Tag Archives: car servicing

Members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club know that listed garages are female friendly and that they have signed the female friendly promise not to overcharge or patronise members of the Club.

garage services

Garage misinformation for motorists

Which garage to choose - I'm confused

What a tangled web of misinformation there is for motorists to cope with when it comes to choosing the best garage for their MOT and/or car servicing.

For starters, the best kept secret in the UK motor industry is surely that the garage industry within it isn’t regulated, that garages don’t have to be licensed (so anyone can set one up at the drop of a hat), that mechanics don’t have to be qualified to repair our cars and there’s no fixed standard when it comes to the content of car services.

Trust me – this is all true.

And this disorder explains why there are so many complaints about used cars and garage services and why there’s a genuine need for FOXY to identify the businesses that sign our female friendly promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need.’

One possible reason why the industry doesn’t want us to know this is that this is an opportunity for individual trade factions to earn out of subscription fees to their respective ‘good garage’ schemes. Or am I being too cynical?

For example, the SMMT (Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders) promotes the recent Motor Codes Service & Repair Code which is skewed towards franchised dealerships. So the competing motor trade association in England, the RMIF (Retail Motor Industry Federation) has recently introduced another similar scheme, called Trust My Garage, which all garage members can join.

But neither scheme promotes measurable signs of quality, just that their subscribers operate to a fairly basic code of conduct. But they do promise a swift complaints handling procedure which has a self-fulfilling prophetic feel to it I suspect…

Another scheme called The Good Garage Scheme promotes subscribing garages through clever product placement in TV soaps and in adverts. But few motorists realise that this scheme is run by a US oil company and is designed to sell oils not garage credentials. Granted many of their garages probably are ‘good’ but with no benchmark to say what ‘good’ is, I’d definitely want to question that adjective in some instances.

In FOXY’s book, there are three quality logos that distinguish measurably superior and genuine garage quality. These are ATA (Automotive Technician Accreditation), BSI Kitemark and the OFT Code of Practice. To us, each of them means that the business or employee in question has gone that extra mile to invest in being better than the rest.

Then it’s up to the motorist to choose, and we certainly don’t tell women drivers whether they want a dealership or an independent garage to look after their car. Providing they do their shopping homework first and know their choices; it’s their car and their money.

One thing we do feel strongly about however is that a cheap price from a garage you don’t know or haven’t checked (or who hasn’t signed the female friendly FOXY Promise) isn’t worth the risk of saving a few bob on the bill total knowing that shoddy garage workmanship can ultimately cost lives.

But in the absence of industry regulation and recognising that few garages are ATA, BSI Kitemark or OFT logo enabled, we all tend to look for garage testimonials from our friends. This is where it gets really hard for motorists to distinguish the good guys from the pretenders. Because we don’t know who to trust for honest and impartial advice…

And let’s face it, garages are one of the least popular places for women to visit for fear of being ripped off or patronised; if we can delay going or get someone else to do it for us, that’s usually a result. But mightn’t be a foxy decision in the long run.

You might think the Which? Consumer association would want to lead in this area and promote the same signs of garage quality as us. But they prefer member feedback within their Local website. The problem with garage feedback is that it’s often based on an impression formed by a friendly welcome and convenient customer services. Both very important factors of course but it’s workmanship and ethical standards behind the scenes that matter most in my opinion.

Honest John supports the Motor Codes scheme which is dealership skewed and he provides good garage feedback too. As honest as he undoubtedly is <I’m a Telegraph reader> his main interest is clearly cars not garages…

And whilst word of mouth is powerful, testimonials can be rigged to favour or damn. When these appear on a business’ website, for example, with no names and bland/devastating quotes, how reliable can they be?

Finally, and interestingly where this blog started from in the first place… when leading websites that motorists trust, like confused.com, provide ill-informed and ultimately misleading information about garage choices words ultimately fail me.

And so I remain…

…yours confused

FOXY

PS: FOXY is a female brand meaning shrewd, canny and astute which is what we believe women have to be in the garage industry today. Since our daughter’s bad garage experience in the early 2000s I have made it my business to become an expert in this field, on behalf of other women drivers. Which may explain why FOXY Choice is the only website to explain and promote the different measurable signs of quality, judging ATA, BSI Kitemark and OFT fully approved code logos as the pinnacle of garage standards.

