Fixed operations are the parts of a car dealership that handle things like fixing cars, selling parts, and repairing body damage. They help the dealership make money regularly and pay for things like rent and electricity.
An independent shop is a car repair place that isn’t connected to a car brand or dealership. People go there to fix their cars, sometimes because it’s cheaper or more convenient.
A cooling system flush means getting rid of the old liquid that keeps your engine cool, cleaning the system, and adding new liquid. This keeps your engine from getting too hot or rusty.
An oil change means taking out the old oil from your car's engine and putting in new oil. This keeps the engine running smoothly and stops it from getting damaged.
Blow by is when some of the gas from inside the engine's cylinders leaks past the piston and gets into the oil, making the oil dirty and less effective.
Full synthetic oil is a special kind of engine oil that helps protect your car's engine better, especially when it's very hot or cold. It usually lasts longer and keeps the engine cleaner than regular oil.
The Porsche 911 is a famous fast car that looks unique and drives very well. People talk about it because it needs special care, like using a certain type of oil to keep the engine running smoothly.
Brake pads are parts that help your car stop by pressing on a spinning disc when you hit the brakes. They wear out and need to be changed so your car can stop safely.
Rotors are metal discs that your car's brake pads press against to stop the car. Sometimes they get worn or uneven and can be smoothed out by a mechanic.
The check engine light is a warning light on your car's dashboard that tells you something might be wrong with the engine or emissions. When it comes on, it's a good idea to get your car checked by a mechanic.
Some people fill their tires with nitrogen instead of normal air because it can keep the tires inflated better. But for most cars, just using regular air is fine and you don't need special nitrogen.
LIVE
Hey folks, Lenny Lawson again, probably the only new car dealer that you know, which is
not that big of a deal, but it can be very helpful.
And it's my job to prove that every time you listen to me.
So that's what I'm going to do today.
As a matter of fact, I'm going to continue a trend.
I started it last week, and that show was titled the use car that you should never buy.
Yesterday's show was the new car that you should never buy.
If you want to listen to those, then just go to Apple Podcast or Google
Podcast or just Google the My Car Guru podcast, and it will come up more than likely.
So in honor of that trend, I'm going to continue it.
But this particular episode is the auto service that you should never do or pay
for because there are some things that, well, it's basically some behaviors and
some strategies that new car dealers are using to boost something called fixed coverage.
So what is that?
Well, in the typical car dealership, we divide the accounting basically into variable
operations and fixed operations.
Variable is the sales and the, well, new car, used car and finance departments.
Okay.
And fixed operation is the parts department, the body shop, if they have one,
and the service department.
Fixed operations in the typical car dealership should cover 75 to 80 percent of
the fixed overhead of the business.
So the rent and utilities and all that stuff.
There are variable expenses that it's not responsible for.
We don't count in that calculation.
But you can imagine if you had a really big service and parts operation, really
big wholesale parts business that you provided parts to a bunch of different
body shops and service departments, you know, independents all over a region.
It's possible to put, push that fixed coverage up to 100 percent.
Matter of fact, we had a dealer in a group that we were in called an NADA 20 group
where 20 dealers get together and share ideas and so forth.
His fixed coverage was 140 percent.
So in other words, he could not sell a single car and still be very profitable.
But the average dealer is somewhere between maybe 70 percent to, well,
there, I know, I've seen, well, I've actually been in a car dealership or
owned a piece of one that the fixed coverage was only 45 percent, which was awful.
I mean, you had to sell a bunch of cars to even get the break even.
So anyway, that dependency on the service operations, the fixed operations has
led to some naughty behaviors in the service drive.
And that's where I want to focus because, you know, you buy a car like
once every three to 20 years, you service it, hopefully on a regular basis.
A lot of people defect, right?
And they go to an independent shop where they go to a fast lube operation,
even when they shouldn't, but they do that because of a couple of reasons.
Convenience, access, and they think it's cost.
