How wrecked are your local dealers service departments?

[SolidAxleorBust]

Geesh, my local dealers are pissed when you show up for service. Thousands of vehicles lined up and no hope. I am exploring flying out of state for service in the future, its ugly. I know Farley with Ford is screaming about the tech shortage.

 

[Ritchie_Rich]

?? Rant?
Flying out of state for service? So, your truck has wings?

 

[jetlag]

Our dealer is great, even though they are busy all the time, they manage to get us in

 

[Gren71]

ive used the same dealership and service department for the last 15 years and theyve been fantastic. But ill add that im aware my experience is not the norm, judging by the various vehicle forums ive been a member of over the years.

 

[SolidAxleorBust]

Been researching, looks like the closest dealer with good reviews is in Colorado Springs, about a 5.5hr drive. Our Ineos dealer is there as well. Maybe that is what I will do for any warranty work I think i have a shot at. Unfortunately the popular dealers where we buy our trucks are too far away.

 

[Trash Panda]

The real question is, why would anyone pay a dealer for a service? That’s the last place on earth I want to be with my truck.

Use a private diesel shop, you’ll save yourself the headache and some serious coin.

You could also order filters and oil and do it yourself in about 30 minutes with 3 hand tools and a drain pan.

 

[SolidAxleorBust]

Only for warranty work.

 

[Gren71]

The real question is, why would anyone pay a dealer for a service? That’s the last place on earth I want to be with my truck.

Use a private diesel shop, you’ll save yourself the headache and some serious coin.

You could also order filters and oil and do it yourself in about 30 minutes with 3 hand tools and a drain pan.

I always get extended warranties out to 100,000 or 120,000 miles. So the dealership ends up being the place for 99% of my service. Especially when they regularly offer discounted oil change/tire rotation combos.

I always go to a local firestone for my tires and alignment though. Thats one place the dealership doesn’t shine

 

[Trash Panda]

I always get extended warranties out to 100,000 or 120,000 miles. So the dealership ends up being the place for 99% of my service. Especially when they regularly offer discounted oil change/tire rotation combos.

I always go to a local firestone for my tires and alignment though. Thats one place the dealership doesn’t shine

I don’t buy trucks brand new, so I usually opt for a 3rd party warranty that will honor work at a shop that isn’t my local dealer.

Warranty work is certainly the only justification I would have for going to the stealership.

 

[JimKIII]

I've used Rairdon CDJR of Kirkland WA for all my issues, the main one being a failed transmission at 26k miles. Other than pipeline delays, the service dept has always been quick and great in my experience.
I have nothing but good experiences with them.

 

[HarryN]

Geesh, my local dealers are pissed when you show up for service. Thousands of vehicles lined up and no hope. I am exploring flying out of state for service in the future, its ugly. I know Farley with Ford is screaming about the tech shortage.

The President of Ford openly stated that no one wants to work for Ford because the pay is so low. Manufacturing wages are literally the same as 40 years ago at Ford.

The service techs don't stay because again - the pay is low per "repair hour" - and the number of minutes assigned to do a repair is less than it takes - sometimes only 30% of reality. So if the tech gets a warranty repair to do, they are essentially working for free for at least half of it.

 

[techman]

Geesh, my local dealers are pissed when you show up for service. Thousands of vehicles lined up and no hope.

Dealer(s)? Thousands? No hope? That is a bit of hyperbole, no?

No doubt it is hard to find good outcomes in service these days. It requires a lot of patience and research but usually between dealers and local shops you should be able to find something without heading out of town? Seems extreme.

 

[SolidAxleorBust]

Only 2 dealers here. Called others in the state and they are in just as bad a shape, called one 3.5hrs away and they said they could try, but reviews show otherwise. I do have a few good independent shops, short handed but they take care of it. Just when it comes to warranty work. I obviously would never purchase here.

 

[jebruns]

I feel lucky. My local Ram dealer's service dept is great. Never a problem getting a quick appt time, and pretty much always same day service. I'm not a long time customer and I didn't buy the truck there. I only take the truck there for warranty stuff though. I do my own maintenance.

 

[motorhead426]

I tried to get the hood on my wifes van fixed under warranty a couple years ago and just got the run around between dealers. I got responses like "you have to take it where you bought it" "you have to take it 2 hours north to our other store"... no thanks, if you're not interested in the work, then you probably don't do quality work. I haven't found a reliable dealer since my old one closed down around 2010. I had worked there around 2000 and got to know everyone. It wasn't a flat rate shop and they did great work. The dealer I bought the new truck from is about an hour north of me even though I have at least 4 dealers within a 20 minute radius. We'll see how it goes if I ever need them for service.

 

[sstoner911]

I have 2 Ram dealers here in Tucson Az. Larry H Miler is "ok" but the techs there will give the ol "could not duplicate problem" if they feel its not worth their time to trouble shoot. I can take it to Jim Click Ram the next week and they verify the problem no issues. These are not even intermittent issues, but I feel the some techs pick and choose what they want to fix based on the warranty rate and the problem.

