A week ago I put my 8 into my local dealership, to get a quick inspection, oil change, tire rotation and a full detailing before I put the it away for the winter. I drove the car a couple of days since the weather has not been too bad, this morning I pulled out of my garage and to my horror two large oil stain on my immaculately cleaned garage floor.

This evening I took the car back to the said dealer to look for the cause of this leak, after a quick inspection the mechanic came out with the dipstick in saying the oil is completely full and give the explanation: "maybe it was over filled during the oil change and spilled down onto the tranny and thats what's causing the oil film in the engine bay and the oil on my floor". They clean the car up and sent me on my way with no real satisfactory explanation. P.S. Original they had the car for 24 hours because of the in-house detailing.

3,000 to 4,000 km's ago I had all my car's fluids switched to synthetic and brake service at a very highly recommended Toronto dealership. On my drive home from Toronto I noticed the brake seem a little bit spongy but did give it much thought. Driving home on the northbound 404 at a good clip I came around the curve just north of the Steeles Ave exit and the traffic was dead stop, I brake and no brakes to speak of. I pumped the brakes and head for the shoulder barely missing the car in front of me, but it finally came to a stop. Anyway I proceeded home with enough braking space between me and wherever car was in front of me. Got home alive and called the dealership, they said "bring it back". I did the fellow day after a quick inspection the mechanic came out and told me that they did not bleed the brakes properly and apologized.

Is this a run of bad luck or are dealers like everyone else getting sloppy and rushing just to get the next car in our mad dash to make a buck, in a belief that speed over quality is what the customer wants?

 

oh wow. thats rough man. the oil stain could easily be from when they remove the oil filter. i dont know if you know this, but the filter is mounted upside down on our cars right by the firewall. the oil pours out when you remove the filter and pools up on the engine. its pretty tough to get a rag down there to mop it up, but i always take care to do this (accept on my own car...free undercoating you know. lol).

as for the brakes. thats scary. im suprised the dealership in question suggested you drive your car back to them concidering the predicament. I mean i could see if you said the pedal just feels spungy, but having no pedal when you need to stop fast...it should have been towed back to them.

The fact is, these are just mistakes in any case. remember the people that service your car are humans not robots. they make mistakes. what really matters (at least in my opinion) is how they handle things when they have made a mistake.

 

Both dealers apologized and I know we all make mistakes including myself, but that's not going to get the oil out of the concrete. Just lately I finding no one really seem to try and satisfy the customer, what happen to customer service! This applies to all retailer not just dealer.

I've been trying to find a independent (better customer service) mechanic to service my car for awhile or I'll just start doing more myself if I can find the time.

 

Find yet another Stealership.
Seriously........that's totally uncalled for.
I think I'd call Mazda Canada and let them know about both Stealerships!
Oh.....and if you drain the oil first most of it will come oout of the filter. Then wrap a rag around the base while taking it off, it won't cause any mess. The dealership should know that, and if they don't......do you really want them touching your car?

 

^ This is why I'm looking for a independent. Two dealership in three months. Just my bad luck lately.
I think I'll be brushing up on the service manuals over the winter and buying more tools.

 

There ya go! That's the way to do it. Do it yourself where/when and make sure it's right!

 

well reckless, drive down to guelph and i'll take care of your car. haha.

what i was saying about how they handle it...sometimes an appology isnt enough. other times thats more than enough. I know i said mistakes will be made, but you dont fool around with brakes. if a customer drives home and calls claiming they almost wrecked their car because of the brakes after just having them serviced, an appology and doing the work properly the second time doesnt even come close to enough if you ask me. I dont know if maybe they did this and you just didnt tell us, but they should have either sent the tech to get the car/see what the problem is or sent a flat bed to get the car. You shouldnt have to drive it back with a known brake issue.

I've never had any major mess ups in my few years of wrenching but if i did i would genuinely feel awful. unfortunately you dont deal directly with the person who works on your car and both sides rely on a service advisor to convey things back and forth. Im almost dreading getting my lisence and being put on flat rate...i've seen what it can do to a great tech and i dont like it one bit. in fact, i'll likely be looking for a shop that pays hourly if my current placement wont accomidate. Its not that i like to slack off or work slowely or anything. I love to work hard/quickly. But i like doing a good job more.

reckless, on behalf of mazda dealers, sorry for whats happened, but give us another chance. lol. we can make it up to you. dont write us off as "stealerships" like mazurfer says. you've just had a bad run. if you make it clear about your feelings and you arent a dick to anyone there is no reason they wont make this right without having to get mazda canada involved. mazufer, think how you would deal with a person if he told your mommy on you. or threatened it.

i'll say it again, these are people behind the counter and working under your hood. not robots. they make mistakes. they curse. they swear. they have bad days. but they also have good days. they do things the right way. they go the extra mile for no reason. two sides to every coin my friend.

 

"mazufer, think how you would deal with a person if he told your mommy on you. or threatened it".

I'd kick his ***!

Well........I know we all make mistakes, but you are paying for a service and they are supposed to be somewhat knowledgeable and somewhat professional. That's not apparent here............in my opinion.

 

lol. is that why you are so sour on dealerships. did someone there kick your ***? haha. i kid.

 

No...........and I don't mean to stereotype, but you can't argue with the best way to know and keep on top of your car is do most of the stuff yourself and take it to the dealer when you have to(which can be for various reasons). In these two cases it looks like he's car got less than
experienced techs working on it with little or no supervision, that's all.

