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Why you can’t get your car fixed.

Posted on May 29, 2023, jshell55

I was going to write you a nice post on the “Mom Taxi Rehab Strategy”, but it has turned into a post about why you can’t get your car fixed.

In this case we are working with a well-loved but junky 2003 Dodge Caravan. I am getting it fixed up rather than buy some expensive, newer car.

What I am finding is that it is impossible to get the transmission fixed in this thing, and it illustrates a point about management, and managing customer expectations.

Back Story

I have this 2003 Dodge Caravan Mom Taxi. This thing has served as the Family Truckster since we got it used in 2004 as a low miler. This fine vehicle has been relatively trouble free for 19 years. It has accumulated just about 200,000 miles in that time. I got tires and brakes, and that’s it. No major repairs.

The motor runs like a top, the body is solid because it has never been anywhere with salty roads, and the paint is terrible. There are a lot of little things like the tailgate cylinders and the washer motor. These things are also struggling, but cheap and easy to fix.

Long Story Short

When I got the brakes worked on, at the Pep Boys. They advised me that they couldn’t shut off the “ABS” dashboard light. This was because there was some kind of transmission issue.

So I drove it to the Aamco Transmission Place near me, and after a day or two got an estimate to rebuild the transmission.

The decision to have the work done versus get rid of the car has been made awhile back. We’re fixing this car in violation of the Clark Howard rule, which I am linking below.

Week 1 Conversation

I had dropped this thing off on a Friday. This happened the following Tuesday.

Me (Via Phone): So did you come up with anything on my junky 2003 Dodge Caravan?

Manager: Uhhh… let me go out and see what they did with it.

Me: Okay.

(A day goes by)

Manager (calling back): “We have an answer for you on this Dodge. This thing has a sticky valve and a bad pump, and there may be some other stuff. We can swap out the stuff that we know is bad, and it might work for awhile, or we could rebuild it.

Me: Well I am not surprised at this. It’s been slipping. Do you have cost estimates?

Manager: Well, it’s going to be $1500 to try to fix it, or $2300 to take the whole thing apart and rebuild it.

Me: If you do the $1500 job, and find out it doesn’t work six months down the line, how much would the rebuild job cost?

Manager: Well, it’s going to be the $2300 minus the cost of a few parts.

Me: So the extra expense of $800 now is going potentially save another $2000 or so later? That’s a 2.5:/1 risk/reward benefit. I’ll take that on a transmission because it has 200,000 miles on it.

Manager: Okay. Also, the radiator needs to replaced, but I will throw in the labor on that.

Me: Okay. Do it.

Week 2 Conversation

Me: Do you have anything on my 2003 Caravan with the transmission rebuild?

Manager: Yeah we have that thing on the bench right now. My regular rebuilder is out, and we have a new guy taking it apart. Also my regular rebuilder came up to me and reminded me that he is taking his vacation next week. I am trying to train Ramone to work in the front office and answer the phone too.

We’ll order parts and we will try to get it to you by the end of the week.

Me: Okay (thinking: who is Ramone? Why should I care if your rebuilder is on vacation. Surely you have a backup.}

Week 3 Conversation

Me (Via Text): Any word on my 2003 Dodge Caravan? Please let me know if you can’t do this job and I will make arrangements to get it done somewhere else. We are into week 3.

Manager: That’s not it. My rebuilder is ordering parts.

Me: Fine. Can you tell me how long it will be?

Manager: Sometime between Wednesday and Friday.

Friday Conversation

Me (via text): It’s Friday now. I am ready to pick up my van. When can I come and get it?

Manager: I am away from the office today. I will check on this and let you know.

(No returned call)

The Aamco Business Model

So what we’ve learned is that at this place, you can’t get your car fixed, despite the advertising and signage. I understand the complexity of the problem, and the parts issues. But, what I don’t understand is the lack of a straight answer from the manager.

This company started in1957 and became one of the pioneers of this business model. Originally this company specialized in transmissions. They have franchisees, who are licensed by the central entity.

The theory was that by standardiing branding, offering a nationwide warranty, and specializing in this type of service, there would be perceived risk reduction on the part of the consumer. This could be a “trusted brand” that was an alternative to the expensive dealership doing the work.

This was facilitated by catchy advertising and therefore the company has become a household name.

You, too, can be a franchisee. There is a link down below.

IEP Corporation

IEP stands for Icahn Enterprises. This company was founded by Carl Icahn, one of the big corporate raiders from the 80’s. Icahn Enterprises bought the Aamco stock in 2017. It is now publicly traded, and headquartered in Florida.

This company is affectionately referred to as a “diversified investment company.” I’ve linked their Yahoo Finance article down below. The two original fellows who founded the company in back of a service station in Pennsylvania are no longer in the picture.