Yes I’d love to see the industry regulated so the bad garages would be put out of business. But the industry needs to realise this and after 70 years of trying to regulate itself and failing, we are still where we were and it just isn’t good enough!

garage services, motoring, women drivers

Garages compete for the female purse

Car servicing is very valuable business for independent garages, fastfits and franchised car dealerships. By keeping in touch with local women drivers who have been or might become future customers garages are more likely to see us more often, for women drivers to trust them and for us to recommend them to our family and friends.

Whilst it has been true and easy of old to say that independent garages are much cheaper than dealerships, the recession has to a certain degree bridged this value gap with more offers, discounts and services than ever before. Certainly this is what FOXY Choice is finding across the UK (that dealerships are getting more competitive in the search for more business).

Our advice to female motorists is to always start with an open mind and by doing your garage services shopping homework online, you’ll be better prepared in terms of knowing the local experts each occasion plus measurable quality factors and probable prices before simply going to the same old garage as before…

In terms of customer loyalty levels when it comes to car servicing I read that Honda drivers are most likely to revisit their franchised car dealerships (39.5% business retained for cars of all ages for servicing in 2009 BUT how do they know this after the car is sold I wonder? ) whereas the likes of Rover and MG, Nissan and Fiat languish towards the bottom of this Trend Tracker 2008 loyalty league survey (which surprises me about Nissan).

No surprises about MG Rover picking up after the XPart network took on that motoring responsibility.

All in all, across all brands and ages of cars surveyed, independent garages accounted for c38.4% of all services carried out. The future therefore brings interesting times ahead with the likes of Toyota leading the field (who will follow) by lengthening their warranty to 5 years in an obvious move to keep dealership contact with their customers for longer.

Providing female friendly marketing services to garages FOXY Choice’s experience is that some independents are doing brilliantly and others are struggling to stay alive. With little in between. The difference seems to be location (near competition vs niche wealthy area), perceived quality (and dare I say a commitment to female friendly standards as a minimum…) and therefore perceived value for money.

Most of us know that ‘too cheap’ is bad news in the garage industry but you have to know that garages aren’t licensed and too many mechanics aren’t qualified to understand why this could reflect in your being ripped off; or worse, left with an unsafe car. Few of our younger drivers understand this and I think the UK motor industry could do more to get this message across.

You also need to know which garages/fastfits/dealerships will sell you products you don’t need because they are encouraged to do so to earn commission as part of their income. More than we realise I suspect…

It’s a competitive world and the best and ethical garages need to stand out in a crowd of sometime mediocrity. Have a look at the FOXY Choice website to read which are the genuinely good and best garages near you in our FOXY Good Garage Guide. Then search for ‘female friendly garages’ and your nearest postal town to see which businesses have signed the female friendly FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need’. Imho this simple promise matters to women much more than the industry seems to appreciate.

And whilst this is early days for our reasonably new female friendly marketing service for garages, it’s telling to see those that can and can’t sign the FOXY Promise.

Find out about female friendly garages near you…

FOXY

Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.” Steve Jobs

car dealerships, women drivers

Can Ford dealers appeal to older car drivers?

Ford dealerships are targeting female motorists who drive cars up to 12 years old offering them a new car service that, allegedly, could cut their fuel bills by a quarter.

The offer is called an Econo Check service which costs £30 and comes with a £15 voucher to be claimed against the next scheduled service.

Garage technicians will carry out a 15-minute check on the car including tyre pressure and condition as well as oil and air filter cleanliness. They will also fit ‘a data logger’ to the vehicle’s diagnostic port which remains in the cabin for seven days after which either the dealer or the customer will detach it and return it to Ford by post. Assuming she has driven enough to make sense of this in the meantime, this will give Ford enough information about the driver’s speed, anticipation, braking and gear change to create a personalised report (the Econo Check) which will then be emailed to the customer.

This report is likely to recommend

1    driving style adjustments that could reduce fuel consumption and emissions by up to 25%.
2    eco driver training, which could be provided through Ford’s driver training partner, the AA.
3    upgrading to a new Ford Econetic car.

“The primary function of this is to help change driving styles so drivers can become greener and save money” a Ford spokesman said.

