|
Dealerships are high cost operations that must maintain large profit margins in their service departments to pay the bills (equipment, training, benefits, special tools, and of course, the owner's yacht payments). Thought most of the technicians are well trained, they are highly supervised and given little latitude for creativity. They typically follow strict procedures with scripted solutions because it keeps the workflow high.
In this kind of environment, if there's a possibility that the problem could be caused by two or three different problems, and they haven't isolated the problem in the allocated amount of time, the protocol would be to sell you a solution that covers all possibilities rather than spend the time looking for the one problem. (The technician may not agree with this approach, but his supervisor has a board full of cars that have to flow through the shop, so he needs a decision NOW or your car's out of the bay so they can get the next one in.) Of course, you're paying full retail for the parts at most dealerships as well.
If you want a technician to be creative, you probably need to find an indy shop. Typically, they're discounting parts almost to cost (just to get your business) so there's nothing in it for them to sell you extra parts. They'd rather spend the time to find the exact problem because they're selling time and don't have the same volume requirements as a dealership. They also don't have the massive overhead. On the other hand, if your indy is being presented with a late model car with a problem he's never seen before....well, never mind. Your 1994 is a known quantity and almost any indy Volvo specialist has seen it all and can fix it all.
--
(98 S70 T5SE misc mods, mostly lighting) (92 940GLE)
|
