after hours at work i would stay and work on my projects the phone would always ring people knew i was there so after hours i would answer the phone San Rafael City Morgue very solemnly there # was the last 2 reversed
Road tests are apart of every service however things can always go wrong =b, this story is not mine it was told to me by my service advisor. We were telling these "dealer" stories as well, it was a fun past time. He told me that at his previous work a customer came in to collect his car he told the bloke that it was just on a road test and the mechanic will be out shortly, so they proceeded to walked out the front to car park to wait for the car to return, now to get to the front of the shop u had to drive around a corner of the building, as the mechanic returned from the road test to the shop while taking this left turn he sneezed and accelerated into the customers wifes car who was there to drop him off. My service advisor said he was absolutely speechless and so was the customer. =)
A little bit of a different tack on dealership stories... When we were growing up in Pittsburgh my Mom did "survey work" for a research company in North Carolina. They'd do market research for big companies (for example: giving families with children a box of breakfast cereal in a plain white unmarked box and asking them to try it, and then going back a week or so later to ask what they thought of it, what name should be on the box, would they buy it instead of their usual brand, etc....) One of my Mom's jobs over the years was to go to new car dealerships with us 3 kids in tow, but without my Dad, to see how she would be treated. I remember earnestly trying to help my Mom make the dealer think that we really WERE there to buy a new car... so as we walked into Bridgeville Chrysler Plymouth I walked up to a Lemon Twist yellow Plymouth Superbird right there in the showroom and shouted "Hey Mom, lets buy THIS one!!! I was only about 8 years old at the time, so the huge round "standing bird" decal on the rear wing stabilizer was about eye level... Mom should have listened to me!!!
You are so right...........your mom should have bought that winged warrior. Back in their new car unveiling day they were like dead lead on car lots. Dealers went to deep extremes to sell them. I remember the Daytonas and Superbirds cluttering up the lanes at the wholesale auctions back when they were 2 or 3 years old. They were practically unmarketable. Now, they're nearly pricless due to their rarity.
I'm a bit embarrassed about this tale........it was my own doing. In the late 70's Buick had downsized the Regal coupe to a diminutive 6 cyl. car. The Regal coupes had nice lines, okay interiors but weak 6 cylinder 3.8 litre engines. Chicks dug them so we sold a ton of them. A foxy brunette, recent divorcee, bought one from me, took it to the beach the first weekend she had it, and drove into our dealership the following Monday morning. Her complaint was lack of power on the highways. It was early in the morning, none of the techs were in yet so I couldn't lay my hands on a timing light to shoot the timing with., and the sun tester was locked up in the tool crib for some stupid reason. Sooooooo more stupid me decided after a road test to throw some more advance into the timing and to time it by ear. I moved the distributor up, drove it around the block rolling on and off the throttle and pronounced it good to go. And go it did, "Nice and peppy now." I told the chick. See yet where this is going? Yup, she was back the following Friday, smoke rolling out the back, and firing on maybe 4 or 5 cylinders. You could drop a quarter thru the holes burned thru her pistons. Should of used a light and should have had a real tech shoot a light on it rather than trying to impress her with my attentiveness, charm and lack of brains.
Over the years I've had a bunch of fun demos to drive. In the mid 70's when gas prices grew tall I had a '75 Pinto hatchback. It was a V6, factory a/c, power steering, ugly gold paint but it flew. In about 2 months time we swapped dual exhaust into it, an aftermarket hotter solid lifter cam a more stout 9" rear end, and an aftermarket aluminum intake with a Holly 4 bbl. Kept shearing timing gears and killing rear tires with it. At the end of the year I wrote a check to the dealership for it and swapped a 302 with a C4 from a wrecked Granada into the sleeper Pinto. I had to put a roll bar into it at that point too. LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!
