They’re reading what customers post online and using it to figure out what’s going wrong. Then they change how they do things so future customers don’t have the same bad experience.
In dealership service, “customer experience” covers how customers feel throughout the process—communication, responsiveness, clarity on what’s happening, and how staff treat them. The segment emphasizes that even when service is technically correct, poor communication can still drive negative reviews.
It means the shop should keep you informed and explain things clearly. If they don’t tell you what’s happening (or they do it inconsistently), customers get frustrated.
“Voice of the consumer” is a way of summarizing customer feedback—often from reviews, surveys, and other public or collected data—to find patterns. Here, it’s used to identify that communication and staff behavior are the biggest drivers of service satisfaction.
It’s when talking to the service shop feels hard or frustrating. For example, you might not get clear updates or you may feel like nobody is explaining things.
The report described in the segment analyzes dealership performance by looking at Google reviews over time. It then uses topics and keywords to classify issues as positive or negative, which helps identify what customers are repeatedly upset about.
It’s basically when a shop can’t tell you clearly when your car will be ready. If they give vague answers, customers get upset because they can’t plan their day.
Wait time is just how long you sit there before your car is ready. If the shop is slow, it’s often because of planning and parts, not because the job itself takes forever.
An oil change is when a shop replaces the old engine oil with fresh oil. It helps keep the engine lubricated and healthy, and it’s usually one of the quickest services to do.
An apprenticeship is a training program where someone learns a job by working with experienced people. For a dealership, it can mean training future techs to help the shop run better.
Internships are temporary, often school-linked work experiences that expose students to real-world tasks. In dealership service departments, internships can support staffing needs while giving students hands-on exposure to automotive work.
Chevrolet is a major American brand under General Motors, and “Chevrolet dealer” refers to its franchised dealership network. Service experiences can vary by dealer, but the pricing and process are often dealership-standard.
Cadillac is GM’s luxury brand. The speaker is basically saying if you show up at a luxury dealership with a different brand, you might not get the same treatment.
This is the early company that Charles Rolls and Henry Royce formed. It’s basically the beginning of the Rolls-Royce name you know today for ultra-luxury cars.
BMW is a German car company, but it didn’t start out making cars. It began by building aircraft-related engineering, and that know-how carried over when they started making vehicles.
The Dodge Charger is a type of car that was built for strong acceleration and bold styling. In 1968, it got a redesign, which is why people often talk about that specific year. It’s remembered as one of the famous muscle cars from that era.
A “four speed transmission” means the car has four forward gears. More gears usually help the engine run more efficiently, especially at highway speeds.
Tesla is a company that makes electric cars and is also working on self-driving technology. Here, they’re mentioned because their ride-hailing rollout is taking longer than expected.
Robot taxis are self-driving cars that act like taxis. The idea is to let the car handle the driving while passengers just get in and go.
LIVE
Welcome to another In-Wheel Time podcast.
This is your place for all things automotive, the award-winning In-Wheel Time car talk show.
Just ahead, our story of the week.
Later, Jeff has the racing calendar, Mars has this week in auto history,
and I'll have the stories making automotive news headlines.
Howdy, along with Mike, out of this world, Mars,
we always need more Jeff Zeekin, Chief Engineer David Ainsley,
and Don Armstrong, so glad that you could join us for our live version of this show,
right here on this Saturday morning.
It's a pleasant Saturday here in Houston, Texas.
We've got a big cruise in coming up next week.
It's the Easter tailpipes and tacos cruise in at the Lupi Tortilla in Cady.
Time now for our story of the week.
Okay, gather around the people.
Mr. Mars, are you back with us?
Yes, sir.
Okay, because I'd like for you to participate in this if we have a little discussion here.
Oh, I got lots of things to say today.
Apparently not, Mike, but that's okay.
Oh, you talk about here.
Oh, okay, okay.
Well, I'm not sure about here, there, anywhere at this point of the day.
