How to get good service

Understanding Maintenance #1 Brake Maintenance Service

Understanding Maintenance #1 Brake Maintenance Service

Gary Grant ⋅ How to get good service ⋅ , , , ⋅ No comments

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard it from a service customer, usually a guy: “Brake Service…I’ve never heard of anything so ridiculous..”

The way that manufacturers sell maintenance has changed over the years and has made life tougher for both the dealer and the consumer. Many maintenance requirements have not changed, but as manufacturers marketing departments compete to lower the operating cost per kilometre of new cars, they often remove service items from their basic package.

Anyone who has ever followed their full maintenance schedule has always done a brake service annually, they just may not know it. Chances are that it was built into the annual service. Honda, Toyota, Nissan and most other traditional imports used to do it that way. Over the last few years however, brake maintenance is one of the items that manufacturers have broken out of their basic schedule. Sadly for the consumer, this actually does not reduce the operating cost, as now the dealer can charge more than they did when it was part of a package.

That said, a brake service is an important part of keeping your brakes in top shape and should not be ignored. With the trend towards larger, more open wheels, disc brakes are more exposed to the elements than ever. What this exposure does is allow road grime to build up on the moving parts of your brakes and cause them to get sticky. The pads pads start to stick in the carriers and the caliper sliders begin to stick. This causes a couple of things. The most obvious is that it causes the brake pads to wear unevenly, which means that 1 pad of the set may wear prematurely. By not allowing even pressure, the brake pads do not clean the disc properly, which allows the discs to rust prematurely. This condition will get progressively more pronounced, eventually affecting the car’s ability to stop in a straight line. In a panic stop, this can make a bad situation even worse by causing the car to change direction unexpectedly.

A technician will remove the brake calipers, clean & lubricate the carriers that the pads slide in. While he’s at it, the tech will remove the caliper sliders to clean the sliding surface and apply fresh lubricant. While it’s apart, they may sand any rough edges off the pads which may be causing some noise. Depending on the manufacturer guidelines, the discs may be sanded to remove ridges and the lip of rust that builds up around the outer edge.

Now you know why your dealer is trying to have you service your brakes. Doing a brake service every year or 24,000 km will extend the life of your brakes by helping them wear evenly and keeping them quiet. It may even save your life in an emergency.

Canadian Tire seeks to improve customer service

Gary Grant ⋅ How to get good service ⋅ , , , , , ⋅ 5 comments

When most Canadians think about automotive service, one of the first brands to come to mind is Canadian Tire. The brand has served us, our parents, our grand parents and in some cases even our great grand parents. Many of us in the auto industry got our start in a Canadian Tire service department. Mine came thanks to Gus Tsingos, the franchisee of the Pit Stop location on Sheppard Avenue in North York way back in the early Eighties.

While Gus was a great old guy, the Dickensian working conditions of the lube bay were horrible enough to ensure that I would never again apply for a job for the company. Some of the folks I worked with were young lads like myself, while others were old guys (you know, in their 30′s) who were basically unemployable anywhere else. Certainly not a crew that had been trained to offer quality customer service.

In the April 10 edition of the Toronto Star’s Wheels section, Editor Mark Richardson published a well researched and thought out piece on Canadian Tire’s plans to bring themselves back to the forefront of auto service in Canada. In the article, Richardson interviews the retail icon’s President of Auto and Retail, Michael Medline about their five year plan.
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  1. James: Interesting read. I am a service manager for Canadian Tire and my income is over six figures but I know…

    • Gary Grant: Thanks for reading James. On a positive note, I do know the CTC corporate execs are aware of my story.

  2. Canadin Tire | All Wheels Blog: [...] tire blog.drivenwheels.com This entry was posted in all. Bookmark the permalink. ← Wheels Damaged During Alignment [...]

  3. C Anadian Tire | All Wheels Blog: [...] c anadian tire blog.drivenwheels.com [...]

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Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Gary Grant ⋅ How to get good service ⋅ , , , , , ⋅ No comments

Another title for this could have been There are two sides to every story.

The car industry has long had a bad rap with consumers. Admittedly, a good chunk of this is well deserved but increasingly the tales of poor customer service are the result of exaggerated details, exasperation and omitted facts. This happens in sales and service at a dealer level, with customer service reps at the manufacturers and in the media.

A perfect case of this has happened over the past day or so over in The Garage, where a disgruntled owner commented about a problem with his Nissan.

Commenter 1
At 40,000 clicks you would think that your car would start first try. However at low mileage the body control module needed to be replaced. Reconfiguration of the keys needed to be done. Costing me nearly $723.00. The warrenty was 3 years or 60,000 clicks. I was three months over the three years but way under in milleage. To me this sounds like it is factory related when the part goes this early. So why isn’t Nisson backing this part up? When it comes to the ignition system you expect more starts than 40,000 clicks worth!
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