On Friday morning I brought my Ford Explorer to a local Dealer in Chatsworth Calif... the check engine light was on. The service advisor had me sign a work order for a diagnostic computer check which I agreed. He told me that there's a chance he could have it by the end of the day but probably not because of how busy things were... then mentioned that Saturdays there's no tech available to work on it and more likely would be on Monday if the parts comes in first thing in the morning. It seemed like a reasonable situation so I said fine Mondays ok.... Monday morning I called a different dealer to see if they had the part and they did... I was willing to buy it and bring it to the dealer doing the repair on my explorer so as to keep things moving. So I called the Dealer where my vehicle was and the service advisor said the part came in and that it should be done by the end of the day...so I said ok and also I didn't want them to do a rush job so as not to get sloppy and have ongoing problems spawning from this one.. then he said he would call if it wasn't going to be done. It wasn't done and he never called, So Tuesday I called about 10 am to find out if my car was finished yet. He said he will check on it and call me back... he never called.
So Wednesday I decided to go into the dealer to see what was happening. I saw the car parked off to the side lot so I assumed it was finished.... I asked the advisor if it was done, and he said he believed it was but needed to get the paper work. So after standing around I wanted to see under the hood and they unlocked the car and I popped the hood. It did look like some one did something because of hand prints in the area of the work to be done but looked a bit dirty. so I talked to the Mechanic about what was done and he said he had the manifold off but they received the wrong gaskets and had to reassemble it to move it back to the service parking area. At that time I decided to bring the car to another Ford Dealer located in Woodland Hills Ca . They charged me 147.00 for the diagnostic computer check and stated that I declined the service. The fact of the matter is I accepted the service agreement but they failed to perform the service as promised... do you feel its fair to be charged the 147.00 Diagnostic fee? GG

 

Think about buying your own slab of meat and bringing it to the restaurant, asking them to cook it. Buying your own parts, especially from the competition, and bringing them to your dealer to install is a sure fire way to usually **** 'em off, 'cause their parts department loses money in the sale. I understand you wanted to get your vehicle fixed in a hurry, but that's just not a good thing to do. If anything, your dealer's parts department could have bought the parts on a charge account from that other dealer, which would have let them buy those parts at whatever rate they go for, usually cost +10, and they mark the parts up accordingly (or unaccordingly, depending on how much they want), making profit.
There's no excuse for that. The service advisors' job is to keep the customer advised of where they stand in the status of their vehicle. In their defense, service advisor is a horrible job where they're tasked to cram ten pounds of poo in a five pound bag, but there's no excuse for telling a customer that they're going to do something, and they don't.
You accepted the diagnosis charge, that goes without saying (but maybe it's just California, but that's a lot of money for EEC diagnosis without any pinpoint testing and such). They held up their end of the deal, in that they checked your vehicle, diagnosed it, and ordered parts for the repairs. You took the vehicle from them before they could complete the repairs. That technically means that you "declined" the repairs. They still get their diagnosis fee in either case, that's SOP.

 

I love the diagnostic check. Step 1, plug in scanner, step 2 read scanner, step 3 charge the chit out of hte customer.

 

Skills and knowledge aren't free, and tools don't pay for themselves. I can't help whatever they decide to charge up front, but the guy doing the wrenching deserves his diagnosis time.