It's not so much cost anymore, but when it comes to complicated repairs,
there are certain things that only a car dealer, a new car dealer with a
franchise can fix.
The independence, the vast majority of independence do not have the tools
to take care of these things.
So many customers become dependent on that new car dealer.
And I think that's a great place for you to continue to visit because they
have the tools and equipment and the training to maintain your car the way
it needs to be.
And when you sell your car and you can provide the future buyer with a
complete list of every time you had a wrench turned on that vehicle, or if
you have a out of warranty situation and let's say you're 20,000 miles out
of warranty and your engine fails at no fault of your own, you maintain the
vehicle properly.
If you are nice and if you ask and you report that to customer assistance, go
to the dealership and try to get something taken care of.
If you were a regular customer of that dealership and had all your maintenance
work done there, more than likely the factory is going to step up.
They may not pay for everything, but they'll pay for parts.
Maybe you pay for labor or they'll split it 50-50.
They'll come up with some type of arrangement with the goal of keeping
you as a customer.
I mean, let's face it, a lot of people, if you have a major failure with a
vehicle, that could cause you to defect from that brand.
You know, you have a bad experience.
Let's say you have to take it in four times and get the same problem fixed,
and they just never get it exactly right or they don't treat you right.
There could be a lot of reasons why somebody defects from a dealership, and
I would defect as well.
But one of the first mistakes people make is to start taking their vehicle when
it runs out of warranty, taking it someplace else, or while it's under
warranty, they start going to the Jiffy Lube or someplace like that just out
of convenience.
So in service departments, it could be in an independent shop or it could be in
a new car dealership.
Some of the things that people waste money on in the service department are
first unnecessary flushes.
Now, we've talked about this.
You go, you know, some of the worst dealers about this are Toyota and Honda dealers.
They want to flush everything because it's a big profit center for them.
But if you look in the owner's manual, the only flush that the manufacturer
will typically recommend is the cooling system.
Get all the old coolant out, flush it, power flush it, and then put in new coolant.
But transmission flushes, power steering flushes, brake system flushes,
those are not recommended by the manufacturer and are just simply profit
boosters for the service department trying to get their fixed coverage up.
So you don't need to do that.
You don't need to waste money on those.
I do agree with the cooling system flush.
I think that's an essential thing.
And I would do that somewhere around 50,000 miles, probably every 50,000 miles.
Manufacturer says that your coolant is good for, oh, 100,000 miles.
Hogwash.
Okay, another thing that you should never buy in the service department is too
frequently changing your oil.
I know that sounds weird.
Lenny is telling you to change your oil every 5,000 miles.
And that might sound frequent to you.
It is very important.
That's my recommendation every 5,000 miles, regardless what the owner's manual says.
And I'm not trying to sell oil changes for my competing dealers or any dealer,
for that matter.
I looked at my brother bought a BMW one time and said, change the oil at 15,000
miles. That's another hogwash.
So used to back in the olden days, back 70s, 80s, even back in the 60s,
they said, change your oil every 2,000 miles.
And that was pretty frequent.
Why did it change?
How come the manufacturer sometimes says you can change it every 7,500 to 10,000
miles or when the light comes on that says, change your oil.
Well, engines today in engineering has been able to do that.
They've been able to manufacture engines that have much tighter tolerances.
There is less blow by.
That's something that happens when combustion gases sneak past the piston
rings and they get into the crankcase and it dirties up the oil.
Oil has less contaminants in it than it used to.
It's a more refined product and they have all these advanced coatings that they
put on metallic surfaces.
There's better engine cooling now than there was.
That's regulated by the computer system on the vehicle and you got better oil
pump designs, better control of moisture and fuel vapor contamination.
So basically there's less soot and less carbon entering the oil and you got
better engine management before you had none in the old days.
And now you have a computer adjusting the air, the fuel mixture,
just all kinds of things, the cooling, temperature in the engine.
So that's why you don't have to change your oil as often as we used to.