In the period of 2 years when Chrysler was building fun cars I went thru 7 Dusters. I special ordered 6 of the 7 to my specs. I had sun roofs in them, power windows and power seats. They were all sticks on the floor and bigger engines and nice wheels. The dealership always feared we'd never be able to sell them because of the high window stickers. As time rolled along I had other dealers calling us on the phone to buy them because of their uniqueness. I always had people come in to buy them before I could step out of them. These special order Dusters were kind of like Plymouth's answer to the COPO deal GM offered. While dealing in Chevrolet's in the late 60's I burned thru some real muscular stuff I've written about on the HAMB earlier. The 60's and 70's were the best years to be in the car biz! By the 80's it became a challenge, after that the whole game plan changed.
In the 60's and 70's my brother and I worked on Main St., Waltham but for a period of time at opposite ends of the street from each other. He worked at the Cadillac-Pontiac agency in the Banks Square area and I worked at the used car lot in the middle of the town. I always loved the used car end of the business more than the new car drill. I know, that's just me being an ass-hole again. Anyhow it's spring of 1971 and he drives into the used car lot with a new Lemans Sport convertible they just received off the car carrier. "You've got to see this little treasure out back." he tells me as he struts thru the back door to the office. "We special ordered it for a piano teacher here in town that likes unique looking colors. I knew the lady. She always bought 3 way white Caddy convertibles since I knew her. Really flashy single woman in her late 40's. I'm walking around this car in disbelief now. It's freakin' PINK. I mean it's real real PINK. It had a nice contrasting white convertible roof and beautiful white bucket seats and surrounding trim but..............That pink was a shocker. He and I checked out the build tag on the firewall of this newly minted gem and on the color code line it just displayed 2 short dashes, no numbers or letters. Now it gets real odd. I'm real curious now so I start pulling back the weather strips around the door and inside the trunk lid. Shows white paint there. We pull back the driver's interior door panel a bit. It's white in there too. This car was built as a white on white on white convertible, yanked aside somewhere, masked up, and then resprayed in pink. Must have been a cheater COPO? The trim tag is what threw me a curve. Puzzling, even if I did see it with my own two eyes.
i worked at a chevy dealer for a few years after high school. the place was a revolving door of new techs, & oil change guys. at the time we had been replacing driver's airbags pretty routinely on the new body style monte carlos. so after they go through warranty claims we we're supposed to detonate them before we hucked 'em in the dumpster. we'd hide them under benches, behind toolboxes, and such, but the best one was the time we got this one particularly annoying new guy (completely un-aware of air bag antics). he goes into the men's room to do his daily, after coffee break, #2. we had the bag already wired up and a jumper pack sitting by the door. my buddy walks in, pretends to wash his hands, sets the bag down, screams "HOLY SHIT! LOOK OUT!", shuts off the lights, & we blow the bag. half the shop is waiting outside the bathroom to see this dude scurrying out pulling his pants up. he didn't last much longer...
I have a bunch, lets start with a minor one: I was a detailer at a ford dealership in high school. One saturday all us detailers (everyone worked saturday because it was a big sale day) had to run up to the service center and pick up a few used cars that had finished going through the shop and bring them back to the used car center. So, me and 3 other guys run down there, and as it turns out, the four vehicles that are coming back are: 2003 SVT focus, 2001 SVT lightning, a 99 or so WS-6 T/A, and an escape. Well, the one guy took the focus because he liked them, I instantly ran for the lightning, the one young girl grabbed the ws-6, and the nerdy guy grabbed the escape. Well, we had about 4 miles to tear ass and we commensed to do so. All the way up the highway we were racing, slowin down, racing, a few burnouts at the two stoplights, all in the middle of a sunny summer saturday right through the middle of town with no license plates. we got back to the dealership with no harm done, around the the back in the "bull pen" (where we put cars that were ready to be detailed) and we all are backing up at the same time. Me, being a dumbass, decide that I want to hear the blower whine one more time, so as I'm backing up I quickly slap the throttle, not realizing that Im backing into the one parking spot that has a huge light pole in it. Well needless to say, it sounded like: "rumble rumble rumble, WHHHIIIINNNEEE, TTTHHUUUUUDDD, rumble rumble rumble". Everyone saw it, and I felt like a moron. We didn't say anything and I came back in the middle of the night with a hammer to bang out the nice dent in the bumper, and I detailed it to fix the minor paint damage on the bumper. No one ever found out, hehehe
