I just got back from my nightly walk with Kobi. It’s 20 degrees out but we still did 1.5 miles. While we were walking it reminded me of the cold snap we had a couple weeks back.
The first cold snap of prior years bought in a flood of dead batteries. Marginal batteries give out in the extreme cold. Arriving in the morning we’d find the cars that had been towed in during the night and the parade of tow trucks would continue through the day.
That morning I was surprised to find that no cars had been towed in during the night. There also were no messages on the machine. Unusual, but I was sure they were coming. I was wrong, they didn’t come. At the end of the day we had only done three batteries.Maybe it wasn’t really that cold? I called our battery distributor to reorder the 3 batteries and learned their sales were through the roof that day. They couldn’t keep up with the deliveries. Why did we only sell 3 batteries?
I needed to find out why. I knew our customer base had grown so that wasn’t it. A quick look at battery sales for 2009 showed they were up, so that wasn’t it. Another look at the data showed that battery sales used to spike in the extreme cold and extreme heat, I knew that; but in 2009 the spikes were gone. Battery sales were pretty even all year. Very interesting but why?
What happened? In 2008 I made testing the battery part of our regular maintenance service. We use a very accurate, computerized battery tester to identify a worn out battery before it causes a symptom the customer would notice and before it leaves the customer stranded. My goal was to provide a better service. Did I expect results like this? Honestly, I didn’t.
As this case study shows, preventive maintenance works. It saves money, time, aggravation and inconvenience.
If you have your car serviced at a quick lube, ask them to test your battery; they don’t offer this service. If we service your car, you don’t need to ask, we’ll test it at your next regular maintenance service.
There is a difference between maintenance and quick lube. When you go into a quick lube, you know the chains stores I’m referring to, they usually have one thing in mind; up-sell. You need to flush everything, need new filters and need a new belt. Sound familiar?
They don’t hire trained and certified mechanics. They train their help to change fluids and they typically get a commission on every up-sell. They don’t inspect the critical components and systems in your vehicle. They don’t check the brakes, steering linkage, suspension, exhaust and many more. They don’t do that work, they don’t sell that work and they aren’t trained to inspect it.
Just yesterday we had to do a $500 brake job on a late model 15 passenger van, with only 32k miles on it. They ran out of brake pad and destroyed the rotors. The reason I’m not happy about it is that it never should have happened. This vehicle is part of a fleet that belongs to a non-profit social service agency. Their budget and state funding has been cut; money is tight. We service their fleet when they break down and rarely see them for maintenance. This van had the oil changed at an Instant Oil Change 3000 miles ago. If a mechanic had serviced it he would have seen the almost worn out brakes and either scheduled the repair before damage was done or would have put in brake pads right then; at a cost of about $130. The last three times this exact situation occurred, different vans, the vans were serviced at an Instant Oil Change less than 300 miles before the brakes started grinding. $500 or $130, you do the math.
I know what you’re thinking, it was more profitable for us to do the larger job. You are absolutely right, but that’s not way we work. We want to sell you what you need , when you need it. We are here to help you maintain the investment you’ve made in your vehicle. That means sometimes selling you a smaller job and saving you money. It means never an unneeded up-sell. It not just about profit – it’s about Trust.
Want to save yourself a lot of money and even more aggravation? It only takes 30 seconds or less. It’s easy, follow these simple steps:
- Turn off your windshield wipers and allow them to return to the parked position before turning the ignition off
- If the temperature is below freezing, make sure the wiper blades aren’t frozen to the windshield by lifting each one up before starting the car
- Clear the windshield of snow & ice before turning on the windshield wipers
- If snow & ice build up on the windshield while driving; pull over in a safe place, clear the windshield and then continue on
How is this going to save me money? It’s simple, the cost to replace a wiper motor or wiper transmission ranges from $300 – $1000, sometimes more. Your wiper system consists of four basic parts
- The wiper motor, an electric motor that rotates when the switch is turned on
- The wiper transmission, sometimes called linkage, a series of pivots and rods that convert the rotating force of the motor into the back & forth motion seen on the windshield
- The wiper arm, this connects the wiper transmission to the wiper blade
- The wiper blade, this is the rubber & metal part that actually clears the windshield
It used to be these were mostly metal and even though not designed to, they would clear several inches of snow. Today things aren’t made as durable, that’s a whole seperate post. Now there are many plastic parts and the metal parts aren’t as strong. We see it every winter; people don’t clear the windshield or they start the car with wipers on & frozen to the windshield. Snap, pop, bang and the wipers stop. It takes a large amount of force to move your wiper blades. When the blades can’t move that force has to go somewhere and something breaks. These parts are vehicle specific and we have to order them through the dealer. A few times last winter the parts were back ordered and took 2 weeks to get. Two weeks without a car, that’s aggravation. And it could have been easily prevented.
