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Service Gets a Lift M
any dealers are currently upgrading their service
departments, and throughout the process of upgrading, different dealers must deal with many decisions and challenges like construction, provider selection, manufacturer requirements, and more.
In Houston, Texas, Mossy Nissan moved into a totally new service department about a year-and-a-half ago. To say the new facility was an upgrade is an understate- ment. George Navarro, service manager at Mossy Nissan, compared the two, saying, "They're like night and day. [Moving into the new facility] was like moving to Beverly Hills."
While upper-level dealership management made decisions regarding the structure of the service department, Navarro helped make decisions regarding things like lifts, garage doors and flooring, and he took a practical approach to how he made decisions. "Prior to building [the new department], there were a couple of things we looked at, like garage doors. We did a little homework on certain items, and so when the building came, we asked for those items."
While Nissan mandated things like the colors of work benches, the manufacturer didn't require the dealership to work with particular ven- dors, so Navarro reached out to several area dealerships
that had recently remodeled or rebuilt their service departments. He visited multiple stores (including Nissan, Porsche, Toyota, Mercedes and Honda stores) to look at the equipment in their service departments and ask questions.
He spoke to other service managers and asked what they liked and didn't like and what they would change if they had the chance to do it again. "Everybody was pretty frank and honest amongst the dealerships. We were able to get a lot of feedback from the other service managers and other dealerships that had done a rebuild or upgraded equipment that we were in- terested in," said Navarro.
When making the decision on flooring in the new depart- ment, he was considering tile and epoxy paint. He discov- ered in his research that the price of both types of flooring was comparable, so he wanted to learn about the durability and maintenance of each type. As a test, he painted one stall in the old service department with epoxy paint. Ultimately, he decided on tile flooring. He explained, "It's a whole lot easier to replace one tile than it is to epoxy paint an area, where you actually have to move people out of the way. Once you start rolling out epoxy paint, it takes a while."
One area Navarro didn't have much say in was the service customer waiting area. "That was heavily controlled by
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Nissan … Granted, our wait- ing rooms are far better now than what we used to have … We have a TV area. Next to that is a sitting area, and now we even have a bar-type area which also has a window that looks out into the shop."
While one might assume an upgrade means an expansion, such is not always the case. The former Mossy Nissan service department was larger because the dealership previously had an Oldsmobile franchise. The new facility has 35 bays, compared to 46 in the old one. However, the space doesn't feel smaller, ex- plained Navarro. "In that 46 stalls, we were much more cramped … There is a lot more room between each stall versus the old. It almost seems larger even though there's less space."
Another noteworthy change in the new department was a vast improvement in working conditions thanks to a little air conditioning; in the old building, there was none. While in some states not having air conditioning would be tolerable, it was especially difficult in the heart of Texas. From May to October, Hous- ton's average high tempera- ture ranges from 81 to 93 degrees, according to Weather.com. "In the old shop, by two o'clock, the [technicians] would be drenched in sweat and drained," said Navarro. "Now when you see them at two o'clock, they look clean and aren't tired."
Jennifer Murphy
Renovating and Rebuilding Three Dealers' Service Departments
The new service department, which was part of a manufac- turer-driven rebuild of the entire dealership, has instilled pride in the employees. He said, "I think it's human nature. When you get new things, you tend to take care of them. You have a little bit more pride in it, so as far as the wellbeing of the shop and of the whole dealership, everybody takes ownership of it a little bit more."
Out west in Delano, Calif., another dealer is preparing to begin a manufacturer-driven remodel of his dealership. Manny Sedano, dealer of Delano Chevrolet Buick GMC, said some of the things in the service department that will be remodeled include the service drive, service customer waiting area and service advisor offices. The renovations are expected to begin in April or May.
The dealership is being remodeled according to General Motors' facility image program, which Sedano said is requiring him to do the exterior and interior remodeling. "We don't have the new Chevrolet look. We've got to acquire that exterior look. Then we've got to tear out the flooring, ceiling and offices, build a service advisor office, [do a] parts department upgrade … They need to have certain tiles, certain colors, certain logo branding … We have a list of vendors that we have to use … that are approved by GM."
