Car Repair Negotiation

Name: Victor Yoon

Negotiation: Car Repair Negotiation

Role: Customer

The Story:

I recently had car troubles, when one day my car started smoking all of a sudden.  I brought it into the dealership who diagnosed my car with an oil leak and an incidentally found coolant leak.  The repairs went smoothly, or so I was told. A few days after the repairs, my car began making a loud noise emanating from the front of the engine.  Through observation I was able to determine the noise was coming from my cooling fan.  The fan made a loud noise while starting up, but the noise stopped as soon as the fan was at a high speed.  I made an appointment and went to the dealership. While I was there, the service foreman and I examined the fan and we noted it had a crack in one of the blades. Also, along the crack was glue. It looked as if the crack on the fan had recently been repaired. The foreman made a couple notes and went into the back to look up how much a new fan would cost. During this time, I looked up prices as well, and any known issues with cooling fans.  I was also able to call another auto body shop (non-dealership) which I usually take my car to and they quoted me a price of $900 for complete repair; however, the fan would be a used one. It took some time before the foreman came back, and this was because he went to speak with the technician who originally worked on my car. The technician admitted to working in that area, and also noticed a crack in my cooling fan. According to the foreman, he was being a “good Samaritan” and glued to crack and in doing so, extended the life of the fan.  The foreman then admitted that since the fan was cracked, it was only a short time before it needed repair and quoted me a price of $1200 for repair. $800 for the fan and $400 for labor charges.  By this time I had my negotiation prepared in my head, and questions ready to ask.

The Preparation:

The Negotiation:

The dealer price was far too high in my mind for the repair especially since in my mind the technician may have broken the fan with his repair.  I started off by questioning this point: "Could the technician have inadvertently broken the fan while repairing my car? Why didn't anyone let me know that there was a crack in the fan?  Why did the tech glue the fan, shouldn't he have left it alone if it wasn't causing problems? Have you had issues with technicians damaging vehicles in the past?" The foreman was confident in the technicians story that the crack was pre-existing. He apologized for not letting me know about the crack and stated the technician was trying to save me money by being a "good Samaritan." He also said techs have been fired in the past for poor/shoddy work; however, he said this tech was not only trustworthy, but had excellent quality of work.  He again quoted me a price of $1200 and asked if I was able to leave my car. Unsatisfied, I then began to question the quality of the repair (surprisingly I was able to remember some physics). I explained that a fan has blades with a velocity that is tangential at any given moment in time to its rotation, and that by unbalancing the fan with glue, the velocity angle is changed. This unbalanced velocity makes the fan wobble; however, since the glue adds on very little weight, the imbalance is overcome with an increase in speed. Thus the fan makes a noise at a low speed when starting, which dissipates at high (normal) speed.  I spoke to the thought that the glue put on by his employee may have caused this issue to begin with. He took this into consideration and went again to speak to the technician. This gave me more time to think. I thought about fan pricing, how much a dealer buys a product for and how much a customer would pay.  From previous dealings I knew that dealers typically buy products for much less than what customers pay.  Shortly after, the foreman returned.  He told me the technician was apologetic and offered to do the labor for free, which left me the $800 purchase of the fan to get the repair done.  He again asked if I could leave my car for the repair. I began again a series of questions: "Did the technician feel that the glue caused the fan malfunction? Was the glue repair necessary? How long would I have had before I needed to replace the fan? How much does your dealership purchase the fan for?" He answered that the technician did not know if the glue was the cause nor did he know how long the fan would have lasted but that it would definitely have required replacement at some point. He had to check the computer, but he said the fan is bought for ~$450.  I told the foreman that I knew my car was an older one and that problems can arise, but that I never had a problem before my oil/coolant leak repair. Since the technician was unclear on whether his repair was causing the issue, or if I would have ever had an issue, I was only willing to replace the fan if I could buy it at dealer pricing and free labor.  He spoke with the general manager and came back to accept my offer to replace my fan for $450.