Greg, I PM'd you. I'm OK with doing business with them: will my position stay this way? who the heck knows? But, as I noted above, I do NOT believe that the dealer is the be-all-end-all to the equation: folks can search for discussions about this topic and see extensive dialog covering just about everything you can think of- all real-world experiences (the hypotheticals tend to be subjugated, as they should).
Interestingly, I just dropped off my car (one of them) to this body shop. I was referred to this shop because of the quality of their work (satisfaction by someone I know). I was in a discussion with the owner about his reputation. He said that it may not be what it used to be, and then he told me of a recent story... Someone was really squirrelly, had some poor expectations on work completion, and the owner ultimately went off on the guy, which resulted in this guy going on a bashing spree on the Internet (getting his friends to chime in even though they had NO experience with the owner). Although the owner may not have the best communication/people skills, it was the customer's poor level of expectations (and their communication of their expectations) that was primarily responsible for the blow-up. I have a spare car, so I'm not in any hurry for this repair to be completed; I made this clear to the owner- I don't want to pressure him (these folks are artists) as that is NOT in my favor (I expect him to be free to focus on his work on my car and not on his watch). As I always say, issues are due to time constraints (time management)- if we were immortal then there would be ZERO issues. Meaning, make sure you properly set and communicate your time expectations; AND, always, keep in mind that nothing is as cut and dried as Madison Avenue wants us to believe.