I have talked about this in the past. The corporate reputation of risk reduction is something that was hard earned, and had some economic value. That is because the management was engaged, and it meant something to them to efficiently provide the service.

But now it is now. No one knows who owns it. The perceived brand value has been captured by a corporate raider, because it was not valued properly in the marketplace.

I had a name for that awhile back. Also, at the ground level, it’s problematic because there’s no relationship between the crew and the actual owners.

Why Your Lunch Is Late

We can also relate this idea. The “management” of this place is a local franchisee. Firstly, does this franchisee need to know anything about transmissions? Of course not. As part of the business model, these places are locally owned and operated. The Franchisee signs up for the branding and advertising, they pay a franchise fee, and they are in business.

They believe, as part of the business model, that they can hire competent store managers. They also believe that they can hire qualified transmission repair people. The literature from the Main Office tries to convince them of this.

Because of things being what they are, the traditional business model in the franchise outfits is starting to break down. There is a shortage of this type of worker right now because the target demographic, namely 18-30 year old males, don’t want to work on cars for a living.

If you want a model on a better way to do this, there is one linked below about the number one company in Fast Food. This company is in the position they are in because they are very selective about their franchisees. They also spend double their competition on training. Because they hire on character, their workplaces are pleasant, and have half of the turnover of their competition as well.

Why you can’t get your car fixed

I can’t get my car fixed because of the following:

The franchisee is disengaged. He hired his best worker as a manager, and he is not all that effective of a manager. (I am estimating that it is a “he” but the franchisee could also be a “she.”)
The manager is unable to deal with the issues in the economy and/or the labor force. These are well known, and I have provided a link below. This is just a theory of course. I don’t really know this fellow’s life story but I am saying the evidence is he is over his head as a manager, even though he is a nice enough guy.
Rather than admit this, and be honest with me, the customer, the managment wuuld prefer to obscure the truth. If he had said “Jim, to tell the truth, I don’t konw when in the hell I can fix your car.” I would have respected that.

Side Point: In the ISO standard, the clause 8.2.3 contract review was set up for just this reason. It requires some process for determining a simple thing: Is the business capable of accepting an order within its scope?

In this case, the world’s largest transmission repair service is either unable to do the job, and much to my annoyance it can’t tell me otherwise.

Feedback is Broken

We’ve talked about this before too. It is possible that the franchisee is customer-driven. Maybe the message hasn’t filtered down to the operational level. It’s in his interest to provide good service, because he wants to protect his investment. So, I could, if I wanted to, send the link to this blog, to see what he or she has to say.

This might be useful, because this is the only way the franchisee knows that he or she is running a dysfunctional organization. In fact, if I don’t do that, I am contributing to the problem in a way.

Entrenched Mediocrity

Here’s the real problem. This is why you can’t get your car fixed.

The system, such as it is, is being operated in a mediocre manner. The people making decisions can’t or won’t change it.

In a better world, customer complaints would result in better business performance and/or more honest customer information. Workers would get better working conditions, because management would be interested in keeping them. Managers and franchisees would do a better job of customer service, because the market would reward that.

A year or two ago I went through the same problem with one of my other cars. I took it to a local businessman whose name was on the door, because I thought that would be better. But, it was just as bad.

I shouldn’t complain. one man’s screwup is another man’s revenue stream.

What would fix it?

Well, since I am authoritative on organizational inertia, I have a suggestion.

The first part of the job is top management commitment. In this case it involves knowing who the top manager is, but that can be deduced. We’ll start with the franchisee.

Once top management is committed, they could, conceivably, adopt and improve a quality management system that has a process for contract review, which would involve customer communication. A system of metrics could be developed to determine if the business was operating effectively. If there are performance deficiencies, the management would have a way of identifying this, and taking action or corrective actions. They would track “on time delivery” and “warranty work” and decide whether they were doing their jobs.

At some point in the day, if infrastructure and environmental conditions needed to be improved, they could do that. They could review the employee competence, including the local site leadership.

All of these things, including customer feedback, could be tracked and records kept.

Continual Improvement

They could even have this system checked by a third party, knowledgeable person, who could see how effectively the self-measuring and improvement processes are working. This could even involve a review between top management and key people so that everyone is on the same page. I can assure you that Chick Fil A has site auditors and secret shoppers that do exactly that.

If the management is committed, even if the place was a mess right now, they could change in a controlled way. The franchise setup is supposed to do all of this but evidently there has been some gap in process compliance.

Anyway, I know someone who can help organize all of this, for a price. Click the link. For the price of a little training, because I can get you off to a good start.

www.jimshell.com/