I understand.
So here's the story of the week.
Communication breakdowns topped customer complaints about dealership service departments in 2025
appearing in nearly half of all negative online reviews.
This is a story from Automotive News.
That finding is prompting service managers to mine social media feedback for operational fixes,
and some, including Shanahan Westfall, are responding to every review personally.
Westfall, general manager of Herring Gear Infinity in Jackson, Mississippi,
takes social media comments about his dealership seriously.
He sees them as an opportunity to improve customer experience, especially if they're negative.
He says, you may get a review in there where you're like, oops, we goofed up on that one, he said.
And that's an opportunity for him, me, he says, to pick up the phone and just talk to that customer.
Clear and consistent communication is crucial to good customer experiences, experts say.
Unclear or infrequent information is still a major gripe customers have with their service experience.
The 2026 voice of the Consumer Report by Reputation Management firm, Wide Whale found.
Pardon me.
The two biggest drivers of consumer experience are communications and staff, they said.
Communication friction was the top issue customers had with the service department in 2025, according to Wide Whale.
Staff related concerns ranked second.
A report analyzed dealerships monthly Google reviews in 2025 and identified specific topics and key words to determine which issues appeared and whether they were positive or negative.
In the report, communication was mentioned in 49% of negative service reviews, followed by staff mentioned in 40% of negative reviews.
Jeff, I don't like the way you talk to me.
Hmm.
That kind of stuff.
Yeah.
So the attitude starting before the attitude starts.
Yeah.
You got an attitude going in.
Customers frequently complain online about unclear repair timelines.
Well, if you ask the service department, so how long do you think this repair is going to take?
And they say, 10 minutes.
I'm going, who did you talk to?
How do you know?
Well, it's right here on my rundown and my screen.
Did you actually call and talk to somebody about that?
Is it true?
10 minutes?
Yeah.
I don't know if a dealership that fixes anything in 10 minutes.
Well, you gotta.
You can't park the car in 10 minutes.
I know.
Pretty much.
Speed is no longer a differentiator.
It's a baseline expectation.
It recommends fixed ops teams pivot from managing the clock to managing the experience.
Other dealerships are following a similar approach.
Stevens Cook Toyota part of American Motors Group.
American Motors Group?
Hmm.
Okay.
That's a group of dealers, I assume.
Negative social media comments helped Joe Castellano, the group's vice president fixed
operations identify where his Toyota dealership was letting customers down on wait times.
The Northern California Group has three Toyota dealerships, two Volkswagen stores, and a
single Chevy Cadillac and Alfa Romeo store.
His Toyota dealerships advertised a 45 minute oil change, but a customer complained on
social media that theirs took an hour and a half.
That prompted Castellano to say, let's go really take a look at where we messed up.
By keeping the parts in the bays and having a 99% accuracy in parts billing, they were
able to shave off 15 to 20 minutes in an oil change, he said.
Wow.
They trimmed an additional seven minutes from 12 minutes to five minutes off the oil change
by using a quick drain plug that they installed in all of the cars that they sold.
There's a solution to this from the beginning and that he shouldn't even have to do that.
There's a process problem with the dealership.
If it's a large dealership, you would need, well, let me back this up.
If it's a small dealership, I get what he's doing, a personal touch.
Hey, me and you, mono and mile, let's go for a cup of coffee, blah, blah, blah.
If it's a large dealership or a chain, say like your classics or your group ones, you're
going to have a committee that does that.
If you've got multiple locations like your Honda, your Chevy, your Cadillac, all that
you name there, you've got a committee for that.
You've got a CSI committee, you've got phone numbers that relate just for those complaints.
So in this particular case, if he's doing that and making sure that they have the
proper parts on time in the bays, that's a process problem for that dealership.
That's not a people problem.
The people need to learn and they need to be instructed on how to do that.
We used to have a, call it process improvement committee.
