Jumping ship

[dropdeaddart]

I feel like it is time for a change in my dealership life.
I would just like to know from any bodies previous experiences, what dealer is closest to Chrysler, and which dealer is the farthest away from the brand?
Do you guys find it better to work for a group dealer or an individual owner?

[CMayne]

I can only give you input on the "small" family owned Dealers. 43.5 years in the parts business, 40.5 years in the dealerships, ALL family owned. If I have just been lucky I can not say but that does cover 3 Dealers in that 40 years (over 27 at this one) and in each and every one of them I have been in I was treated with the greatest respect for my knowledge and "fortitude". When you are treated that way is is easy to treat the customer that way and 99.9% of the time that will create a return customer. After dealing with the "corporate" scenario from the outside I can tell you I would last about 2 days (stretching it) before I would tell someone where to put it, of which I have been well known to do!
Best of luck in your change and remember:
We'll leave the light on for ya.

[X476]

Coming from 20 years at Chrysler dealer and now at GM, run from GM they are more interested in their own profits then yours and make everything 10 times harder than it needs to be. To all other GM dealers, sorry thats just how I feel.

[nansorbdarb]

I currently work for a large dealer group, and I honestly feel I'm treated fine. The only downside, is that it would be nice if the corporate managers where around more often. We have a few "slackers" here that corporate never sees, and it seems to be a game to just look good for the corporate visits. New employees never get trained properly, and no one cares. However, our dealership is the farthest dealer from the group, and it is not the home store for any of our corporate staff. When I deal with the sister stores that are closer to headquarters, they are much more professional and easier to deal with. Individualy owned dealerships seem to be the same way(not from experiance but my encounters, and knowledge from friends at other dealerships), the more involved and closer the owner or the "higher-ups" are, the better staff and work-flow gets.

As far as changing brands, I worked parts for Chrysler, but never did any managing. I can say that as far as parts look-up and so on, Chrysler is the least organized that I've dealt with. Working with it for 2 years, and needed lots and lots of cheat sheets and SDL lists saved. Now I manage a VW parts department by myself, and I don't have a single cheat sheet. Once you know the group numbers for parts, everything is extremely easy to remember. The return system for warranty and cores is easy to manage, and it is a very easy company to contact when help is needed. Mopar's help lines where terrible, their parts professionals only had the same software you have, and every phone call took forever and had to be escalated. I don't know which brands are worse than Mopar, but I know that there are better ones to work with.

[Bailo1]

I was a counterman at a medium sized, family owned GM dealer for 10 years before leaving for a small, family owned GM dealer. Took my first PM gig at the small dealer and found that while GM is a pain to deal with sometimes, managing the parts department wasn't too overwhelming. Regardless what type of dealer (Make, family owned or corporate) you wind up at, the job is always somewhat thankless and you'll always do more than what you're paid for. That's the way it goes with most careers, though, I think.

I took an opportunity to become the manager of both the service and parts departments here about 4 months ago and I can tell you, GM irks me WAY more on the service side than the parts side.

I can't tell you how similar it is working for GM as for Chrysler, but I can tell you that if you have a decent work ethic and a brain in your head, you'll probably be able to stay afloat no matter which make or dealer you choose. Best of luck!

[CMayne]

Coming from 20 years at Chrysler dealer and now at GM, run from GM they are more interested in their own profits then yours and make everything 10 times harder than it needs to be. To all other GM dealers, sorry thats just how I feel.

Absolutely NO reason to be sorry when you speek the truth!

[dropdeaddart]

Thanks to everyone for all of your advice and pointers.
It'll help decide when the time comes.
The dealership I work at is a large one, that is family owned and operated, but they are the definition of cheap. Here is my small story of frustration.
They wanted pads for a used car, so I price out our product, the Used Car Dept. gets a very good price. (The co-owner, brother of the DP is the tower op/ ucd service advisor) He said they were too much, so I got him first line aftermarket, still to much, we continue this dance until i get him a price for last line $10.00 pads and then he says why don't we try used pads, needless to say, i walked away in frustration and told him to find the &*&% ^*^&( himself. So I feel like I need to go to a place that is not as cheap as this one.

nansorbdarb, thanks for your honesty of the starparts system and your input on all else.

[ehiatt]

I know what you're saying there.
I once worked for a small dealership that was bought by a former used car dealer. He would take our used cars to an independent shop since our own shop was "too high."
When he told me I should take a check and go to Kmart and buy PF47 oil filters because they were on sale and GM's price was so high, I knew I should start looking.

[GM2FOCUS]

Thanks to everyone for all of your advice and pointers.
It'll help decide when the time comes.
The dealership I work at is a large one, that is family owned and operated, but they are the definition of cheap. Here is my small story of frustration.
They wanted pads for a used car, so I price out our product, the Used Car Dept. gets a very good price. (The co-owner, brother of the DP is the tower op/ ucd service advisor) He said they were too much, so I got him first line aftermarket, still to much, we continue this dance until i get him a price for last line $10.00 pads and then he says why don't we try used pads, needless to say, i walked away in frustration and told him to find the &*&% ^*^&( himself. So I feel like I need to go to a place that is not as cheap as this one.

nansorbdarb, thanks for your honesty of the starparts system and your input on all else.

I would have told him maybe we could get a used surplus parachute from the USAF off of a 1950's vintage B-47 for 37 cents to stop the used &*@&!%g car. I would also be telling all my friends and family to NEVER buy a used car there as I was tuning up my resume. Yeah this comes from a guy that made a decision not to go back to work from a deer hunting vacation, regardless of the cost to my career. Life is short, live free and enjoy! That includes free of most debt, thanks Dave! Rant over, LOL

[nansorbdarb]

Yeah this comes from a guy that made a decision not to go back to work from a deer hunting vacation, regardless of the cost to my career. Life is short, live free and enjoy! That includes free of most debt, thanks Dave! Rant over, LOL

That is awesome!