Ed Bobit's Publisher's Page

Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere audel (Dare to know.) "Have courage to use your own reason!" - that is the motto of enlightenment. Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics of Morals, London, 1909.

Too often I have fell prey to a sympathetic feeling after listening to another of the volume of reports surrounding a car's poor quality and the difficulty in getting it repaired. Surely, it is about as exasperating as anything can be when a company or an individual invests three or four thousand dollars for a new car and then finds out within an hour or a week that it isn't perfect. And then makes an appointment with the dealership, waits in line for the service manager's doleful look and hopes he has some transportation to get to work.

Then you get back to the dealership and often find a variety of problems have arisen; they do not have a special part; they temporarily cannot find your car; you wait what seems an intolerable length of time to pay your bill. And there are others.

Improper repair or service work is indeed a constant challenge to the automotive service industry. John C. Bates, director of the service section of GM's Marketing Staff states, "About half of all customer complaints on dealer service arise from owners having to return to the dealership because the work wasn't done right the first time."

That statement, presumably based on research, is interesting by itself but wouldn't it be equally interesting to find out what the other half of the complaints are tied to?

Bates has some suggestions for dealers such as keeping records on customer complaints to see what trends are developing; knowing precisely who is responsible for the service work in the shop; and establishing a quality control action plan that would provide for strict accountability for the quality of work and the meeting of promises to the customer. Now those are admirable objectives and I feel certain that all of us support them.

M. S. 'Matt' McLaughlin, vice president-Sales Group, of the Ford Motor Company, calls on both the dealers and the auto manufacturers to recognize and appreciate the frustration and misunderstanding of customers who feel the industry is not sufficiently sensitive to their needs. He says, "If we fail to let our customers, the public and the government know the way it really is from the perspective of the showroom, the assembly line, the test track and the monthly statement, we can expect to be subjected to costly suspicion, attacks and restriction."

A salute to Jim Mancuso, a successful Chevrolet dealer and a longtime active member and officer of NADA; he says he is sick and tired of hearing about bad automobile service and challenges Betty Bay (director of Federal State-Relations for the Office of Consumer Affairs) for her castigation of the industry for poor service.

Mancuso accurately points out that there are more than a 100 million vehicles operating in the U.S. today; most of which are safe operable vehicles. He states that service and repair shops successfully performed over 358,900,000 repair jobs last year in addition to the necessary service on the ten million new cars placed into service and more than twenty million more used cars that were sold. He feels that less than one per cent of car operators are voicing complaints. He cogently suggests that if the government is t r u ly interested in solving consumer complaints, they may want to start with the Postal Service where the percentage of dissatisfied consumers is infinitely higher. I agree.

While there are a number of problems that the makers, dealers and independent service shops face today, one of the largest is experienced mechanical help; and the recruitment and training of mechanics.

Five years from now there will be at least 100,000 more auto mechanics on payrolls according to Robert H. Kline, director of service for Chrysler Corp.'s U.S. Automotive Sales & Service Group. He said the number of cars and trucks on the streets may be expected to reach 121 million by 1977. Only a few years ago the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics warned that unless the work force of auto mechanics grew along with the pace of new car sales there would be only one mechanic for every 133 vehicles by 1975 instead of the needed one mechanic for every 80 vehicles.

Kline properly points out that "The number of cars and trucks on the streets has been growing at an average rate of 3.4 million a year, but there are now only about 600,000 mechanics working — a ratio of one mechanic for every 170 vehicles."

Obviously, the industry is falling way behind and the new emission controls will add to the already overburdened service work. Perhaps it is an area of the industry that never will be effectively solved. But at least we can understand why.