They would look at it and say, here's this function that we do.
How can we make it better, streamline it, whatever?
Let's have a meeting to find out what our next meeting is.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Well, back in my day, which was a long time ago, the guy's name was Charlie.
Was he the blacksmith?
He was the quote unquote dispatcher.
Yeah.
So all of the cars that came in with multiple problems, he'd put all this stuff down on
his sheet along with all of the other stuff that was in the shop.
And he would assign, you know, this repair guy to do this job, this repair guy to do
this job and this repair guy to do that.
So today, I think it's much simpler.
And most of the guys that do these things other than oil changes and routine stuff like that,
that one guy does it all.
He had an AC tech or two techs.
That's all they did was the AC jobs for that shop or front end or whatever.
Front end line.
Exactly.
Yeah.
But I think, but, but these days, I think that, you know, a main line mechanic does all
of the heavy duty stuff like front end aligns, break jobs, you know,
intake manifold stuff.
They do it all.
They have apprentice programs.
They have internships.
So make them part of that process to improve that dealership.
You know, you got somebody that's maybe being paid minimum wage.
They're, you know, a sponsorship or a co-op through a school.
Let them be part of that process and have those wins when they make things better for
the dealer.
Hello, Lawrence.
I will say one thing though that about the story that I'm kind of not real thrilled
with.
I mean, they're using feedback through social media and that's where they're getting their
comments from.
And when I worked for a big communications company, we learned that people hiding at
the time, they were,
What communications company was that?
Well, it used to be called South Western Bell before it got overtaken by AT&T.
But we learned that, you know, I had people in New York and people in California.
So we did a lot of conference calls.
We learned that people would hide behind the phone.
I mean, they could sit there and say a lot of things.
If they're not looking at you eye to eye, they got a lot more guts to say something.
Exactly.
And if you're hiding behind a keyboard, it's even more.
I mean, just look at any of your social media accounts and see how nasty people are.
A lot of things, they would never say that to somebody to their face, but they'll say
it on the keyboard.
So you have to kind of look at what you're trying to work with, how much value is it
because it's costing you at least $150 an hour if you're a dealer.
But Mike, I think with these things, these are actual complaints.
These aren't people just making stuff up just to diss somebody's dealership.
I think these are actual.
Yeah, I did have a problem with that with a 10 minute or one change, whatever the case.
Yeah, I understand.
But that's what I'm saying.
You got to kind of balance that because I used to spend some time at the Chevrolet
dealer because I grew up with a guy who was a service manager and we would trade stories
during the day.
And I watched a lot of people that he knew that we went to school with real nice guys
out on the street, but it's like they put a foot on that parking lot of that dealership.
They became total jerks.
Yeah.
And they would stay that away and then you'd see them later on in the evening at the restaurant
or something.
Hey, how are you doing after they just cuss you out all day?
I'm familiar with that.
Yeah, not in a dealership though.
Yeah.
But I am familiar with that attitude thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If somebody kiss you on the cheek and then turn around and reprimand you and threaten
you with your job.
Yeah.
What is that?
And it's of course how they do it and stuff.
I mean, it's one thing for somebody to tell you they had a problem with something that
happened in your shop.
But it's another thing for them to tell you you're a low-lying rotten SOB because they
had a problem in your shop.
I mean.
Mike, somebody said that to you.
But they mentioned in a good Christian way.
In a good Christian way.
Yeah.
That's when I started calling in quarterly meetings.
Everybody came in to San Antonio.
We sit down across from the table.
Now, what do you got to say?
Things changed a little bit.
Yeah.
No doubt about it.
Well, I think that part of being a manager is to understand that, hey, I've got a problem
here.
Everybody, we tout the fact that these are 30-minute oil changes to compete with all of the oil
change places out there.
We're a dealership.
We should do better than that.
It's a person waiting for an hour and a half.
Where did that break down?
And we told them that it would be 30 minutes.
