Many Dealerships had the right idea, and were well run. But, most were
owned and operated by front end guys, Salesmen. They looked down their
nose at Service.
Back in the day, I knew many who worked in domestics and they all
envied us (and some switched) who lived very well on service.
Also, keep in mind that what I'm talking about here is Maintenance.
Your Dad's Dealership worked hard to repair the cars for their
customers, but the Foreign Mfg. really laid on the Service Books
Maintenance Services starting with the first oil change and every 3500
mi. after. The salesmen pushed the service as a way to keep your car in
perfect condition and they knew that it kept customers flowing thru the
Dealership.
As a result, and due to high quality, I only spent 10-15% of my day
doing repairs. Oil changes were a pain, but we loved those big services
at 15K, 30K, 60K and the big one 90K. the Foreign competition changed
the whole scene, and the way of doing the car business.
Ray
On Feb 12, 2007, at 6:14 AM, Jim Pristelski wrote:
On 2/11/07, Ray Jones <hurst300@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Domestic dealers thought the Service Dept. was a
stepchild and didn't support it. So American cars were bought, driven
out and never came back until it was on the hook.
My dad and uncle ran a Chrysler Plymouth dealer in northern Wisconsin
beginning in 1960. At that time, the business plan that Chrysler Corp
urged its dealers to use was to run the service department to cover
the complete overhead of the dealership. If accomplished, then the
profit from the sales of new cars was all profit for the dealership.
I don't know how other C/P dealerships were run, but my dad's
dealership took service and customer satisfaction very seriously.
They hired the best mechanics away from the F**d and GM dealerships.
Of course, at that time, there was virtually no foreign competition.
As a result, Plymouth was regularly the number one selling new car in
Marinette County during the 1960's, continually outselling both F**d
and Cheby by slight margins at a time when Plymouth was in about
eighth place nationally.
Maybe they were ahead of the Japanese...
Jim in warmer northern Illinois
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