Had to assist the lot boys one day running some cars, some real junkers. Pick up this early 80s f250 with about 250000 on the clock. As I'm going right through the center of a busy town in the middle of a nice saturday I see this wheel pass me in the road, bouncing. I laugh and look around trying to see what it came from, all the sudden the truck sits down on the right rear and heads toward the other lane. Got it straight and drove it 3 miles with only 3 wheels, haha. Had to take a mid-size chevy up to the one lot, I was driving an is-300 and the other lot guy was driving the chevy. the chev wouldn't start, so I grabbed the jump box, got it started, but as soon as the box was off of it it would die. So I just left the box hooked up and put the hood down on top of it (it still was about a foot from being closed). The other lot was only about 2 miles up the road, so I told the guy to grab a bungee cord out of the "runner" and follow me, I'll go slow. Well, as I'm heading up the road, I'm driving along, all is well, next thing I know I'm rear ended, and the car is trying to push me, I look in the mirror and see the underside of a hood haha. The guy didn't know what a bungee cord was, so just followed me, and when the hood came up I guess he panicked and hit the gas. I asked him why he stayed on the throttle if he couldn't see after he hit me. He said he didn't know he hit anybody, and the car was going slower so he thought it was going to die and wanted to get it to the lot before it did. I asked him "how the hell did you plan to see to drive for 2 miles" He just looked at me and smiled like a retard. We both laughed though, it was pretty funny.
In high school I worked at a tire shop and people would use our lot as a short cut, we even had signs that said NOT A THROUGH STREET. Well I just finished putting on a brand new set of Cragars and tires on a customers brand new Z28 and was backing out of the shop when this dude in a big old POS Buick creamed me going about 25 to 30 mph, rammed the Z28 into the pillar between bay doors tore it right down both bay doors end up comming down one on top of me in the Z28, the other on a customers Caddy. I was OK but trapped cause the Z28 was bent like banana and had a 12' shop door on top of it, took the fire dept. 1/2 an hour to cut me out and buddy was none too happy when he came to pick up his Z28!
At a harley dealership I worked at in school we had a customer come in and buy a brand new sporty 1200 custom off the floor. He wanted all sorts of custom parts on it, the typical high flow and pipes with a race tuner and a dyno tune, as well as about 3k worth of chrome and a custom harley "paint kit", which is all new sheet metal custom painted at harley. The customer got his "bad boy kit", which is what we used to say when non-biker types would come in and buy a bike, a leather jacket, a black half helmet, and fingerless gloves. Well, it took a while to get all the parts as some of them were hard to get/backordered. The day of our open house he wanted to pick it up. There are about 200 bikes in the parking lot, and a full size truck off to the side witha utility body on it. We deliver the bike in the service delivery bay, and this guy is pumped. Hes so excited that he can't even act like a bad ass biker. Well we open the door, and he starts it up, gives it a couple revs (just enough to get the attention of almost everyone out there), looks down, puts it in gear, looks at the bars, and lets the clutch out smooth and controlled, and pulls out of the bay and makes this nice, smooth gradual left turn while gradually accelerating right into the back of the utility truck, and the falls over. Of course we couldn't help but cry out in laughter. You try not to laugh, but sometimes you know the guy isn't hurt and its just too much to take. Bike had less than .1 miles put on it in the owners control. Had to order almost all of the parts we put on it new again, and a new wheel levers. Another 4 weeks later he picked up his new bike....in a pickup haha.
I used to build and modify vehicles for the handicapped. One of the thing we would do was to put a raised roof on vans so people on wheelchairs could sit more comfortably. This job of course involved removing the stock roof and installing the fiberglass roof extension, then repalcing the stock headliner (which no longer fit) with our own headliner material. This particular customer wanted some speaker cabinets installed in the corners at the roof line. Customer was to pick up the van that evening and we were doing the headliner and speaker install and I had a new guy helping. He was so happy to have installed the speaker cabinets and ran the new headliner over them to look factory original. I just happened to look at something outsdie the van and noticed srews coming out from the roof where the speakers were, the new guy used long screws and ran them all the way through the roof!! We also rented the lowered floor vans for people when they might be having their van serviced or other wise. One of our customers rented a van from us while she had hers in for some body work. The day she was to return the van, she called to say she would need it longer. Her van (and the rental) had handcontrols and when her van was finished at the body shop, one of the guys driving the van around for her to pick up decided to try the handcontrols and obviously didn't know how and crashed the van.