And the secondary function, says FOXY, is to re-engage with male and female drivers they have lost touch with and who have gone to cheaper independent garages AND to sell them new cars of course.

By and large, this is a good thing but whether cost conscious motorists running older cars will choose to pay £30 to be sold a full service at dealership rates, driver training (unlikely if they’re male ;-)) or a new car in tough economic times is a very different matter.

And the independents will react of course.

FOXY

To find out about FREE quarterly FOXY Car Fitness Checks that include tyres, oil, coolant, CO2 emissions and a seasonal item such as your air conditioning system, visit FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

car dealerships, garage services

Time for a coalition in car dealerships?

Not being a motor industry person, I occasionally read or hear things that make me wonder why…

One such recent prod was when I read that new car salesmen (and women) in UK car dealerships are paid more than those who work in customer facing roles in car servicing departments. I had imagined that they would be paid a similar amount with or without commission incentives because many dealerships tell me that garage services including car servicing and repairs are worth c50% of their income. And because I believe that with a bit more effort car servicing could be a bit more lucrative too ;-).

I am not talking about technicians here as clearly their skills  are not/should not be transferable.

But shouldn’t they be seen as equal in customer facing roles? If one knows about car sales and the other about car servicing shouldn’t they be working together, marrying their skills in a form of a coalition in car dealerships as it were?

Why not move staff around more, so they understand the big picture not just their part of it. And make car servicing staff feel as important not less important than sales staff?

Why is it that garage services are so often hidden away at the back, unless they are a separate business like Renault Minute or Ford Rapid Fit perhaps?

It makes sense to me and there are clearly customer service lessons to be learned in both areas so why not make the car two dealership departments female friendly buddies rather than very separate silos, one more highly regarded than the other.

After all the route to the showroom might be via garage services and garage services might end up accounting for more than half the new car sales income.

The reason must be the franchising car manufacturers I imagine?

FOXY

female friendly, garage services, women drivers

Female friendly garages appeal to women drivers

Kwik Fit research has been used to suggest that economic worries have led to an additional 1.6 million motorists servicing their own cars over the past year (this was a sample of 2000 remember).

Over a third (35%) of car owners, including a few women drivers perhaps, now say they carry out a service themselves. The lion share ie 69% of motorists, including a lot of foxy lady drivers we are sure, confessed that don’t feel confident in servicing their own car. This is probably a good thing I’d have thought.

But, according to Kwik Fit, as many as 2.5 million cars on our roads today have not been serviced last year (this was a research sample of 2000 motorists remember; not sure if it helps to extrapolate into millions here…) which is to do with the recession and motorists wanting to save money.

Spelling out the blindingly obvious here, we are told that as cars have become increasingly sophisticated, needing computerised engine management systems, the confidence of (mostly male I presume) motorists to ‘self-service’ their cars has fallen dramatically. Gosh.

And their research tells them that motorists driving cars that are over 11 years old are considerably more likely to [think they can] DIY a service (because they can get at the engine no doubt) than those driving cars under two years old. Needless to say, many women drivers still think, incorrectly as it happens, that they need to take their car to a main dealership to maintain its warranty.

If nothing more, this research confirms what FOXY knows already about many women drivers based on anecdotal evidence inside the Club; it also acts as an important reminder for all of us that

  • cars that aren’t maintained regularly or serviced properly aren’t as safe as those that are
  • unsafe cars are less reliable and more accident prone
  • cars that cause accidents and are then be seen to be poorly maintained ie unsafe can invalidate insurance claims
  • much worse, anyone who runs a poorly maintained/badly serviced car could kill a passenger, other driver or pedestrian – what price economy then?
  • few motorists are good enough at DIY car maintenance
  • many dodgy garages don’t service cars well enough (which is the REAL elephant in the room here, hence the resistance of so many women to dread going to garages)
  • the industry needs to work harder to communicate servicing prices – this needn’t be expensive, in fact surely it’s better to charge less and see more motorists that might need genuine work done afterwards?
  • that the MOT is but a safety snapshot on the day – it is never an alternative to regular maintenance and servicing
  • that members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club can claim free quarterly car fitness checks from a network of female friendly garages across the UK.

FOXY

PS: Thank you for reminding me that the garage industry needs to get its marketing act together for women drivers in particular.

Find out about free car fitness checks for women drivers who are members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club.