Arizona Honda was a historic, industry-famous dealership that had at one time been made one of Honda's top tier dealers. It was obviously in decay and rot. My first week there I found a scooter tucked in a corner that had been abandoned by its young coed owner because the service writer mistook low compression for engine wear. I took that scooter home and gave it to my daughter to ride.

The Service department hadn't made a profit in several years. There were several mysterious hangers-on on the payroll. Employees came to work stoned. Half the customer base was given discounts. I was forced to submit invalid warranty claims. The most territorial of any shop I ever worked in, there was definitely hostility between departments. Once a week we had listen to the general manager rant. Few suggestions and even less support.

The most professional service writers I ever had--one a former Toyota dealership service writer who knew more about running a dealership than anyone in the whole store--quit or were fired just weeks after hiring them. One of the mechanics drew a swastika on a customer's gas tank. Another tried to get me to fight him. I had several serious, closed-door meetings with these guys and never came away satisfied that they wanted to work there. I eventually fired half of them.

The Sales department was getting a 30% discount on labor from the Service Dept. The Parts department never notified us when parts ordered for customer's vehicles arrived. Nothing was ever stocked, not even spark plugs, air filters and inner tubes. The support from Parts was so bad I decided I could not hire another commission mechanic and have him suffer. Parts misquoted prices so often I could not reliably estimate service work. The Sales department did not do its own new owner walkaround, at the insistence of upper management, though they wanted to and knew they should. They had Service do it, resulting in lost Service department income. Sales in fact choked the life out of the Service department. Batteries sold by the Parts department were not being properly serviced.

Repair orders were found stuffed in drawers, manila folders, books. Honda warrantly flat rate was being used for retail work, keys were not being properly managed. The absentee owner lived several states away didn't know what was going on here. He needed to fire everyone from the general manager on down. The shop went out of business just a few years after I left. This shop shut down only a few hours out of every 24. I had three shifts to manage in my department. Think of it: three virtually round-the-clock shifts of mechanics and lot personnel. At a nearby tech school I interviewed and hired a guy who had a work ethic like none I had ever seen and with his raised-on-a-ranch perspective and personal demeaner was a gem. He left right after I did.

I have worked in a few very good dealerships. But many dealers want in a new service manager a magician, or a cop, or a firefighter. And sometimes all three rolled into one. The ones that want a magician don't want to make the changes they need to make, but expect the service manager to wave his magic wand and fix everything. The ones looking for a cop want someone to insulate them, the way law enforcement does, from all the bad customers and bad outcomes of not having any serious customer service ethos or systems in the shop. Lastly, those that want a fireman are looking for someone to just put out fires, which since he is not empowered he will do all day long, with never time to actually manage, including doing anything that will prevent those fires in the first place. These kinds of dealers don't want their service departments to run right. If they sell enough fast enough, they feel, they can ignore and overcome all the issues in "the back".