Post #42 reminded me, I was at a buddies shop and this lady comes driving into the "big truck" bay about 20mph and falls off into the pit. Wiped out the whole side of her car, blew out the windows and all. We hooked my tow truck up and winched her out. Crazy bitch jumped in car as I unhooked it and hauled ass! Never seen her again. I still laugh about that one.
"Look out Marshall Lucky! It's High Prices!" WARNING! Audio N.S.F.W.! <object width="500" height="405"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/zqHZWdFVyyQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01&border=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/zqHZWdFVyyQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&color1=0xe1600f&color2=0xfebd01&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="500" height="405"></embed></object> Hey look at that! I got 'er embedded!
My dad has been in the car business since the 70's and my mom has since the 80's. The best story out of both of their long careers has to be when my mom worked at a jeep dealership with one of her friends from high school who was in charge of answering phones and paging people. One day my mom and a couple of sales men call the dealership from the lot and my mom acts like an old lady who is looking for her husband that said he was going to be at the dealership. Long story short my moms friend ends of paging "Jack Meoff" a couple of times.
The $100,000.00 fire extinguisher. During the late 1970s, most of the customers for exotic/high end cars in my hometown were pimps, since we had a huge red light district and, pre-AIDS, they had money to spare. My friend did gangbuster business selling big Benz Convertibles, Lamborghinis, Rolls Royces, etc. but he also happened to be an inveterate gambler. Him and a few pimps would always play high-stakes backgammon in his office. Whenever one of the pimps won, my friend had to pay up, but when the pimp won, he usually let it ride. One pimp, who had just traded his Benz 280SE 3.5 Cab for a Lambo Espada, owed $300,000 in gambling debt. He was hassling my friend because he had forgotten to remove his fire extinguisher from the Benz, which my buddy had already sold on. After repeatedly having to listen to "Dude, where is my fire extinguisher?!" he finally snapped and said to the pimp: "Shut the fu%@ up! I'll give you $100,000 off, but leave me the fu%@ alone with your damn fire extinguisher!"
About 5 years ago I was at the dealer auction looking to restock some of our inventory. I was cruising thru the Toyota section when I spot this very clean all black 2 year old Camry sedan. It was very straight, mileage in the low 20's and it had very dark smoked windows. It had N.Y. paper work according to the handout they gave me and it was noted down as a repossession. The only thing odd was the spare tire was missing and the center console seemed slightly raised up at the back, a little off center too. I thought no big deal, my techs in the shop can correct that fitment issue in a few twists of a tool and we can throw another spare in it after I hopefully buy it. I go back to the auction that next day and bid on stuff. I buy a few cars plus the Camry by lunch time. Pay up at the counter, pass all the receipts to the trucker I use, and ship the cars home. A few days go by and I get a tap on the shoulder from one of the techs. "Jim. you gotta come downstairs and look at this Camry, I don't think you want to keep this one." It's all opened up now and he shows me that the center console is fitted with electric/hydraulic ram cylinders that raise and lower it. Most of the floor has been cut away and rebuilt with massive compartments to hold some kind of stuff. Same deal in the trunk. Heavy steel plates welded to the upper and lower compartments to hide something. The kicker was a few bullet holes deep inside the right rear door bottom and another single shot one thru the rear floor. Returned it to the auction the next day. We told them it had an altered uni body/frame and didn't want any part of that thing. Got my money back!