And now they're waiting an hour and a half to have the oil changed.
No.
And if they've got an oil change special and they screw that up, shame on them because
they don't make a lot of money if money at all on an oil change.
It's a halo effect.
They want to pull your brakes.
They want to look at your exhaust system.
They want to check the car out.
Or get you in a new car showroom for a few minutes while you're waiting.
If you're screwing something up that simple, maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, you definitely got a problem there.
Unfortunately, the way that new cars are sold today, especially if you're on a leaseholder,
then you're going to go into the dealership when the car says it's time for an oil change
and you expect the oil change to happen quickly, not all day.
Yeah.
Particularly if you've got an appointment.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And in most dealerships, I think most people these days are used to the fact that you really
need to have an appointment.
And what's wrong with that?
We didn't have appointments.
We had to have a line of cars all the way out to the feeder road.
That's for while.
For instance, mines through General Motors, through a Buick dealership, Buick GMC.
I do make an appointment because it is that brand.
If you were a guy off the street and like the Maverick going into a Cadillac store,
yeah, they're going to treat you a little different and probably put you behind.
When I think of Mavericks, all I think of is not the truck.
The car.
The original Maverick car.
We're very cool also.
I drive one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But you wouldn't be fixing it.
You'd have Mars auto mechanic guys.
Mars wouldn't touch it.
No, not Mars.
It is mechanic.
No.
Not afford.
No.
But no, you're right.
I mean, most of the walk-ins back in our day was everybody.
You didn't make many appointments.
But nowadays, I believe that if you break, you don't make an appointment.
You just go to the dealership.
Otherwise, it is by appointment as far as I know all of them.
Yes.
Yes.
Once you're in, once you got your foot in the door and the car's in the loop, so to speak,
then they pretty much take it from there.
And it's up to the service advisor.
If you want to call them that, I guess that's what you call them today.
Yeah, I think they still call them that.
Then it's up to that service advisor to relay to you the information.
Hey, our tech looked at your car and they're going to have to pass it on to another tech.
He's a little bit backed up.
So it's going to cost us a few more hours today.
Hopefully, we'll have it back.
But I wouldn't bank on that.
I think that tomorrow would be a better timeline for you.
Yeah.
Or depending on the issue, too.
If it's electrically, it's going to take a little longer to chase that down.
If it's something like maybe a mapping unit or sensing unit or something,
they could probably knock that out for you.
But depending on the issue, too.
Yeah.
Well, there is that.
Yeah, those computers.
Who replaced your exhaust manifolds on the truck?
A shop here in town.
So is not a dealership?
No, no, no.
I wouldn't go to a dealer for that.
I mean, it was it was expensive, but I went to somebody.
So why wouldn't you go to a dealer for that?
Because I found somebody that had done it on his own truck and knew what to do.
And he had ordered and bought the proper tools to do it.
So is he a mechanic that other people go to?
Or is he?
Yeah.
No, no.
He's got a shop that he runs.
He wouldn't.
He doesn't do any more of them.
I mean, he did mine because I take the granddaughter's cars in there when I can't fix something.
So he did it as a favor, but he said he won't normally do it because it's if he's afraid
he'll break a bolt.
And even though he's got the tap and die and it's like a template that he puts on the
motor so that he can keep everything straight.
And but he's afraid if he ever does break one that he's love will buy somebody a motor.
So he don't do it very often.
I see.
Okay.
Well, it's interesting to note.
Thank you, sir.
Yeah.
That was good.
Yeah.
All right.
Just ahead.
Jeff has the racing calendar.
Mars has this week in auto history.
And I got lots of news stories.
We're going to get a few of them in here coming up on the in wheel time car talk show.
We'll be back right after this.
The Easter bunnies coming to the tailpipes and tacos cruise in at the loopy tortilla
Tex-Max and Katie April 4th 8 to 11 a.m.
And you're invited to bring the kids and grandkids.
