I think I've mentioned this before but Isuzu is generally considered a Tier 2 or 3 franchise. In other words, most dealerships won't stock a large inventory of parts, nor new vehicles, nor have technicians who are extremely familiar with the nuances of their vehicles. The blame doesn't really lay with Isuzu... a hundred thousand vehicles or so annually at their best wouldn't bump them up to prime-time. They've always been a tier 2/tier 3 franchise and probably always will, despite everything that they have had in their favor in years gone by.

Which is too bad. Isuzu products are unbeatable in my opinion. I've seen Troopers with almost 300,000 miles come in on recall campaigns that run and drive better than most of the domestics we have roll through our shop.

Most dealerships don't intentionally screw over their customers. It doesn't pay. A customer screwed by a dealer's shop is less likely to purchase a car from the dealership, which amounts to cutting their own throat for future warranty/retail work. And service (and parts, to a degree) is the lifeblood of any new car dealership. New car sales are nothing more than icing on the cake. If I were to tell you how much we actually make when we sell a brand new fully loaded Ascender, your jaw would probably hit the ground. And not because we're making a killing... We have to sell on average two Ascenders to make the same as we do off one used vehicle.

Granted there are little extras. If we sell 12 units in a month, we get money back from the manufacturer. But there are only a handful of Isuzu dealerships that can do that, and in our market it'll probably never happen no matter how hard we try.

Bottom line, whether it's Ford or Isuzu or GM... parts and service is the number one source of income, and that income is fueled by the purchase of new vehicles. Screwing over shop customers is equivalent to cutting your own dealership's throat. Not saying that it doesn't happen. It does. It's just not as common as everyone seems to think it is.

Quote Originally Posted by thebear54
Nothing againts you Don but Isuzu's major malfunction over the last four, five, six years have been caused by careless attitudes from Isuzu dealers who would rather replace a $600.00 part than try to do an honest day's work and keep the customers happy.
A lot of people jumped off the Isuzu bandwagon to other brands because they kept getting sc**ed by dealerships...NOT because the product was bad (far from it) but because the service sucked!
John