birdsong

The people seem nice when you take your car in for service, everyone is friendly, but the service department is lacking. I took my 2016 Corvette there for an oil change and a recall. Pretty simple stuff I would think. When I got my car back I assumed they would treat such an expensive car with some respect but when I got home I ran the cars drivers information center through the selections and saw they had not bothered to reset the oil life monitor, they had marked on the service form they had checked and filled all four tires, in fact they hadn't bothered, each tire was low, I found grease on my hood, on my roof and scuffs on my driver side door sill. The car is my baby and had a total of 2400 miles on it when I took it in. I called to let them know and they said we will order a new door sill. When the door sill came in, they called and wanted to install it, and I said no, I would just like to pickup the sill and replace it myself. Sorry, no can do unless I bring back the old sill so they can send it back to Chevrolet as a warranty replacement. Warranty replacement?? How about careless worker replacement. Chevrolet owes them nothing. Well frankly I had heard enough, I will buy and replace my own sill. Extra trips from Oxnard to Santa Paula so they can pass off their issues to Chevrolet just doesn't feel right to me. I will not be returning as a customer, to falsify paperwork saying they did work they didn't do and sloppy care of customer property would make me wonder what else they would do or not do.

birdsong

As an update to this story I received a call today from the service director from the dealership. I will be picking up my replacement sill on Saturday. He was very apologetic, stated that the service advisor was not correct in saying the part was a warranty replacement and that he would really like the old sill back to use as a training aid for his people since this had happened before. He said he would like to find something temporary to cover the sills with when they take the car in, like they have for the seats and mats. I suggested stretch film, if they could find a heavy version of that. I feel somewhat better after talking to him.

morepwr

Thats good to hear. Maybe they will start treating the cars right.

birdsong

Another update. When removed the old sill and I drove back out to Santa Paula this morning they didn't really have the part that was to be waiting at the parts counter. Fail again.

birdsong

Final update. Wednesday the Operations Manager from the dealership called, said he had received the new sill, had it in his hand so he knew it was correct and had it delivered yesterday to my home. I installed it this morning before work. I believe the Operations Manager is a good guy, customer focused and knows how the dealership should operate, I think he has his work cut out for him with his staff. Hopefully he will rub off on them and if not is given the freedom to ensure change takes place.

ohmygod

I use a local Performance / Euro Motor Sports shop. They are the best. I had the local dealer service dept, who has a great Tech for Corvette's, but the service writer tried to screw me on diagnostics and a fuel cap for a check engine light on my 11 GS. It was covered under 5/50 emission law and I actually had to get on my cell to GM to make a formal complaint. The Service Manager came running out and stopped the madness and apologized saying I was correct and it was covered. That ended our relationship.

cv67

Modern day dont g.a.f attitude, same with my old dealership...even 2 private shops I used eventually started doing good and got greedy
Fired all the old timers/great techs and hire illegals to change parts. I just had a 10k paint job put on my truck, went straight from paint to this guys shop. 5 wks later I get it back with thousands in damage and 400 mi put on it. I couldnt believe it.
Take a peek in the shop to see who is working on the cars before you drop yours off thats the quality youre getting.

When I worked in shops in the 80s you gave that car back better than you got it. All got washed, everyone got some type of "extra' to keep that customer smiling. Service and pride are hard to come by these days.

When I cant do certain jobs I use Edwin, hes a member here and mobil. Only guy I trust with my vehicles.

Vette Jockey

Being an old time Vette guy, we used to have two good Service shops in the Ventura Area. Todey Chevrolet and Santa Paula Chevrolet.

Todey was where they serviced it (my Icon) since it was new in 1995! Anytime it went into the shop it came out fixed and at a reasonable price. The same service guy worked on it and he actually checked with the Sevice Manager when he saw it come in (I had a Golden Eagle License Plate Frame). I also had the same Service Manager for most of the time. I made sure they got a bottle of their favorite hooch every Christmas. Of course, they lost their Dealership during the great Chevy Dealer Crunch and they gave it to Paradise Chevrolet. A place I do not like to take my car to.

Most of the good people went to Santa Paula Chevrolet. I was lucky and found out my favorite mechanic went there. I took my car in and he found me as I was signing in, he told me, he was now handling the computer electronics, and he would go over and check on the repairs.

So, now they are both out of business and Corvette owners are suffering for it. I refuse to take it into Paradise or Bunnin. When I tried to have the Magmetoc Ride Update done, the Paradise Service Manager tried to charge me a $100+ over the MSRP. I showed them the TSB that was underlined on the price. Every where else I called had no idea what I was talking about.

A Forum Member told me about Simi Valley Chevrolet, I talked to Jon, and they took care of it.

As for electronic, I was having problems with radio, not the Vette. I called our independent mechanic and he recommended Muntz, Five Points Stereo in Ventura. It is a family owned business that has been around for over 50 years. You do not need an appointment, he prefers drop ins. We dropped it off Tuesday, and four hours later, they called us and told us we could pick it up.

We talked to him a while and found out he was an Electronics Engineer. His family was going to start a stereo shop and he was going to help out. Time kind of got away from him. Now, he comes up with great solutions to electronic problems and has mentored a lot of people in different disciplines.

They will do a lot of electronic trouble shooting on cars without charge and then will try and find you the most economical way to solve the problem. He also helped start a company that diagnosis battery packs on Hybrids and EV's to find the problem cells, and replace them.

Great service with a good price. I guess I should say, I never heard of him until Monday of this week. jmho

SLO VETTE

I hate dealers.

Since day 1 of my C5 Z06, I've paid out of pocket for quality aftermarket shops to do scheduled maintenance and even warranty work.

Kirito

There is a Chevy dealership relatively close to me, in WV. I won't say the name of it on here (since my wife works there, but I would definitely say in PM), but my vette has been in there for the last week. Against my better judgement, I had them do an aftermarket exhaust swap. Aside from them not even knowing what the AFM valves were (ongoing issues with them), they also shredded my shift cable while doing the install. They also said the stock X-pipe doesn't have any cats (someone should tell that to the EPA ). The exhaust was so misaligned, it was ALMOST comical. There are still issues ongoing with them, and my car. The wife told me they had "a Corvette guy" who has "built hundreds of Vette's", etc, etc. I figured what the heck, it's just a simple x-pipe and axle-back swap, not very difficult. Ugh, that's what I get for listening to the wife about car stuff. Reminds me of why I try to do my own work whenever possible. Perks of not having a garage, as well as not having most of my tools since the movers "lost them" when I moved back to VA.

Big Jay E

If I have to take my vettes to a dealer, I use Donny York at Rydell. My wife's CTS-V had a recall on the supercharger and I didn't want to take the car to a Caddy dealer and have them touch the engine. I called Donny and even though Rydell is not a Cad dealer, Donny had me bring it in and he did the swap.