Saturday, May 15, 2010

Reichert Motors - open!


When I passed Reichert Motors today and saw how few vehicles were on display outside, I feared the worst and stopped for information. I was glad I stopped!

The bottom line is that Reichert is open for business - both sales and service.

They can still sell Chevies and other GM products; they just can't get them from the factory. However, negotiations continue and the possibility is always that their franchise will be restored. Want to help out? Send a letter to G.M.

If you want to buy a Chevie or Pontiac or Buick from Reichert, go right in. They will get you the vehicle that you want, wherever it is, through the dealer-swap program.

Reichert continues to be a good community citizen, even during business hardship conditions. Take a look at this $500 check to local youth baseball activities. Click on the image to enlarge it; then click on the Back button on your browser to come back here.

7 comments:

Notawannabee said...

I personally would not send my very worst enemy there. They charged my wife for service that was NEVER DONE, probably figuring she was just a female and would have never known the difference. When I went there and demanded an explanation, they tried their best to fool me also. Parts they said and charged for were never removed. Finally they admitted the MECHANIC made a mistake. "YEA RIGHT"

My friend suspected they were doing the same to him on regular service. Before going there he marked the inside sidewalls of his tires and when they charged him for a tire rotation, he checked and the tires and they were in the same position on the car. When confronted it was "OH the mechanic must have forgotten" ...”yea right!”.

It seems to be a common explanation flowing here. Just throw the mechanic under the bus.

How many people THINK they are getting good service, but are ONLY paying for it, not getting it? There are too many reputable dealers doing a good honest job to waste time going to Reichert's. For regular service, I much prefer DeCranes.

Stingray said...

Notawannabe, I have been a mechanic at the Woodstock Reichert for 13 years and I can guarantee that we have never been in the practice of not doing work the customer was charged for. We also NEVER try to sell work that is not needed. If your stories are true then we honestly must have make a mistake and I apologize for everyone here. A lot of times we will rotate customers tires if they are doing other work and not even charge for it. We rely on repeat business/customers and cannot afford to take the chance of 'screwing' our customers, it's not worth it to us.

Justin said...

Stingray maybe you can answer this. How can they take a trade when the person disclosed that the trans was about to go and was told them the car would go to the auto auction. Then this same car is sold as a good car to a young college kid (my family) and told everything is just great on the car and it was checked over before being sold. This kid trusted the local Chev dealer thinking it was better than the typical used car dealer. When the trans goes out a few weeks later in DeKalb (her school) she's told " well what do you expect when you buy a car with 90,000 miles. It is AS IS. The trans repair was more than the car was worth.

This was only about ten years ago and I told everyone I knew that you guys should be wearing masks. She was able to find the previous owner that they told her that the trans was bad when they traded it in and the dealer knew it.

I know it was not the mechanics fault, but the Owners of Reichert should be real happy that they profited byb ripping off a nieve person.

Notawannabee said...

I'm sure that the mechanics do as they are told and have no clue what shenanigans going on inside the billing office.

Recently I took my car in for a minor repair (not Reichert's) they changed a small airbag control part. On the bill was$8.00 add on for disposal fee. I questioned it and they said it is added to EVERY bill to cover the cost of disposal of hazardous materials. I blew a cork and refused to pay it and told them to GIVE ME the part and I would dispose of it myself.

After complaining to the service manager, he removed the fee.

AS to Reichert's, I know what they did to my wife and it was a first hand experience which WOULD have been nearly $200.00 had I not been dubious and double checked what they billed for.

Once you lose customer confidence, you'll never win it back.

Gus said...

I wouldn't agree with "never." It is, however, harder to win back customer confidence.

In many instances, when I worked at the Sears headquarters in Hoffman Estates from 1997-2002, I won back customers - by listening, not interrupting, and treating them fairly. Most really wanted someone to listen to their complaints. They wanted to feel that they were heard.

One of these days I might even write a book about those days and those great customers.

I always thought every employee should have to enter through the front door and read aloud every morning, "Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back."

Stingray said...

Just – I’m sorry to hear about the problems that your family had. I can only speculate what happened. The salesman either didn’t take the customers word for it that the trans had a problem or he just didn’t tell anyone else at the dealer (we wouldn’t sell a car knowing the trans is junk). I would assume a tech looked at the vehicle before it was sold, but if the car was driving just fine then we wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong. Plus it drove fine for you daughter on her test drive and the couple weeks before the problem. What I am getting at is we most likely didn’t see any problems with that vehicle before it was sold. I realize that doesn’t excuse the salesman for not informing anyone of the problem and I too would be just as upset as you were. Also back then we had a different General Manager who liked to keep more cars than send them to the auction. The GM that replaced him sends a lot more to the auction now if they need too much work or have any major issues that we spot.

Notawannabee – We are a small enough dealer that the techs know what's going on with the billing. But we don’t purposely charge customers for parts or work that was never done (I explained why in my last post). If something like that happened then it was a mistake. Maybe service forgot to tell the parts depot to remove parts from a ticket, or they forgot to tell the tech something. People do make mistakes, but we definitely don’t make ‘mistakes’ on purpose.

Justin said...

Stingray,
I'm sure you probably try to be fair and as a mechanic do a good job. When this happened I was half a world away serving in a huge sand box. The salesman knew this, and as I said, knew full well that this car was junk. Maybe if I was there, I would have seen the problem, maybe not. What does a 19 or 20 year old girl know about cars? She unfortunately trusted the local OK Corral or what ever they the used car section then. I remember I even told her she was better off buying from a established dealer than some corner used car lot. Boy was I wrong. Very bad memories.