But still, if cars sit for long periods of time or you drive the vehicle in
an aggressive manner, a lot of starts and stops, it can put a lot of stress on
the engine oil where it doesn't protect your engine.
So you want to change it like every 5,000 miles, like I say,
and get your tires rotated at the same time.
It's just an easy way to remember things, but, you know, you don't need to
change it too often and you don't need to wait too long to change it.
So I hope that makes sense.
Also, they may try to sell you some type of a premium oil, like a full synthetic.
When it's not needed, if the engineers that designed your car says that it needs
to use a synthetic blend or a conventional oil, that's what you need to use.
They're smarter than you are.
They're smarter than a lot of people on those forums that try to tell you,
oh, go full synthetic, you know, pay $150 to $200 for an oil change.
When it's not necessary.
Now my Porsche 911, full synthetic.
Certain Japanese vehicles, Korean vehicles, Hondas, Toyotas, they, they
like full synthetic.
And if they say it and you need to use it, okay, I'll be back in just one
minute.
You know, sometimes it just pays not to believe everything you hear.
Do a little research.
I tell you what the best thing you can do is just read your owner's manual.
If you bought a used car and don't have one, then you can get one online.
They'll send it to you.
Somebody, I don't know who they are, but they're available.
And you can probably get a PDF version of your manual.
Just read the maintenance section.
Look at the recommended maintenance intervals, you know, when certain things
are supposed to happen and follow that.
And if the dealership that you're having your vehicle serviced at or the
independent shop tells you something otherwise, just say, no, I don't want that.
I don't need that.
I don't need a power steering flush.
I don't need to break system flush, you know, and when you get to 50,000 miles,
go ahead and have your cooling system flushed.
Well, we don't recommend that.
We just go ahead and do it.
Lenny Lawson said to do it.
Who's he?
Well, he's the car guru, but never mind.
Okay.
What else?
I'm hearing that a lot of people are being told that they need to replace
their brake pads and have their rotors turned before they need it.
Now, you know, if, if you're replacing brake pads at six to eight millimeters,
just because the advisor says, well, if they're getting kind of low, you
need to ask them the question, well, how many more miles do you think I can go
before it gets into the rivets and they'll say, well, you know, you probably
go another five or 6,000 miles.
Okay.
Then I'm going to go at least another three or 4,000 miles and then I'll come
to see you, you know, postpone it if it's reasonable.
But see a lot of these technicians that work in these places, they're
paid an incentive for upsells.
Okay.
And if they can get you to buy brake pads more frequently than you need to,
then they make more money.
I know it's just the world that we live in.
So as far as turning the rotors, you know, if, if my rotors are nice and
smooth, that's what the brakes kind of clamp down on to stop your vehicle.
That's the shiny white part that you can see.
You have a brake caliper that you can see and it kind of sits on top of the
rotor and then a rotor is, is shiny.
And if you run your finger on it and it's really smooth, you don't need to
turn your rotors.
When I say turn them, they take them off the car, they put them on a brake
lathe and they cut off a little bit of metal.
They basically are putting a slick surface back on it.
And the only time you do that is if those rotors have little grooves in them.
You know, if you can fill grooves with your fingernail, you probably need to
get your rotors turned, especially if you're putting on new brake pads.
You don't put new brake pads on rotors that are all grooved.
You just don't do it.
But now if you turn your rotors, if you haven't turned once and then you keep
the car long enough to get another brake job, you might not be able to turn them
again, they get really thin.
And when they get thin and you use your brakes and the brakes heat up, then
the brake, the brake rotors tend to warp.
And that's where you feel when you put your fill on the brake, you feel it
pulsating every time you stop.
It's very irritating.
But that's because that your rotors have gotten too thin and you might have to
replace them, but you need to know these things.
You don't need to replace rotors or turn rotors if they don't need to be.
Ask them if it's essential.
Ask them if it will make a big difference.
Usually it won't.
But if they tell you they're really badly grooved, then you need to have them
turned.