My dad relayed this story to me many years ago. In the early 60's he had a young maybe college age kid wander into his Lincoln Mercury dealership. The kid wanted a new Mercury S-55 convertible. He wanted a specific color, had to be a 4 speed and wanted the biggest engine naturally. Dad told him they'd have to order it, nothing like that in stock. "Do it!" the kid says and leaves a substantial deposit. Weeks go by and the car arrives. Now the kid springs his trade on the dealership. It was a red oxide primer 46 or 47 Ford convertible, new white top, red leather seats, big whitewalls. Dad says "NO WAY!" "Kid, ya gotta paint that thing first before I put my money into it."\ Kid argues with my dad and tells him he'll sell it overnight if he leaves it in suede, and he wont take the new one unless dad trades the old primer drop top. Dad caves in after a while and they do the deal. That primer convertible lasted 2 days on the used car lot. Dad told me it was a like a mob scene every afternoon when the schools let out and the factories, near by, changed shifts. The offers got better and better with each passing hour and it drew lots of other inquisitive buyers in who would look at it as a draw but end up buying something else. From that day on we learned to always keep draw cars around just to attract buyers. Dad grew up that week and started digging hot rods and customs and much later fell into muscle cars. We had an awful lot of fun with cars back then. Wish I could go back for another visit, but time marches on.............
It was 1975 My friend and I liked to cruise car lots late at night and check out the new cars(you could do that then and not get in trouble).One night about two in the morning we stopped at the Chrysler dealership and looking around we find a brand new white on white,fully loaded Imperial with the windows down and the KEYS in it!. We thought for a minute and looking just down the street at a little used car lot, got a bright IDEA! We drove the Imperial down and parked it right in front of their lot, locked it up and walked back to the Chyrsler dealer and set the keys right where the Imperial was!.Wish we could have been there when they opened for business that morning!!and got the call from the little used lot to come get their car!! Thinking back we could have been caught and charged with GRAND THEIF AUTO and being 19 probably would have been in world of SHIT! But we was young and dumb and just hav'in some fun!!! Mel
I once got sent to the local impound lot to pick up a theft recovery to be fixed by the body shop. When I got there I found it had no steering wheel. My ride had already gone So I had to drive it back using a pair of vise grips on the steering shaft. Thats not as easy as it sounds.
Another one of my dumb stories,then I'll shut up for a few days. It's winter of 1974 And this young kid walks into my brother's Cadillac dealership while on lunch break from the Polaroid plant up the street. All the sales persons know this kid from the hood, everyone has had their chain yanked by him with his constant questions and promises to be back when he has 'the money'. The seasoned salespersons wanted no more of this kids tire kicking. Poor kid had no upper teeth, no education and no self esteem but he wanted a new Fleetwood Brougham in triple firethorn. My brother was the kids target this cold winter day so Doug did the entire package on him. Test drive, full color brochure, the freebie handout color charts, key tags, lots o' business cards, the thick leather bound accessory book. The kid tells my brother he wants the "maximum leather package" (there really was a maximum package, included leather side trim, door panels, seat bolsters ,everything you could cover.) he also wanted the Rolls Royce style grill, and the next options he wanted really puzzled my brother. Kid wanted 'leather hubcaps' and a "diamond" rear window. WTF?? They ordered this freight train for the young dude and had it dropped shipped to a converter in Rhode Island where they did the hub cap inserts in matching firethorn leather and gave the kids car the diamond shaped rear window treatment plus the "super fly" headlights. Car was transported back to the Caddy agency, young dude paid all cash bills for it and left the showroom with most everyone's jaw on the floor. My brother was a hero for being the only person willing to listen to this kids chatter. I think the kid with the Brougham's self esteem went up 10 notches after that day. Turns out months later he sends some more 'brothers' into the dealership to see my brother Doug because he was well treated. Doug sold those guys a lot of Caddys in his career at the Cadillac store.
This happened about 8 months ago. One of are techs been there forever, did a 4 wheel brake job, hops in and taps the gas ,brake pedal goes to the floor and by the time he starts pumping the brakes it runs into a car up on the rack behind him. Now the rear of the roof is even with the trunk. Fast back Cadillac Deville, but the sunroof won't seal up.
Lesson to this tale......... Be courteous to every employee and be precise in your directions. Respect them, they earn your living as well as their own living while working under your roof. They are all your second family.
The Jalopy Journal
