I have a 2006 model with 6,300 miles on it (I am the 2nd owner), and I took it in a little over a month ago to have the front end aligned. The dealer was good enough to cover it under warranty, but when I got it back, it still had a slight drift to the right. Now here is where my issues begin:

1. On my first trip, I was getting close to needing an oil change, so I say "how much for an oil change?" They say around $60. I say fine, go ahead and do it. Then they charge me $88 for it saying that the price of oil had gone up. I won't make that mistake again, and I read on the forum that you can bring in your own oil and filter and they will do it for like $10. I will probably just do it myself next time regardless.

2. I had made an appointment to take it in again this morning to see if they can correct the drift to the right, but when I went to start it up, I had a dead battery. So I call and say "if I bring in a new battery, how much to install it?" They say $75. So I say forget it. I go get a battery and bring it home, then install it in like 10 minutes. It was much easier than the C4 I used to own.

So I'm hoping that the drift to the right is corrected this time, but I think the dealership is more interested in taking my money than in doing warranty work. If they don't get it right this time, I'll find a different one to take it to next time.

I can't believe that someone would want to take $75 to change out a battery, and then expect me to believe that they have fair prices on other things.

 

Dealer gave me new battery under warranty on my 2005 when it died

 

What dealer was it?

 

Goes to show you why so many CF members will avoid the Dealer at all costs (no pun intended!). If you want a good alignment, better off locating a competition shop in your area that specialized in 'Vettes. Most of the time, when you take your baby into a Dealer, the Service Manager is looking to push as many cars thru his bays as he can.....whether it's YOUR VETTE....or some Aveo or Cobalt piece of sh*t!

 

Sounds like the dealer qouted you the shop rate for labor, thus $75 for about 10 minutes work. One of the dealers in my area has a Corvette labor rate of $100 per hour. Once the warranty ends I'll do the repair work myself.

 

It was Bankston Chevrolet in DFW area - Grapevine Hwy and 820. Oh - and they said that it was .8 hours of labor at $95 per hour. Typically, it takes me 3x as long to do something as it takes the professionals, not the other way around!

 

Buy a battery from Autozone and they install it for free

 

$125 here at the dealer; about $110+ at a good indy shop.

 

I'll keep that in mind. I bought this one from Walmart because we live pretty close to one. Thanks.

 

I wouldn't want anyone from autozone touching my car. Many of those guy are shade tree mechanics or high school kids.

BTW, Bankston also messed up something servicing my vette but they made it right. I am leary of having anyone touch my car so I try to do everything myself.

 

I don't want to be rude, but it's really not that hard to change a battery>>>

 

Ditto on my 06

 

If you remove and replace the battery, you'll need to rememorize things like the window indexes and so on. I haven't had to do it yet myself, so I don't know if all the various presets are lost on all the memory items or not, but will assume they are.

 

I replaced mine and the only thing I had to do was re-index the windows. All personalizations, radio stations, etc. were kept.

 

Every setting in the car, except window indexing, is stored in NVRAM so there is never a need to reset anything other than the windows, and that takes all of 5 seconds. This also means that disconnecting the battery will not "fix" anything else in the car because the car never forgets. So ignore the near constant advice from those who don't know better to disconnect the battery to "fix" one electrical problem or another. It won't do it.

BTW, my cardiac surgeon says he doesn't charge as much as Mr Badwrench. Mr Badwrench says he didn't charge as much when he was a cardiac surgeon either, but Corvette owners are so gullible that he just can't resist ripping them off for simple services they should be doing themselves.

 

Wow, only 6300 miles on a 2 year old car. Was it wrecked, and in the body shop for over a year?

 

With only 6,300 miles, I venture to say that the car has been sitting for quite awhile. Are you using a battery tender? If not, you should.

As far as the dealer is concerned, I brought mine there for the last two oil changes (there is a Chevy dealer within walking distance of my office). The price was good ($72) but they put 7 quarts of oil into the crankcase. When I asked them "why", they said that that's how much the car takes. I proceeded to print the two corresponding pages from, both, the C5 and C6 owners manuals showing the service manager that the C5 takes 6.5 quarts and the C6 takes 5.5 quarts. I had the excess oil drained at a local service station.

Anyway, I gave the dealership a second chance and brought my car there last week for another oil change. I handed the service manager the owners manual pages, hi-liting the oil capacity of my C6. I asked him to make sure the mechanics saw these. Anyway, they DID IT AGAIN. The oil was a good amount over the fill line. I couldn't believe it.

I really want GM to succeed and will give the dealership as much business as possible, but these guys just don't get it!

 

I bought it about 3 months ago with less than 5k miles - first owner's garage queen until he couldn't afford it any more.

 

Times be tough on alot of good Vette folks.