Re: stealerships - just a generic industry term, bud. Most dealers run 30-40% higher pricing than independents, for one. Depends on the dealer, but lots of other reasons float around as well. Not gonna derail the thread about it.
I know what it is, and I don't care. It is offensive and insulting. I work very hard, most days I come home with barely enough energy left to cook dinner and do dishes, let alone the rest of the stuff I have to do around the house. On top of that if my wife were to lose her job we would suddenly go from doing OK to below the poverty line. So to be accused, even indirectly, of theft or dishonesty because I choose to work at the top of my field, not the bottom, is something I find unacceptable.
In my area, at my
Dealership our labor rates are higher than the independent shops, but only about 20%. We have to pay franchise and licensing fees to Ford for the use of their name, we have to pay subscription fees for access to Ford trade site that we need for training, access to our shop manuals, updates for our Ford scanners that are the only ones that can do certain things in the computer systems, and we have separate subscription fees to keep the scanners working.
Additionally the dealership's service shop is a premium product. Do you expect to pay the same amount for Boar's Head deli meat as you do for the pre-packaged generic store brand crap? Do you think that you can go to Yale or Harvard for the same amount in tuition as the local community college? No, you expect to pay more because it is better. Same with the dealer's service department, we cost more because it is a better product (or in this case service). This is the only area in business that I regularly see people complain so much about paying more for something that is better.
I understand that lots of people don't want to go to the dealership. Frankly there are a lot of cars out there that I don't want coming anywhere near my shop. Some things have to be done at the dealer, and that is just as frustrating to me as it is to the rest of you because we sell a lot of used cars (more than new ones) and we end up working on a lot of non-Ford vehicles, wasting an hour or more just to say "it needs to go to the dealer". That is not our choice or our fault. If you don't like that start sending letters to the manufacturer complaining about it, because they are the ones doing it, not us.