Not impressed with my nautique dealer

[Woody_tobius_jr]

I picked up my boat today from the nautique dealer after getting them to winterize it. It was starting to rain, so I didn't pull the cover to inspect their work. I get home this evening and pull the travel tarp off to put the storage tarp on, and the first thing I see is a big smear of grease on my port seat, got me a little steamed, but I had my seat soap there and it came right off . I had a dead spot in the throttle, and i wanted them to see if they could solve that issue, they put it in their tank, and i guess they just back the boat into the tank on the trailer, the nose of the boat is scuffed right up from the roller. Next I went to check on the perko pro flush that I had them put on while they had it in there. I asked them to put it on the inlet line before the strainer, yeah, I look, and it's on the outlet side past the strainer, starting to get pretty steamed now, I go to pull the sacs out of the rear locker to store them for the winter, and I notice that there is about 3 gallons of fluid in there, I'm thinking , maybe they put some rv antifreeze in there, kinda strange but whatever, I lift the sacs so the fluid goes to the drain pump, and i hit the drain pump and its fresh water coming out. This puts me over the top, I'm pretty sure that they haven't drained the belly tank, so ill have to figure out how to winterize this now. The cherry on top was it looked like someone with shoes on climbed in or out of my boat as there is a scuff on the top edge by my fuel cap now. It was a $ 1200.00 touch for all of this, so I was expecting premium work, I'll be making a phone call tomorrow, curious to see if they will make this right.

[2001SAN]

Wow. Not cool. You can see why people DIY. Get on the phone and raise some ****. 1200 bucks is big money for that work IMO. How much do they charge for labour per hr!?!

D.

[Woody_tobius_jr]

They're $ 125.00 hr. but I should add, that I had some vinyl repaired from the previous owner, so that was part of the 1200.00. Still a fair chunk of change for these results though, in my opinion.
this will definitely push me onto the DIY side now.

[lucky7t]

I'm in a service oriented business. And extremely picky when it comes to people working on my things. I've had similar issues and blew a gasket. You need to bring this to there attention so it doesn't happen to the next guy

[ericchile]

Good dealers are like good wives. Once you find one you stick with them. If you have a bad one, your better off doing it your self.

But just like wives, make sure you don't rip them a new one and destroy your relationship. Good communication is key.

[ES]

Sorry to hear about your experience. Unfortunately I have similar issues with my local dealer.

Here are a few learnings from my side, which hopefully helps you as well:
1. Until you are not covered by the Nautique warranty, suck it up. They are the only dealer in the area. They know how I feel about their service and their fees, but unfortunately we both know that I don't have alternatives - at least until the warranty expires and then it's all fair game. In the meantime, I take steps to mitigate my pain...

2. Lower your expectations and cover their weaknesses. They think their service is stellar. I think it's subpar. The reality is that I don't think they will ever see my point of view, probably until they go out of business. For example, I know they do a poor job of understanding what I need to get done (the whole list, not just what they think they remember), so I document specifically what needs to get done. I email it to them and give them a printout (yeah, they lose printouts, so I need to email it as well, just in case....)
They suck at doing stuff when they promise it...so I end up calling or emailing them more or less every day.

It looks like it paid off this last time...my Linc display went out and they replace it under warranty and more or less in the time they had promised.

In the meantime, if you have other work which is not warranty related, I suggest you find another place for that work.

[AirTool]

Just tell him to give your money back and call it even.

[Woody_tobius_jr]

Good dealers are like good wives. Once you find one you stick with them. If you have a bad one, your better off doing it your self.

But just like wives, make sure you don't rip them a new one and destroy your relationship. Good communication is key.

I'll save the ripping as a last resort
I phoned them on Saturday and let them know that I had some concerns about the work that was/wasn't done. He was going to look into it and give me a call back tomorrow when they open. Definitely don't want to burn any bridges with the only dealer in Alberta. Could be the difference ibetween getting a part in a hurry or getting a part whenever they get around to it.

[Calgary210]

They must've had a bad day I've been with them since 2008 and had nothing but excellent service.

[Woody_tobius_jr]

Update:
I finally got a hold of the service manager, and he was very accommodating, he said I can bring it in in the spring and they will take care of everything that wasn't fixed properly, and they will take care of the scratch that was made by the fuel cap.
Nice to see that they're going to look after me. So, I guess we'll chalk it up to them having a bad day when it was in there originally.

[jbach]

exactly why i work on my stuff. i can buy the tools, manuals, parts and beer and come out spending half the $ and getting twice the service, using better lubricants and parts. i know the dealership is charging $125 an hour but i guarantee the kid coming into do winterizations after school does not give a **** about your boat getting paid $10 an hour to do it.