 

Mazdee's in Pickering would treat you well and have years of experience with everything rotary... They don't rush any job, I know that for a fact because its almost my second home ^_^.

http://mazdees.ca/

thewird

 

^ I'm going to send the photo to the dealership, the brakes is old news now and even the gm apologized to me at that dealership. I do believe this is just a run of bad luck and people just having bad days. I did not name names to protect the innocent. That's why I'd never name the dealerships.

Like the thread titles says RANT(I like to bitch), but oil incident is the second problem with this dealership. (search a you will find). I like you greg the dealership is the only game around. This is the only thing I hate about the 8's, the only place to get service is the dealerships or DIY. Independent mechanics are few and far between.

 

Also, cheaper then the dealer ^

thewird

 

Case in point. I got this dude working at my dealership and still I've only been there once in four years. https://www.rx8club.com/lounge-4/can-mark-wilhelm-really-1-mazda-tech-world-155639/

 

^ That good, and I thought I had problems.



There a guy in Markham a friend of a friend I've been meaning to try he's about 65 and has a little shop to keep himself busy but all he really likes to do is mod 7's he been doing it for 30 years. Talked to him once, he told me to bring my 8 in anytime. I think I'll look him up over the winter, he rebuilding (modernizing) the suspension/blueprinting the engine on the friend's 1964 RHD Facel Vega. He swears by him.

 

You should name the dealers although I think I know the "highly recommended one". Scarboro Mazda has been going downhill lately. A couple years ago they were on top of the game but I've heard a lot of complaints lately.

 

Really? Where did you hear those from?

 

What? No Scarboro Mazda is my boy.. they're doing fine!

 

Not sure if anyone posted this, but some places (including dealerships) do not know the RX-8 only needs 3.7L (or something around there) of oil and not the full capacity amount of 6.7L. I had Mr. Lube fill me up with 6.7L of oil twice...........I didn't have to fill up oil for a long time after that.

 

^ You're lucky that the oil didn't overflow into your intake.

 

I think you've had some bad luck, but ultimately mistakes happen. Calling it a "dealership problem" is likely excessive. Dealerships employ a number of different mechanics, so an individual made a mistake. They also employ people of different skills. eg. One person may be less skilled and perform more basic maintenance, etc. while another may handle engine/tranny problems.

Dealerships pay their mechanics based on piece work. In other words they are paid a flat rate to do a job. Let's say they budget a brake job at 2 hours. If the mechanic gets it done in 1 hour then they've effectively made more money because they can now do another job. If they get it done in 3 hours they lose money and their children may go without a meal.

I think sometimes people have unrealistic expectations of what a dealership does compared to any other shop. To many it's a magic black box from which they expect perfection as the output. Yes you're paying for the job to be done right, but stuff happens. Most dealership mechanics are not rich people due to their talents. If they were so especially talented they would be doing something that made more money. Think back to high school, which kids ended up going into that line of work? I'm not trying to say there aren't great mechanics out there (or sound like a snob), but I'm trying to provide context to the issues.

I don't see why one can't take their car to a independent mechanic. Cars are cars, you don't need a rotary expert to perform typical work. If you want control over an issue do it yourself. I hate taking a car to get the oil changed and waiting around. I can do it myself in half the time and I don't have to worry about mistakes from a bored highschool kid earning minimum wage, who's on their 30th oil change of the day.

 

It did

 

We were the dealership that did the brake flush orginally, and our shop foreman who is a Mazda Master Technician did the work. This is the same tech that was on Discovery Channel that helped train the 2 students that placed 2nd in North America at the high school tech competition. Every once in a while we have a problem bleeding brakes where you get a stubborn air bubble. I have had the same problem with the race car, where its fine in the shop and after a lap or 2 , the peddle goes soft and we have to rebleed the system. We always try the best we can and rectify any problem to the best of our ability. We will tow the car back to the shop if we have to at no cost to the customer and even provide a rental car. Like it has been said in other posts on this thread no one is immune or perfect. If you want to compare to independents, I can show thousands upon thousands of dollars of repairs we have carried out to fix their work, saved customers money on excessive quotes, replaced engines due to incorrect oil changes etc. We have a court case right now because a "friends shop" did an oil change on a Mazda 3 and crushed the oil filter. When the car came us it had the oil light on and we did our best to save the engine but couldnt the damage was done. My point in all this is that no one or on no shop is 100% perfect and most do their best.

Some of the people in this post have had issues, Footman had to come back because we had the wrong part shipped to us, Rotary Mike had brake issues with the KVR front rotors we put on his car. In both cases they were totally understanding and we rectified the situations with no additional costs to each. Overall these people must be more than satisfied with the dealer treatment, and a lot of others because we are the number one Mazdaspeed dealer in Canada, and these parts have been sold, installed or shipped all across Canada.

 

I had my brake flush done with Wilwood Hightemp 570 last month by the shop foreman at Scarboro Mazda. My brakes are fine.

It was probably just an isolated incident.

Al, is my next oil-change free due to that centre console part screw up?

 

Snrub I have to agree, but I've ask some local mechanics for typical service item like plugs and the answer I general get is "we don't touch those things", my wife's mechanic actually used the word "exotics" and take it to Mazda. And as I said this spring I'm going to try a hell of a lot more DIY, but time & our climate are big considerations in the whole DIY thing.