Making Informed Choices

By Dave Trux

Something that is very important to us at Valley Motorwerks is to provide clear and concise information to the customer. At the end of the day, it’s their hard earned money that is being spent. We recently had a situation where a vehicle was showing signs of transmission trouble. Based on the BMW fault codes, there was an SIB (Service Information Bulletin) put out by BMW with a possible fix. The fix is approximately $1000; a replacement transmission is considerably more.

However, the issue at hand is this: What is the possibility that the $1,000 is going to solve the problem? BMW says it is the first step, but that first step is expensive. What do you do? Personally I am not comfortable picking the pocket of the customer for $1,000 on an off chance something will work. I feel it is the customer’s money, so it’s their choice. This is where being clear and concise is very important. What we did was lay out both options and their chance of success to the best of our knowledge. Obviously, changing the entire transmission is going to resolve the issue, but what if it is a little seal inside the pan?

Inevitably the customer will ask...“What would you do?” In this case, I would swap the transmission and keep the car another few years. This particular car was in perfect condition otherwise and was worth keeping. If it were in poor condition or had other problems, my answer would be different.

It’s important for us to remember that it’s the customer’s money that is being spent. In these difficult financial times it’s even doubly important to do our best in counseling customers accurately. We need to give the customer a reason to pass by other shops to come to us. One very good reason is that we do honestly care about our customers well being. Mistakes are sometimes made and this is what separates a good company from a great one. Valley Motorwerks strives to be a GREAT company.