Last week my wife and I had some service done to our Suburban. There was a little more than normal to be done to it, so we planned to have it out of commission for a few days and to have it cost us a pretty penny.

My wife took it to the dealership on Wednesday (there some warranty things to do, so we took it to the dealership – Central Chevrolet in Fremont – against my typical better judgment on matters like this) where we were quoted $193 and a day to get done.

That wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. We needed our brakes done, an alignment, an oil change, two trim pieces replaced that my kids broke, an air vent fixed and an air channeler repaired. I figured it would take about two days, they said same day, all was well.

Mostly. The truck ended up taking two days because of delays in getting the needed trim pieces. However, last Friday when we picked it up I was surprised to see the bill was only about $90. The brakes, the trim pieces, the vents… everything was done under warranty for us (except the oil change). That was quite impressive.

I have a background in automotive manufacturing and vehicle fleet management. To see something like this was an oddity. Usually dealers charge as much as they can to get every dollar they can out of a consumer. But this was a different experience. I was pleasantly surprised and even impressed with their communication to us. I can say that I would actually recommend Central Chevrolet service for those local to their dealership if you have any work that needs to be done to the mechanics of your vehicle.

Body work is a different story, but thank God we didn’t need any of that this time .

Stats:
NSLAMM: 0
NSA: 2
FTR: and .