Incompetent? service
Background:
I purchased my 2013 Chevy Volt here.
I've been consistently going back to them to get my car serviced.
The service was been fantastic, in my opinion, for the majority of the time. However, it seems like the quality of their service has declined in the last two years. I would say that, even though the previous year's service was subpar, there was nothing that stood out as problematic. However, this most recent service left such a sour taste in my mouth that I was moved to write this review.
I had just brought my car in for servicing. Specifically, there was a pending recall which affects the Hybrid Powertrain Control Module 2. And I needed my annual inspection performed as well.
I had dropped off my car and picked it up after work. I had just left the service center before noticing that the inspection sticker had not been updated. I had to pull over to take a look at the itemized invoice. It was only then that I realized that the inspection failed (none of the OBDII monitors were ready). What annoyed me was that throughout the whole process: the call I received from my service advisor, when I paid for the service, I was not told that the inspection did not pass. While I understand that there's *some* expectation that I, the customer, doing my due diligence, should review the bill to ensure that everything is in order, however, in such circumstances, am I expected to verify all of the work that was performed on my vehicle?
So I drove back to the service center to speak to someone (not my service advisor since I assume she left for the day) and was told that it was due to the lack of driving (living in the city, I admittedly don't drive my car often), and that because it didn't have enough datapoints, none of the monitors were ready. The only suggestion I was given was to put in about 120 miles of driving with no guarantees that that'll be enough. Fine, there wasn't anything I could have done to remedy the situation I was in so I reluctantly drove home.
Back home I did some Googling and here's what I found:
- Not all of the OBDII monitors should have had a "not ready" status. The fact that all of them were not ready was indicative of the DTC (Diagnostic trouble codes) being cleared from memory. This would only have happened if they explicitly cleared it from memory or if they disconnected the 12V aux battery.
- Many other people have had issues with getting their OBDII monitors ready even with the suggestion of driving 100 to 200 miles, which makes me feel that the suggestion is substandard since I'd be effectively shooting in the dark hoping that I've driven enough.
- There's a particular "drive cycle" that a person should perform in order to ensure that all of the sensors are triggered in a way that the OBDII monitors are satisfied. However, this drive cycle is *not* readily available to car owners. And it would seem like the Volt does not even have a suggested drive cycle. The one available on 3rd party sites is for some GM vehicles. It would seem like many have been able to leverage that to remedy their OBDII diagnostic issues, however, the Volt is a bit complicated because it's primarily an electric vehicle and the ICE is really an aux electrical generator. There are steps where I would need to engage the instrument cluster but not start the engine, as I have no direct control of when the engine starts, I'm unsure how those steps would apply to my Volt (or whether these steps are valid at all)
- There's a test they could have engaged with their scan tool to have tested emissions. It's called the EVAP Service bay test, yet they did not do that, probably because some other monitors needed to be ready but NONE of them were, which lead me back to asking why NONE of them were ready.
- I've found the exact steps published by GM for applying the fix for the recalled Hybrid Powertrain Control Module 2. This consisted of applying a software patch. The very last step of the fix required the mechanic to clear the DTCs: "Clear DTCs after programming is complete. Clearing powertrain DTCs will set the Inspection/Maintenance (I/M) system status indicators to NO." !!! this is the very thing that the inspection failed at. So occam's razor leads me to believe that what they had originally told me was false, it was NOT because I didn't put in enough miles; it was very likely that they had applied the software patch BEFORE performing the emissions inspection. I suspect that it was two different people performing these separate tasks and NO ONE was managing and coordinating correctly.
So here are my thoughts:
- I should not have had to do all of the Googling that I did above. I am paying someone else for their expertise precisely so that I don't have to know the finer details of what needs to be done.
- I should not be penalized for a mistake they've made. Since the codes were cleared completely, my understanding is that there's probably a minimum of 10-27 hours of wait time before they can perform the steps necessary to trigger the OBDII monitors. They should have made good by keeping the car for as long as they need for them to fix their own mistake. I should not have been told to drive it around WITHOUT a way to tell whether the amount I've driven is sufficient.
- GM should also be to blame as they don't make enough of this information readily available to their customers.
- And at the very least, they should have been communicative and honest with me. They should have admitted their mistake, we could have came to a compromise. If, lets say there was no other alternative besides my needing to drive the number of miles suggested, fine, but at least try to make nice in some other way, but instead, it felt like they wanted me to believe that it was completely my fault.
- I will only reluctantly go back to this service center if I cannot find a suitable trustworthy replacement