I believe the technicians are good here, but I've been pretty unhappy with the service advisors over my past two visits. It may not entirely be their fault as I think the business model sets them up to fail their customers. On this most recent visit, I made an appointment a couple weeks in advance, and dropped it off the night before to give them maximum time to perform a diagnostic. The next morning I got a call from the SA (a fellow named Ray) confirming they got the car. No call received toward the close of business that day - I had to text them to get an update. The update was that the technicians were busy with other cars and might get to it the next day, or maybe the day after. I told him I was disappointed to have dropped it off and not have it looked at, after all, I made a reservation. He said the reservation was just to see an SA. As if I want to see an SA, a role that adds value only for the dealership and not at all for the customer. I would love to skip the SA and just speak to the technicians.
Anyway, no contact from the SA the next day. Finally at the end of the third day, I was frustrated to still hear nothing, so I called the SA and got his voicemail. I texted him and told him to forget it, just have the car ready in an hour, my wife needs it to get to work tomorrow. We'll do the diagnostic another time, I said. My wife and I were on our way to pick it up when he texted that the car was ready and the tech found no issues. I suppose he thought I'd be happy and grateful that the work was done. I went to speak to him at the dealership and he told me, you brought the car to us with an empty battery, you can't let the battery go all the way to empty, it will cause the issue you saw (which they couldn't reproduce). This is for a plug-in hybrid. I said, first of all, I brought it in empty on purpose because the issue I wanted you to see only happens when it's using the gas engine, after the battery is depleted. Second of all, you can't mean to tell me Chevrolet designed this car on purpose for the driver to never exhaust the battery and switch to gas -- that is the whole point of a PHEV vehicle!
I really berated the guy and I feel bad, but also what can I do, he's the face of the dealership for my service experience and the experience was pretty bad. I actually felt skeptical that they even looked at the car. I said, when did they look at it? He said the day before, maybe a little bit today. I said, Ray, when were you going to call me? You couldn't give me a heads-up yesterday that they were looking at the car? And I highly doubt they continued to look at it the next day (they didn't even charge me for the diagnostic, which is nice of them, but it tells me they didn't spend much time on it -- I felt sure the car could have been picked up the day before). I said, when were you planning on calling me? It's the end of day 3. Were you going to call me right before you closed? On day 4? Every single communication I got (other than initial drop-off confirmation) required me to initiate and request an update!
He told me how he's been very busy, which I'm sure is true and is also not my problem. I don't feel well taken care of, and in fact I feel a total lack of respect for my time and for my family's time. You realize people have to make alternate arrangements for work, kids, and that we pay for a rental car, right? To be fair, Ray was very professional while I raged at him and was sorry he didn't do better, and for all I know he's been placed in an impossible position by the service department management. In that case shame on Quality Chevrolet for not having a policy to a) work on the car the day it's brought in on a reservation, b) communicate daily or more with the customer, even when no progress was made, giving me an estimated timeline so I can plan for it, and c) tell me immediately when the car is finished. Bottom line: Have the utmost respect for your customers' time.
