Any Kia Managers out there?

[Art_Mopar]

Are there any Kia Service Managers out there? I have a few general questions to ask.

[Jon]

We are Kia. I was Fixed Ops Manager until recently and will gladly try to answer your questions. If I can't answer something I can probably get you answers from the former Service Manager of the Kia store we absorbed a year ago (he works for us now as sort of Assistant Svc. Mgr.). I don't always check the board every day so don't fear if it takes a couple of days for me to answer your post.

Jon

[Jon]

Hi Art,

I tried the website listed under your contact info and got a 404 error so I don't have any other way to contact you. Post a reply here and add other contact info if you want.

Jon

[Art_Mopar]

Jon,
Sorry for the delay in responding. Long story short I am trying to get the Kia Service & Parts back from our sister store and was just trying to get an idea as to what the "benchmarks" are. All I keep hearing from my counterpart is that Kia is all warranty work. While it may be true that the "Kia Customer" may be a Special Breed, the fact of the matter is we are currently writing 1 warranty claim for every 2 customer pay ro's (including New Vehicle Prep).

[Jon]

Art,

I don't have good benchmarks to share, in our case we had a much smaller standalone facility that we merged into a bigger facility and then added a brand new franchise to the mix - all within the last 14 months. The numbers from the old store aren't really reliable and the new numbers are just too new!
That said, current Kia is NOT all warranty work anymore. They are metamorphosing as a company by leaps and bounds, they moved up 10 spots in initial quality in a year with the goal of being in the top 3 in another 2 years. I don't doubt that they will make it, the biggest obstacle will probably be that it is a moving target - everyone else keeps getting better too.
If your sister store has a lot of vehicles out that are just old enough to still be in warranty but were built when quality was not up to what Kia is building now, you may still have more than the average amount of warranty. I don't know your market.
Sorry I can't give you a better answer off the cuff. If you have a specific question I will try to share what I can with you, contact me directly via email, jdyer AT countryclubimports DOT com.

Jon

[thecurrent]

Greetings Art!

I am the Service Manager at a newly aquired KIA dealership. We have only had this store open since January this year.
KIA customers are in fact a different breed. I have always heard about the "KIA is mostly warranty" or "KIA customers are cheap". This might have been true with KIA 10-12 years ago, or dealers just automaticly assume this since they have heard it so many times. So far we have done extremely well with customer pay.
I am not sure about any benchmarks for your average KIA dealership yet but we have been pretty far in the green each month so far.

Tell your counterpart to be more optimistic! KIA is definitely not what it used to be.
Good luck with it!