I had an appointment on 01/07/2026 that my service writer and Jim Click called and rescheduled for 01/14/2026 because they had a diesel tech quit and they were a little backed up. Not a huge deal. FCA and other manufactures need to reevaluate their compensation for techs before they all quit.

 

[SolidAxleorBust]

I went over yesterday to get my truck back, and will zip tie the connector out of the way later. I let them have it. Not one phone call answered for a week, voice mail full for a week, and 2 messages from the store hand delivered not responded to. I wrote a wonderful 1 star review. I will NEVER walk into a New Mexico Ram dealer the rest of my life. Its a Larry H Miller. I also called the other one and they are using an ANSWERING SERVICE! In the middle of the day. WTF?

 

[wrvond]

The real question is, why would anyone pay a dealer for a service? That’s the last place on earth I want to be with my truck.

Use a private diesel shop, you’ll save yourself the headache and some serious coin.

You could also order filters and oil and do it yourself in about 30 minutes with 3 hand tools and a drain pan.

I bought my 2017 F350 DRW new and started working for an RV transport company in Indiana part time. I was averaging 3500 miles a week and the Ford service near me rotated the front tires, changed my oil and filters and topped off fluids for $300.00 (IIRC). In theory they were also checking brakes and tire wear among other things. I had a Ford credit card that was six months no interest, as well. It was convenient and cost effective to have them do the work.
At my age getting up and down from the ground is a painful experience as well, which can make paying somebody else to do it an attractive proposition.
However, that dealership ruined my truck. I spent six months and $20,000.00 trying to repair it with limited success. Ultimately I had a "diesel shop" put a used rear end on it that turned out to have the wrong reduction ratio. I was so mad at Ford for this (and some other things) that I refused to give them any more of my money and traded it in on my Ram in '23. I've got a local Mom & Pop shop with a young man that is impressively knowledgeable about these trucks and I get to be right beside him in the shop the whole time, so I'm happy to pay them for service.
My son was a service tech in Oklahoma and he told me about how they move (for one reason or another) from one shop to another, regardless of brand name. A guy working in a Ford shop this week could easily be working in a Ram shop next week. This has been verified in conversations with service managers as well. Because of this my truck has not been on a Ram lot since I bought it for any reason. I've been lucky so far that none of the recalls have affected my truck and I've had no problems.

 

[sstoner911]

I went over yesterday to get my truck back, and will zip tie the connector out of the way later. I let them have it. Not one phone call answered for a week, voice mail full for a week, and 2 messages from the store hand delivered not responded to. I wrote a wonderful 1 star review. I will NEVER walk into a New Mexico Ram dealer the rest of my life. Its a Larry H Miller. I also called the other one and they are using an ANSWERING SERVICE! In the middle of the day. WTF?

I think that after COVID, a lot of places became "OK" with poor or average customer service - not sure why, maybe most customers just take it now.

I will tell you that I never have any luck calling any dealer and getting a service writer on the phone and they never call back on the voice mail either when I am transferred to their desk phone. I don't know if this is your first new truck purchase in some time, but that's pretty normal(shouldn't be). Part of it I think that the service writers are swamped and I am sure they get calls from people all day, some that are "fires" that they are trying to put out and they don't get to everyone. I have seen the service writers here and they have vehicles arriving all day and they cant get to everyone.

Today when I dropped of my truck the service writer was checking in my truck and had 2 others customers hand him their keys so he could check in the vehicles and they didn't want to wait. Then when he was getting a UBER to pick me up he got a phone call from a customer. His phone was pretty much non stop. I am not making excuses for them, but these dealerships are not very efficient in their processes.

I have found Dealership's in smaller towns are better usually - your mileage may vary. The dealer in Cottonwood Az is very good for a small town. I had an issue where my Uconnect was freezing and the heat would come on full blast and all the windows wouldn't roll down. Dropped it off Friday Morning and was fixed that afternoon - had a short on the heated seat module. Would have taken my local dealers in Tucson 2 days to trouble shoot that and even then may not have fixed it.

 

[Deltron]

I have 2 Ram dealers here in Tucson Az. Larry H Miler is "ok" but the techs there will give the ol "could not duplicate problem" if they feel its not worth their time to trouble shoot. I can take it to Jim Click Ram the next week and they verify the problem no issues. These are not even intermittent issues, but I feel the some techs pick and choose what they want to fix based on the warranty rate and the problem.

I had an appointment on 01/07/2026 that my service writer and Jim Click called and rescheduled for 01/14/2026 because they had a diesel tech quit and they were a little backed up. Not a huge deal. FCA and other manufactures need to reevaluate their compensation for techs before they all quit.

The RAM dealer here in Sierra Vista has been pretty good about getting trucks in. It was Lawley until a few months ago which sold to Ed Morse. Seems to still be generally OK other than Click, Lawley and Miller along with the STAR guys can't seem to figure out half the problems with my wretched '22.

The other vehicles all three have serviced have all been satisfactory.