Anthony s

AORoads

It may seem like it's a "New York" thing because that's what we've read in others who posted complaints in and around NY. And most cities no longer have dealers within the very built-up, inner neighborhoods.* Being on Long Island like the OP and his dealer are, it's a little different. His is just a dealer who's being spiteful and getting back at a current customer for not buying the Corvette at his/her shop.

*If you've ever been to the five boroughs of New York, there are still lots of dealers there, right in the heart of row houses, tall apartment buildings, single family homes, stores, shops, etc. Long way of saying, they are "land locked"---they can't expand their 4-bay service area, or their 1,000 sq. foot showroom. The only way they can do it is to buy stores, garages, warehouses, etc. 2, 3, 4 blocks away, or farther. Even then, it's at a very big premium. So, many dealers refuse to work on cars that weren't purchased there, and it is justifiable if you think about it. Many dealers have been there since before WW2, that means over 70 years ago, and still going strong. Their customers are sometimes third or even fourth generation owners and walk from the dealer for service. Being within a residential area unlike on a strip along the interstate, they can't even work late into the night which some suburban dealers near me do all the time. They make a good living, but it's a tough balancing act to remain where they are.

Jmhornz71

I havent had a problem at my dealer here They have serviced several Chevy/GM cars and 2 Corvettes not bought there. I have also bought several cars there too. Always treated good and no problems

449er

If you want to pursue the situation, I would contact GM about the way that you were treated at this dealership, believe me, it works

LIStingray

It is a Long Island thing - they are unhappy most people here buy their Corvettes from Kerbeck or MacMulkin for a good discount (currently 13-15%) instead of paying MSRP for an ordered car or maybe as much as $2,000 off MSRP for something sitting in stock, which is what all the local crooks (dealers) here are still charging.
There are 10 Chevrolet dealerships on Long Island - East Hills Chevrolet of Freeport (formerly Paul Conte), Robert Chevrolet in Hicksville, Arnold Chevrolet Buick in West Babylon, Bical Chevrolet of Valley Stream, Atlantic Chevrolet Cadillac in Bay Shore, East Hills Chevrolet of Roslyn, Chevrolet of Huntington in Dix Hills, Chevrolet of Smithtown in St James, Chevrolet 112 in Medford, and Eagle Chevrolet in Riverhead.
As far as I know, only the two East Hills dealerships, and Smithtown Chevy will service Corvettes they didn't sell. East Hills Auto Group bought three Chevy dealerships in NY fairly recently to add to the other brands they have, so they seem to be less inclined to **** off potential future customers. To be fair, I have become pretty anti-GM because of the inability to get my last 6 Corvettes serviced since buying my first C5 at Kerbeck. I have, on principal, refused to buy or lease a non-Corvette GM vehicle since 1999, which is now 16 cars/suvs ago, with 2 more coming in the next 7 months.

Landru

This dealer's in violation of their franchise agreement w/ GM, Owner's Manual clearly states for issues take care to any GM dealership.
What're GM's owners transplanted to NY/NYC to do?
GM had better damned well respond, and w/more than gobbledegook.
OTOH given this dealer's attitude if they did accept it they'd have a sore *** after Chev had a come-to-Jesus w/ 'em.
Is this dealer the one you'd want to use now or going forward?

Aside from that I simply cannot understand a dealer, any dealer, turning away service/warranty work.
SD's are profit centers at any dealership for covered or noncovered repairs + parts.
I know several dealer-owners, their sales & service are run as 2 separate businesses under one roof w/ each scratching for the consumer's $.

ONLY exception I recall happening, a NYC w/ a dealer (Freeway?) who apparently came-up w/ a work-around the franchise agreement.
This dealer said vehicles they sold had priority re service.
They'd put you on bottom of list and in NYC, it'd probably be some serious time.

Thunder22

There was a big vette dealer out by port jeff at one point, Ramp?, they wouldn't service them either, they're now out of business (karma?)

East Hills is/was always good.