Okay.
Okay, what else should you not pay for?
You know, if they're willing to put in a new cabin air filter, most cars have
cabin air filters, and that's just designed to filter the outside air so
that when you're inside the car, it won't contaminate your lungs.
So, you know, you can open your glove box.
That's typically where the cabin air filter is.
Sometimes they're out underneath the hood on the firewall itself, but usually
they're in your glove box or below your glove box.
You just open it up, pull the filter out, look at it, you know, if it's, if it
looks clean, then I wouldn't worry about it.
But if it's, if it's dark, you know, it's, it's full of pollen and crud,
environmental crud, then replace it.
But, you know, you don't need to pay labor to have that done.
Just tell them I'll buy a cabin air filter and I'll just put it in myself.
You know, if they say, well, they're asking them how much the charge is to
replace your cabin air filter.
And if they say, well, the labor is $30.
$30 for like 30 seconds of work.
No, thank you.
Just sell me a cabin air filter and I'll put it in myself.
Fair enough.
Okay, we'll put it in for free.
Thank you very much.
But how often should you replace your cabin air filter?
You know, that's how often should you replace the filters in your HVA system at
home? We replace ours every month, but you don't need to do that in a car.
Does it need to be replaced every three months?
You know, every oil change or something like that.
I don't think so.
Maybe every six months.
So it's just depends on where you live and how dusty it is.
I'm sure if you live in a real dusty state, like I would assume Arizona,
Texas, you know, places like that, then, you know, maybe more often.
Okay, another service that you might not want to pay for would be some type of a
fuel system service.
If you're not having any symptoms, if your fuel economy is just fine, your car is
not hesitating, it's accelerating fine.
It feels like it has plenty of power.
There's no reason to pay for a fuel system cleaning.
Now, injectors do get crudded up.
There's no doubt about it, but you'll know it.
Your check engine light will come on.
You'll have your fuel economy will drop.
You'll have, you know, some performance related symptoms, but that's just a
service that they like to sell.
And it's just something that you need to really ask some more detailed questions,
whether it's really necessary or not.
Again, if it says do it at a certain interval in your owner's manual, then do it.
Pay attention to what the engineers say in Detroit or Japan or wherever.
So Korea, but the service advisors, sometimes they are just trying to sell something.
Okay, alignment recommendations.
You know, your front end alignment is important.
If your vehicle is out of alignment, your, your tires, your front tires are going
to wear out sooner than they should.
Sometimes they'll wear out on the outside edges, the inside edges.
And sometimes it's just a tire inflation issue.
You know, don't let them sell you a $120 front end alignment or four wheel
alignment if the only problem is the fact that your air pressures were low.
So that's just something you need to know.
They may charge you to put the vehicle on an alignment rack just to see if it's
in alignment.
And if it is, then, you know, the charge won't be as much, but if they have to
make a bunch of adjustments, then it's good that you found that out.
So one of the things you can do is go, like my dealership, for example, we have
a laser scanner when you drive into the service drive, it automatically checks
your toe in and either your camber or your caster.
I can't remember which, but two of the major measurements for alignment and it
measures that and we don't have to put it on a rack and it's free.
So if you can go to a dealership that has one of those things, then you don't have
to pay for an alignment check.
And one other area that you have to watch and not pay for services that you
is a dealership that is notorious for being parts changers.
Now, how do you know this?
Well, I guess you could look at their Google reviews.
In many cases, this is a store that is really, really fast paced and the
techs don't want to waste a lot of time fixing things.
They just want to replace parts.
So you come in with a check engine light and all they're doing is throwing
oxygen sensors at you and PV, PCV valves and all kinds of other things that you
don't know anything about map sensors.
And they're not really addressing the problem.
I mean, I've seen so many issues where somebody gets, takes their car to get
it worked on someplace else, some independent shop and they can't fix it.
And it goes to another independent shop and they can't fix it.
There's my alarm going off.
And then they finally bring it to us.