It's a cruise in like you've never attended before with the donation to Shirley's kids.
You'll get a free loopy tortilla breakfast taco.
They'll be coffee and adult beverages plus chili pepper trophies for the best hot rod best
modern classic and best classic.
There's no entry fee and no registration.
Just bring your ride and the kids.
Bad bunnies aren't allowed.
But the Easter bunny will be there and he'll be full of joy to help make this tailpipes
and tacos a very special photo opportunities about.
The in wheel time car talk show will be streaming around the globe and you can be selected to
tell your car story to a global audience.
It's the tailpipes and tacos cruise in Easter edition Saturday April 4th 8 to 11 a.m.
at the loopy tortilla Tex-Max and Katie located on 99 the Grand Parkway just south of I-10
and the Katie freeway in Katie.
Make plans now loopy tortilla is pretty cool.
A is going April 9th through the 12th and they're going to wait a minute.
Why did you pit?
Oh, the bomb blew up the pit.
I'm sorry.
Never mind.
It's not pits.
It's potholes.
Potholes.
There you go.
And then like I just said, NHRA April 9th through the 12th and they're at the Winter Nationals
in and out burger at Pomona.
And that should pretty much wrap that stuff up.
But they're there.
It's very hard to be a fan following it when they're delayed or take.
They're on.
I don't know.
I don't know who clearly no one in their right mind would sign a television contract with
somebody like FS one.
Oh, we're on FS one.
Well, I don't care.
There's a.
I can't get FS one.
I choose not to pay for the subscription.
And beyond that, you've got you.
Okay, I'm going to watch a specific auto racing series and you turn it on at two o'clock
and there's a Tiddly Winks championship from Alaska for another 20 minutes because they
went into overtime.
Now, who is going to stay for that?
Well, there is that.
It just grinds me.
Well, yeah, it grinds me to that this television stuff.
I don't know who writes the contract.
You know, I think that the series, the racing series, whichever one it is in particular,
NHRA comes to mind.
Oh, well, if you want to watch the race online, then you're going to have to pay for that.
Why?
Because here's here's the deal.
Why not take the income from the sponsorship online as opposed to having me buy the stupid
ticket to get online to watch your stupid race?
And it's not only in racing, but it's in other sports, too, because of the baseball MLB.
Certain ball games are going to be on Apple TV rather than regular TV.
So there we go.
Well, trade other sports.
And a lot of that is it's whoever's writing the contract.
They're not worried about actual viewership per se.
Guess who that is, Mike?
A lawyer.
Exactly.
All he's looking at is bottom line numbers.
So you say you're going to pay me this much for my content that I'm going to give to you.
And that's what they look for.
It just it's a weird business model because it's wrong.
So we went from the racing calendar to don't do it again.
Well, that's right.
We can we can spend a lot of time doing that if we want.
Well, instead of doing that, why don't we move on to this week in auto history?
We can do that.
Where are we at, Michael?
Right here.
Here we go.
Here we go.
Yes, sir.
Got it.
Got it.
We're good.
So this week in auto history, so we want to start with March 22, 1904.
The slides are not working, Jeff.
Can you try it?
Yes, sir.
So in 1904, Rolls Royce Limited was announced.
Now, what this was, I always kind of wondered about this, but Charles Rolls and Henry Royce
are the ones that feel that made the partnership.
Now, this wasn't a hip hop group or anything, but it's Rolls Royce Limited.
You know, they one of them was a real big in engineering and the other one had a little.
Wait a minute.
Didn't Rolls Royce do car wash?
That's it.
That's what I was thinking about.
I knew it was something.
Rolls Royce.
Rolls.
So this is the beginning of the beginning of the very prestigious luxury automobile that's
out there in the world today.
So then going on, we're going to go up to 1916.
Now, this is when BMW was founded.
Now, they actually started as an aircraft engineering manufacturer.
