Sport Mazda

Sport Mazda responded

Todd, My name is David Bowers and I am the e-Care Manager for Sport Auto Group and Sport Mazda. We appreciate the opportunity to address issues important to our customers. I want to thank you for your honest feelings about the issue. I am addressing the issue with both the GM, Jay Mealey, and the Service Manager, Sean Harris. I promise you that we are working to address your review and will be getting back to you shortly. In the meantime, let me assure you that one of the reasons we put this review system in place was to try and become the dealer that our customers want us to be. We are working hard to address every issue and to make our dealership second to none in the hearts and minds of our customers. Thank you again. Sincerely, David Bowers (407) 230-4985

Sport Mazda responded

As I promised you, the GM, Service Manager and I sat down and went over the entire service record on your visit as soon as we received your review. I believe it is important that we are totally open with you to insure that there is complete mutual understanding. So, I have attached some information that I think will help us. The first attachment is the document “Work Order”. It is a copy of the original work order that shows you came in with an engine light problem. This required us to run diagnostics on your car to determine the problem or problems that might have caused the light. I know you were concerned about the hours, so I wanted to include some pages from the AllData Online Guide that most dealerships use. We use that to plan how much time it is going to take to do a procedure and to allocate our technician’s time for each work order. That keeps us from taking in more work than we can handle and reduces the wait for our customers. It is also used to determine a reasonable charge for a service and forces the technicians to work more efficiently to meet those times. The first hours page is titled Diagnostic Test Hours. It shows you the hours required to perform diagnostic tests to determine why the engine light is on. As you can see it shows .5 for the initial inspection test and 1.3 for the System Performance Test. This is the fastest and easiest way to check the entire system and make sure that everything is in working order and includes setup time for each of the tests. I have also included 3 pages to show you all the work that the systems performance test and diagnostics entail. They are Test Docs 1, 2, and 3. You can see that it is pretty extensive and covers both before the repair and after the repair testing. Your model Mazda also requires the resetting of the powertrain control module. That is .3 hours and is shown in document Control Mod Hours. The final document I wanted you to see was the hours required to replace the thermostat and the notes from the service manager at the bottom. That document is titled Therm Repl Hours. Please see that the industry accepted hours for the replacement of the Thermostat Housing, including Thermostat, is 1.5 hours. As you can see from the notes, the Service Manager totaled the labor charges from the accepted rate pages and came up with 294.50, but you were charged 282.62 plus 5.00 for the Oil Change Labor as part of the Oil Change price, which comes to a total of $288.36. The last two documents will show you the total charges. As you can see on the thermostat replacement we charged $89.97 for parts and $332.50 for replacement, including all of the diagnostic testing that determined the thermostat was the problem. Please note however, that Sport Mazda discounted the parts and service by 15% or $63.38. We also did not charge for the Full Circle Service Inspection. The Full service Lube, Oil and Filter change was also discounted for a total of $24.99 for parts and labor. After much discussion with the Service Manager and General Manager, they do feel that the charges are justified and very competitive with other certified repair facilities but want all of our customers to return to us for their service. What I have found after contacting other dealers in the area is that our labor costs are no higher than most. I will also agree that if you call around and ask how much to replace a thermostat, you will probably get a cheaper price. But being entirely fair, we did not know it was the thermostat that needed replacing when you arrived at the dealership. Part of the costs were because we had to do testing to insure we made all of the necessary repairs to solve your problem and to keep you car running safe. My question to you Mr. Gutieriez is how can we make this better for you. You took the time to contact us because you felt that while the service was good, the price was not. I hope that some of this information will show you that we certainly want to make any reasonable effort to take care of your concerns. But more than that, we want you to be happy. My question to you, is what can we reasonably do to keep you a happy customer of Sport Mazda. Please take time to think about it and reply to my email or please contact the Service Manager, Sean Harris, at (407) 851-8510. He really wants to make sure you are treated well. Thank you again for taking the time to let us know of your concerns. I will tell you on behalf of Don Mealey, who founded the Don Mealey Auto Group (Sport Auto Group) almost a half a century ago, and the entire Mealey family who have been serving Central Florida for almost that long, we value your business. We do care and thank you again for coming to Sport Mazda. We hope to see you again. Sincerely, David M. Bowers Ernesto. I am sorry but DealerRater did not allow me to attach the forms. If you email me at Davidmbowers@hotmail.com, I will be happy to send those forms to you right away. With the forms, you will see what I was referring to in my email. Thank you again and have a good day.