoes, I would have said something like;

"sir, we cannot fit you in for the additional work, but we can book you in on xxx to look at those items."
When bookings are done, they are done in a manner that would normally make it improbable for extra work to be address w/o letting them know in advance so that they can shuffle around the job scheduling.
I suspect that if they told you they couldn't look at those other items, that in the end you would have overall had a better experience.

They should not charge you a penny for looking at and/or servicing the PS recall, but any additional 'inspection' work you have them do, they would charge straight time for...

It seems to me from reading this thread that went in with unrealistic expectations.

Sorry if this isn't the kind of post you wanted to read.