So that was real big airline.
Airplanes were becoming up and they were building motors for them.
And that's where they got their engineering expertise, per se, become known as an engineering.
So when they began to build cars, then it all carried over in how well the engineering
was and the enthusiast benchmarks that they were on and their engineering excellence.
Then in 1965, Ford, here you go, Jeffrey Ford Motor Company introduces the LPD.
I got that just for you, Jeff.
I found that one.
And there you go.
That's a beauty.
So the LPD was a luxury oriented, full size car.
When full size cars were full size.
And it started bringing the upscale features to the broader market, such as the family
and the station wagons and to bring in that little bit of luxury into the American sedans.
And it's an era when the comfort size and smooth V8 power defined success for these vehicles.
Then moving up to 1968, Dodge Charger got a redesign.
Now, the red car in the top left hand corner of your screen there, that is the new design.
And then right below it, you're going to see a couple of shots of the older design, the 6667.
And how it changed so much and became actually much more popular with the newer designs
than what it had.
Some of the years had hidden headlights that when it first came out had the aggressive styling
and it kind of looked more racy than the other ones did.
So this was a real good move for the Dodge Charger.
And this is what you're going to see in most of the movies that and have that car as a feature car.
Then in 1970, the Datsun Datsun, however you want to say it depends on Texas.
Hey, I got me Datsun over here.
Well, I had a Datsun B210 for a while.
God, I'm sure you had a Datsun B210.
So the 240Z was really growing in popularity.
It was really everybody wanted one of these because it was a little two seater.
It was a hot little car.
It ran really well.
Had the four speed transmission.
It was just a cool car to have.
And it really brought in a lot of the other Japanese automakers as people started looking at this.
They said, well, let me look at see what else is out there.
My brother had several.
He might still have one.
Good for him.
It'd be a good thing to have.
Then in 1993, Dodge redid the Ram truck.
Now, this is the new Ram truck design whenever they went to the big truck style, if you will.
The big rig inspired grill and the big muscular stance with a broad rolling fender wells on them.
What year was this?
1993.
And it kind of changed.
It changed everything Dodge did and some of the others, they didn't really copy that.
But if you look at them now, they really did kind of go to that bigger, bolder styles, particularly like in the front ends and stuff.
You can't hardly see it in the hood.
They're huge.
You can't even get them in the damn garage.
You can't check the oil hardly without having a stepladder.
So that was this week in automotive history.
Some of the things that we found that we thought were rather interesting.
Learn something new every day.
All right, for all you baseball fans, Major League Baseball has gone to the bullpen after more than two decades of having Chevrolet as one of its top sponsors.
Ford is replacing Chevy as MLB's official auto partner.
As a matter of fact, the sponsorship includes everything from the World Series to Little League Baseball and Softball.
An organization already supported locally by many of its dealers.
The automaker also will be the presenting sponsor of MLB's July 4th celebration for the nation's 250th anniversary.
The partnership is about honoring tradition while putting Ford CMO, Lisa Matarazzo.
Chief marketing officer.
I was wondering what that was.
So when the commercial starts, see the USA in your LTD.
Yeah, your LTD.
That's it.
Your Galaxy.
Mustang.
That's it.
Zoos will start testing its purpose-built robot taxis in Miami and Austin, part of a coast-to-coast expansion, as rival Tesla faces delays in its autonomous ride-hailing rollout across seven U.S. cities.
Have you seen a Zoos?
No.
Oh, my God.
You saw the other one, though.
It looks like a phone booth with wheels sticking out at the front and the back.
It is just a horrendous-looking thing.
I wouldn't get in it.
I'd rather walk.
Zoos is also growing its current service areas in San Francisco.
And Las Vegas, where its carriage-style vehicles have driven a combined 350,000 miles.
Wow.
The service in Austin and Miami will begin in limited areas with its purpose-built robot taxi, as the company said.
