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FIXD, Are they serious???
I’m not sure if any of you have seen this yet but it appears we have yet another hurdle for our customers. FIXD has started selling a OBD2 sensor that will tell people what is wrong with their car to know if they are being scammed by their mechanics. They claim that they will tell you what it should cost to fix the car, tell you whats wrong so you can tell your tech what to fix to avoid diag charges. The latest is in my opinion the most infuriating! (see link) https://www.fixdapp.com/blog/5-mechanic-upsells-how-to-avoid-them I’m just curious if anyone has seen an issue from this? I bought the sensor to see how the system works to understand it better. Just curious if anyone else has seen this. Obviously a good repair shop is not cheating people, but these guys, I think, have crossed a line where they make it seem like every shop is screwing people over and use false info to prove that point. We used to sell pre-owned vehicles at my establishment prior t the economic down turn in 2008. I recall always having to work 3x as hard to demonstrate to people that they can trust us and we are not the “used car salesmen”, this turned out to be a bunch of hard work for the same treatment and sale price because our society has been trained to think used car salesmen are worse than lawyers :). I just feel like we are headed back to this as customer / shop relations go. I know I work very hard to demonstrate I’m a trust worthy reliable shop, my customers that understand it appreciate it and wont go elsewhere. At least I got this off my chest for now. I know we all know how to deal with this but has anyone had people show up with these things yet? 1.5 million sold!
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8 Replies
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What is a generic obd code going to tell anyone? People come in every day with codes from Autozone. I explain that could be true or a false positive. But it shows no values or does any testing to pinpoint the issue. Most of the customers who come in are C or D customers. It’s your job to educate and sell testing to find the root cause. just saying Ollie
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We use the zipcode analogy- OBD2 will get you to a zipcode, but won’t tell you what street or house you live in… once you put it in terms that your customer can relate to, they are much more understanding about paying an hours worth of diagnostic fees to find ‘their house’.
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This can indeed be frustrating. I can’t count the number of times we’ve had a client come in with a print out from one of the big box auto parts stores and the typical “they diagnosed my car and said I need this”. As Ollie said, what good does a list of generic DTC’s do for anyone, except help the parts store sell more parts. My favorite so far was a client with a late model Ram 1500 5.7l that had a very definite engine misfire with DTC’s p0305, p0303, and p0300. Client brought a print out from “Slaughter Bone” (names changed to protect the “innocent”) that recommended an engine oil pump replacement (yes, you read that correctly), which the customer bought from the “Bone”. We have run into this several times with the FIX’D app. Client brings in a Nissan with fuel trim codes and an O2 sensor (cause that’s what FIX’D diagnosed it as), didn’t want us to diagnose it, just install the part. Needless to say the O2 didn’t fix the problem, the vehicle had 2 failed injectors. I find the easiest way to deal with this is to print out the diagnostic tree for one of the DTC’s and show the client the actual steps it takes to actually diagnose said DTC. Then I close with “the DTC is just a symptom, each DTC has multiple pages of steps to take to accurately diagnose the underlying issue, we can either go through the appropriate steps to discover the cause of theses symptoms for a small charge, or we can install your part with no guarantee that it will correct any issues.” Just my 2 cents (35 cents adjusted for inflation).
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Follow the dealer diagnostic chart. I have seen few fixes without following the dealers diagnostic chart. Let the google techs be google techs, it always cost them more.
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Got tired of people thinking I was trying to pull the wool over their eyes when I asked if they wanted us to make sure what they were asking was the right thing to do. Now I just put in what they want, Then when it doesn’t fix it I ask them if they want me to find out what is wrong (diagnose). It’s kind of backwards thinking and not the way I would like to do things but I’m giving the customer what they want.
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Who lets there customers bring parts? Not us. I have learned even when you are having a slow week, take the symptoms from the customer not any kind of diag info. If your customer does not trust your shop then either your SA is doing something wrong. Or they are a C-D customer and should not be your client. That’s my take . Most customers who would buy that device most likely either are curious or they have to much time on there hands . Let us fix your car and the customer should do his profession. I wouldn’t want to defend myself for a lawsuit so I said the lawyer want to look at his car Fixit device. They charge more per hr than us ????
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Using the recommended maintenance schedule plus a generic code reader wont do anything worthwhile. Would it not seem that the company who came up with with this scheme to be the one who is making false promises and misleading people.
I don’t over sell things in my shop and recommend based on visual inspection plus the maintenance schedule. I do show the filter and most people thank me for checking their cabin filter when its 2 years old and full of dust and leaves. Plus I do not pressure anyone. I try to work with them so that they can make a plan rather than merely calling the schedule as gospel.
I don’t feel threatened by this ploy. Perhaps my shop is not a good fit for them and they should consider a different shop if they feel the need for this scheme rather than trusting my recommendations plus their own common sense. I explain and show them and don’t pressure them. Yes there are some that never do any maintenance. Those are often the ones that come in Friday afternoon on a tow truck when you are leaving for home. Those are the ones that have to wait until Monday before I get a chance to look at them LOL.
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Check the last post in this group. talks about that. https://www.facebook.com/groups/CarProblemsAndAdvice
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