The Long Island dealerships need to realize that if they budged off of MSRP and stopped putting dealer markups on Vettes that people, other than the morons that pay msrp and dealer markups, would buy a corvette from them.

Landru

That's it, Ramp Chevrolet...who are OOB.
Missed service work c/would've added to their bottom line & at least slowed their demise.

kennyjames21

Where is that guy that was telling me in the other thread that this never happens?

Bob Paris

QUOTE: Maybe Robert Chevrolet does not have a corvette tech on board as a result of not selling any vettes and does not want to get involved with servicing vettes. Regardless they could have handled the situation in a much better manner.

I looked on their website and they have Corvettes for sale including a ZR-1 so they are obviously in the Corvette-selling business

kennyjames21

I'm sure GM has ways to get dealerships to do what they want, and I would think GM would want their dealers to service their customers cars regardless of where they bought them. That is why I suggested to the OP to contact GM. And I don't know how GM would react, which is why I also said to see what GM says.

Now in my experience with dealing with car companies, I would bet that GM wouldn't do much outside of lip service, which is a shame. I'm certainly not suggesting that GM would end an agreement with a dealership over something like this, not sure how you made that leap...

kennyjames21

Service work is profitable - when dealers do this its just pride/bad attitude - the dealership is probably doing so well that they can turn away business, so if you **** off the dealer by not buying from them, they pull this kind of thing. But like you see in the other post, when GM calls them on it, they pretend they didn't do it because they're too chickenshit to back up their bad attitude and claim the customer is making it up.

I didn't want to deal with this so I found a decent dealership and ordered through them to make sure I had a good relationship so I could feel good about getting my car serviced there. You SHOULDN'T have to do that though, because if you buy a car from GM then you should be able to get your car serviced at any GM dealership, the idea that GM and it's dealerships are completely different entities is complete horseshit - it's just a legal maneuver by car companies to create an extra layer of protection from potential legal issues.

JALLEN4

I honestly made that leap because to the dealer it is what is important. I have been on the dealer end of that conversation and have agreed to actually offer to someone service if they would act properly and I have also told the rep to politely pound sand. The amount of service work one owner represents is inconsequential when compared to the whole and simply not worth the grief some customers represent.

Again, I do not at all agree to not working on cars not sold as a blanket policy. It is counterproductive to the dealers objectives and is in my opinion a short-sighted policy. There does though come a time when that decision does make sense on a case by case basis and I don't think any of us can pass judgement in all reported cases without being there.

JALLEN4

That last paragraph is so far out of round as to be laughable. When you are the guy who is signed on to guarantee millions of dollars, all of your own responsibility, you know quickly you could care less about GM's liability and more about your own survival and pocketbook. There are so many reasons for the dealership model that a book could be written about it. Far more knowledge than is going to conveyed on this forum.

iw172

kennyjames21

For those of us familiar with your posting history, you are the perfect example of dealers with horrible attitudes and reason for us to believe that the OP is blameless in terms of being unfairly turned away for service from this dealership - its most likely the result of a butt-hurt dealer who only refuses to service this guys vette because he had the audacity to buy from someone else.

And this speaks to my point about the ridiculous situation where the car company is allowed to distance itself from their product and liabilities with the dealership model. Because of this broken system, even though a customer should be able to get their car serviced at any GM dealership, GM can say, 'well we're not denying you service, the dealership is..." which again, is freaking nonsense. GM should be held responsible for ensuring that their customers are covered at any dealership - I fully understand that legally they can dodge that responsibility because they used their money and power to create this ridiculous dealership/car company 'relationship', I'm just stating that the situation is broken and should be fixed.

I'm not expecting that a former dealer like yourself who worked the situation to his advantage would agree with me...

kennyjames21

And if none of his local dealers will service his car, then what?

mschuyler

Or what, exactly?

iw172

JALLEN4

Obviously you do not read what I write. I have stated multiple times I agree that the dealer should service the cars presented regardless of origin. The exception is when the consumer acts like a total jerk and gives the dealer cause to refuse. Since you are so hung up on this topic, were you one of those or are you simply upset because the dealers may be having more fun than you?