We tell them that there's a one hour diagnostic charge.
They said, that's fine.
I've thrown a bunch of money at it already.
We hook our computer system up to it.
It tells us where to go.
We check all the things that they said they thought was wrong with it.
None of them are bad wrong.
Everything's fine.
But there is a problem and it's because there's a short, just one little wire
that's just not seated good and triggering a check engine light.
So I guess the moral of the story is don't go to some shop that's just going to
throw a bunch of parts at a problem and not solve it.
They clear the codes.
They install those parts.
You pay the bill and the check engine lights off.
But a week later, there it is again.
Car starts running bad and you get mad and you go back and they throw up their
hands and you should have gone to the new car dealership to begin with.
Okay, I'll be back in just one minute.
Okay, here's a fast run through of other things you should never pay for.
Like nitrogen, you don't need pure nitrogen in your tires.
We used to think that that was the thing to do because we were told that
nitrogen molecules are fatter and don't leak out as quickly as nitrogen and
oxygen combined, which is what we breathe in the air.
No, pure nitrogen was a way to keep your tire pressures up.
And it did make a difference.
I have to say it did make a difference.
But what's that worth paying for really?
I mean, is it worth $9 a tire?
I don't think so.
I think some people probably pay for new tires before they're actually do.
Tires age out, you know, if your tires are over seven years old, you're
supposed to replace them according to the tire manufacturers.
But is that just so they can sell tires?
I don't think so.
I think most of the automotive magazines and the mechanical recommendations
that I have seen over the years say that that's a valid thing because
rubber breaks down over time.
So that's what I go by.
I bought a 57 Chevy not too long ago.
The tires were put on 20 years ago when the vehicle was restored.
I didn't want to be riding down the road at 60 miles an hour in that thing.
And 20 year old tires, they looked fine.
They had plenty of tread, but I replaced them and you should too.
But if you have good tread depth, I mean, more than three or four 30 seconds
of an inch, and you can measure that if you have a ruler or a Lincoln penny.
Yeah, that's a good use for a penny.
Just take the penny, turn it, turn Lincoln upside down and stick his head
down in the tread of your tire.
If you can see the top of his head, your tires are worn out because that's
two 30 seconds of an inch.
There are treadwear indicators in between the treads.
And if you're down to that, that's also two 30 seconds of an inch.
Didn't know that, did you?
But if they're more than seven years old or you're down to the treadwear
indicators or you can see the top of Lincoln's head, then you need to get new
tires, otherwise keep riding on them.
So these are the major ways that people waste money.
Another way is just not getting a second opinion if you have a major problem.
And I wouldn't insist on that.
What do you have to pay somebody to come from another shop and inspect
a vehicle in somebody else's shop?
You know, it's not something that a lot of shops like to do.
Shop owners don't want to take anybody off.
But I mean, if they're asking you to spend seven or eight thousand dollars,
I don't care, you know, I'll pay him $250, $300 to come do an inspection
and give me a second opinion.
And sometimes insurance adjusters will do that.
They have mechanical repair specialists that you can pay to come
diagnose or give a second opinion on a repair.
And I don't know what they would charge for that, but that's something
that I'm going to be willing to do, especially if I have nobody else
that I can depend on.
You don't have a guru living in the house.
But you do have me.
If I can help in any way, you know how to reach me.
Text me 423-552-2020 or send me an email to LennyLawson2020 at gmail.com.
I'll see you next time.
About this episode
Lenny Lawson, a new car dealer, exposes deceptive service upsells common in dealerships aiming to boost fixed operations revenue. He explains the importance of understanding fixed coverage in dealerships and warns against unnecessary services like transmission and power steering flushes, which are often profit-driven rather than manufacturer-recommended. Lenny stresses the value of following the owner's manual for maintenance, advises on proper oil change intervals, and cautions against premature brake pad replacements and rotor turning. He encourages maintaining service at dealerships for warranty benefits and better long-term vehicle care.