Zoos has tested in those cities since mid-2024 using separate fleet vehicles.
Oh, my God.
When you see this thing, you got to go, uh, no?
San Francisco is all the hills.
It's on the side of a mountain.
Well, no, it's fitting for San Francisco.
Actually, any place in California.
Um, you already-no, let me do this.
Dealership employees who post about vehicles for sale in their personal accounts could put the stores in legal jeopardy if they don't follow certain rules.
Federal Trade Commission will treat advertising generated by employees as though it came from the dealership itself.
Dealership advertising has come under intense scrutiny since March 13th when the FTC announced Christopher Muff Rage,
director of the agency's Bureau of Consumer Protection, sent letters to 97 dealer groups on the suspicion that they violated at least one of six illegal advertising practices.
If you advertise it, you better sell it at the price that you advertised.
It does not include tax.
Okay.
Just like you would go to the grocery store, you pay taxes on your groceries, you pay taxes on your car.
Yeah, sales tax.
It's the only exception to the rule.
If you say we've got a brand new Ford F-150 on sale here for $40,000, you better sell it for that price and it better be on the lot.
On the lot.
That's another one of those rules.
Yeah.
So be looking forward.
Lost leader.
Yeah.
To more stupid stuff.
Dealer trades.
And Stellantis, North America design head, Scott Kruger said, the automaker is still passionate about Chrysler, which has had to scrape by as a mini van only brand since discontinuing the 300 sedan in 2023.
During an overview of the company's design operations, Kruger said Chrysler is very much alive and well, and that his team has been busy behind the scenes.
He declined to share any details about the plans for the brand's future ahead of a Stellantis investor presentation coming up in May.
I think they're coming back, to be honest with you.
They need a luxury arm.
They need a shot in the keyster to get them going there.
All right.
Hey, we'd love to hear from you.
Just shoot us an email.
The address is info at InwheelTime.com.
We are back after this break.
We'll go.
Join us.
About this episode
Dealership service departments are getting called out for “service fairy tales” like 10-minute oil changes that turn into hour-and-a-half waits. The show highlights a 2025 review analysis finding communication issues dominate negative feedback, with staff concerns close behind. Guests discuss how managers can respond to reviews, but also how process problems—parts availability, bay flow, billing accuracy—can be fixed to cut real time. The rest covers racing TV frustrations, auto history (Rolls-Royce, BMW, Ford, Charger, Datsun 240Z, Ram redesign), plus MLB switching sponsors to Ford and Zoox expanding robot taxis.
Half of the frustration people feel at a dealership service department often comes down to one thing: nobody tells them what is actually going on. We dig into a new wave of customer complaints and online reviews that call out unclear updates, shifting timelines, and the awkward silence that starts the moment your car disappears into the bays. We talk about what great service advisor communication looks like, why “fast” is now a baseline expectation, and how the best fixed operations teams focus on managing the customer experience instead of just watching the clock.
From there, we get practical about the real-world stuff that causes the blowups, like the “45-minute oil change” that turns into an hour and a half. We break down how process problems (parts staging, bay flow, billing accuracy, tools) create delays, and how smart dealers use reputation management and direct follow-up to turn a negative moment into a loyalty win, without getting dragged into keyboard fights.
Then we shift gears into pure car culture: Jeff’s racing calendar (NASCAR, IndyCar, Formula 1, NHRA) plus a rant on fragmented broadcasts and subscriptions, followed by Mike’s 'This week in Auto H'istory featuring Rolls-Royce, BMW, the Ford LTD, the Dodge Charger redesign, the Datsun 240Z, and the 1993 Ram reboot.
We wrap with news you’ll want on your radar, from Ford becoming MLB’s official auto partner to Zoox robotaxi testing and FTC scrutiny on dealer advertising.
Subscribe, share this with a friend who lives in the service lane, and leave us a review. What is the one thing a dealership could say that would instantly make you trust them more?
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