"That's what your £100 +vat or more an hour workshop labour rate is covering, those glass palaces don't come cheap."

Have a gander at these prices:

www.honda.co.uk/cars/owners/repairs.html

Make sure you're sitting down when you get to the Civic 1.0L Timing Belt :)

That's what your £100 +vat or more an hour workshop labour rate is covering, those glass palaces don't come cheap.

If anything like too many places of work these days, each productive person as it were will have one or maybe several persons managing them, this became too obvious during the recent lockdown farce, the people who actually worked on site all working normally, multiple layers of pen pushers nowhere to be seen (working from home :-), everything carried on fine without the PPs there, if anything production was more efficient without the daily 'meetings' routine and various interferences.

Now the run on US banks has started, maybe things are about to be realigned, this year could be an interesting one.

It's partly the reason why the likes of Aldi can sell you a good deal of its products for about 50-75% of similar quality ones from the 'big four' supermarkets: staff are specificially taught / told to multi-task / find some productive work to do, rather than sit on their hands chatting or, in some lines of work, clock off and go home / the pub etc when they 'work docket' for the day is done.

In most lines of business, eventually a newcomer will 'burst the bubble' by doing things a lot differently / better and either take most of the competition's clients or enough that a good proportion of the rest take notice (especially at falling revenues/profits) and copy them, albeit grudgingly.

A shame that blueprint rarely gets applied elsewhere, whether in business or the public sector.

I bought my current machine from a main dealer and returned once to ask a question about it - and that was it.

Wasn't your phone working ? :-)

The dealer staff spend and inordinate amount of time denying warranty claims on cars that have failed out of warranty.

This process can take up to three months as I have learnt with two recent catastrophic failures that I have heard about .

That is unless you are lucky enough to own a Lexus or Toyota where by and large the dealers give you the benefit of the doubt . And IMHO this next clip will help you decide to put this maker at the top of your list when it comes time to buy your next car.
watch John Cadogan , a bit long winded but makes good sense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1UfDOLk8ic&t=1918s&ab_channel=AutoExpertJohnCadogan

It’s ultimately the manufacturer, not the dealer, that authorises warranty claims. The dealer will get audited periodically by the manufacturer on warranty work carried out, and if it’s not within the terms of the warranty then the dealer won’t get paid for parts & labour by the manufacturer.

Yes - BUT - the effort that the dealer puts in to "progress" a warranty claim with the manufacturer makes a big difference as to whether the manufacturer accepts it - even more critical if the car is just out of warranty and a goodwill gesture is being requested.,

The disappointment for me comes when I know more about the car they are selling then the salesman/woman does. They might as well be working in a clothes shop for all the car knowledge they seem to possess. Puts me off. No offence intended to people working in clothes shops. I would just rather buy from a fellow car nerd.

The disappointment for me comes when I know more about the car I've bought than the service manager, the service receptionist and service technician all put together. Decades ago I gave up expecting car sales staff to understand the product they were selling and treat them all as "order-takers" - disrespectful maybe but practical.

The disappointment for me comes when I know more about the car they are selling then the salesman/woman does. I would just rather buy from a fellow car nerd.

I suspect they find that not many punters ask any difficult questions - probably more about what it is going to cost them. If an awkward customer like your good self comes along they can always hand you on to the boss ....