lousy service at prevost mira loma

[rahangman]

Jon, you hit this nail on the head. I have had some brush with Prevost Service and what small amount mine has been and then hearing some of these stories from "Seasoned Soldiers" I am becoming less than excited at the prospect of returning to Prevost Service Centers. To be fair, I am sure lots of their work is on target, however, they seem to be developing a propensity to err, which, comes out of my pocket. Caveat Emptor (SP?)

[garyde]

I'm wondering, why isn't Prevost bound by the same rules and regulations as a Auto mechanic or Dealership? They are required to give an estimate of the work and get a signature prior to proceeding. If they find additional problems which will cost more, they are once again required to consult with the owner prior to proceeding with additional work.
T&M invoces are the life blood of these businesses. Its important to be be paid for the work completed. But as a consumer , you have a right to competant work and management.
I recently had a transmission go bad in one of my Trucks. The Ford Dealer said it would be $4600.00 to replace the transmission. I asked how he knew it was bad, since I had just had it re-built 13 months earlier. He did'nt know but the symtoms ndicated it needed work and because the truck had a certain amount of mileage he figured it needed a new transmission. I discussed with him the possibility that just one part had failed, he said that it would cost $1400.00 to break the transmission down to take a look.
As it turned out, I towed it out of there and took it back to the guy who re built it the first time.
The thing is , you have to feel comfortable having the discussion and not feel afraid to question or simply take your work elsewhere even it means toweing it out of there.

[LA-HODAG]

I should have known better than to go back there, but I took my bus in to Mira Loma before this thread started. I had an intermittent problem with the air compressor. After running all day, if I shut down for a short time, e.g. to unhook the car, bus would sometimes fail to build air on restart. Shutting the engine down and starting again fixed the problem. I don't want to get stranded somewhere with no brakes, so I took it in to Mira Loma. Despite a service appointment, they kept it for a over week before finally looking at it on the day I told them I absolutely needed it back. They replaced the governor on the compressor and said I was good to go. So I did, up to our favorite trout fishing spot near Mammoth Lakes. After driving 6 hours Friday, shut down to unhook the car. No air building on restart. Tried repeatedly in the morning. No air. Got Prevost emergency service on the phone and tried lots of stuff. No good. I needed to be back at work in LA today, so called Coachnet Saturday to arrange for a tow Sunday or Monday. Coachnet was great. They tried really hard to find a lowboy tow, but the location is pretty remote and with holiday weekend it was not possible, so they sent a big rig tow early Monday morning. The driver had to air up the coach to get to ride height and release the brakes in order to tow. In the process, he discovered a stuck valve in the air dryer was venting all the air from the compressor. He jacked up the rear of the bus with his rig and crawled under to re-route the compressor air around the dryer, a beautiful temporary fix that got us on the road late in the day but without a tow. Dropped it at Mira Loma late last night to have them fix what they should have already fixed.

What I have observed out there is that they never really trouble-shoot anything. They just start replacing parts that might be involved in the problem and hope for the best. That is not the type of service you and I have a right to expect.

p.s.: this is not the serivce center's fault, but while it was out there the first time it got so hot that the adhesive on my stainless rub rails started to fail and one fell off. Of course they ran it over, so I am out $450 for a new one. Argh.

p.p.s: While the tow guy was doing his magic, my girlfriend caught 3 nice rainbows, so not a total loss of a day. I missed out on the fishing to stay near while the poor mechanic was under the bus.

p.p.p.s: Cal-Nevada Towing. This guy went so far out of his way to get us on the road, it was unbelievable. He worked on the bus for at least 4 hours, got covered in grease and mud from head to toe, and screwed himself out of a 50 mile tow in the process. Now that is the kind of service that we should be getting from the manufacturer of these expensive toys!

end of rant.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I'm not a lawyer, and I did not stay in a Holiday Inn last night, but I would be expecting compensation from Prevost for the costs associated with the on-road repairs. Prevost represents itself as the experts, charges accordingly, and if anyone should know the coach it should be Prevost. Pretty sad when a tow truck driver who does not claim to be a Prevost expert can fix their oversights.

The only way I can see a defense for Prevost in this instance is it sounds like the problem was intermittent, and those are really hard to diagnose.

As a clarification to everyone not totally familiar with the bus air system, when you have no air you have brakes. In fact that is a safety feature. Air is what releases the brakes and holds them released. When you lose air pressure your brakes apply via very heavy springs, locking them up. Had this issue with the open dryer valve occurred while driving you would have seen the air pressure gauges either constantly cycling up and down, telling you that you had a serious problem that required immediate attention, or you would have lost air at a rate the compressor could not compensate for and eventually your brakes would have locked up.

[Richard Barnes]

Richard, it was great to meet you and I'm happy that you got your mess straighten out. I've been going there for almost 2 years and honestly I have had no problem. I know that almost of my stuff is warranty work but I do have all my service work done. They haven't done anything with the conversion part. I still have a great relationship with the owners of Thompson. I will keep it in my memory bank for future use. Thanks for all your efforts. Have a great time @ the POG event I sure did the first one I went to. Maybe Harry has a different opinion. I know one of the guys @ Mira Loma is a POG member his name is Scott and he will bust his ass to do it right. I think he was working on your coach this morning.

Sid,

Great meeting you as well! Hope your trip to Amarillo was safe. Let me know when you return to California and maybe we can get together for dinner.

[jello_jeep]

One of my favorites, was going to pick mine up at the agreed time, and then being told that they had discovered a problem with my air brakes, and it wasn't really safe to drive so they were going to have to "check it".

I asked what made them say that such a problem existed, and they told me my air brake gauge on the dash was indicating zero.

I boarded with the guy and asked him which gauge, he pointed to the gauge for the Howard Air Steering pressure which of course read zero.

I asked him if he was positive that that gauge was for brakes (the two air brake gauges are together on the other side of the dash). He replied yes thats what it was.

With him looking, I engaged the air steering and watched it go up to 100 lbs or so. Sheepish look from service boy ensues...

I just wonder what that would have cost me?

[rahangman]

Hey Sid, don't you ever stay at home, or are you gonna run for Mayor of Amarillo? See you again in OKC

[LA-HODAG]

Thanks for your insight, Jon. I meant that I took the bus in for repair because I did not want to get stranded without "functioning" brakes. You are right that everyone needs to know that if you have a loss of air while driving, the spring brakes will automatically be applied and you will stop, and if you can't build air, you will be unable to release the brakes. We have all seen evidence of this system working -- heavy double tire skid marks veering off to the side of the highway likely resulted from a big rig losing air to the trailer, causing the trailer brakes to lock up. The result, in a bus or big rig, is that you are stranded until you can restore air pressure to the system.

I have not been charged anything for the roadside repair because repairing the air system sufficiently to release the brakes would have been necessary to tow the bus and, I guess, is not considered a repair as opposed to part of the tow. But I am going to suggest that Coachnet take it up with Prevost. It's really not fair that Coachnet got stuck with that bill.

Prevost has already started the "intermittent problem" defense. I understand those are hard to diagnose, but if they were not certain they had fixed my problem they should have told me so, and they should have also told me the other possible causes for the problem. They told me they had fixed the problem, so I assumed they had confirmed that a faulty governor was to blame. (Please, let's not start a whole new discussion of faulty governors and the problems they cause us Californians).

My gripe, as I said, is that in Mira Loma that they don't really listen to the customer about what the problem is, they don't give much consideration to what might be causing the problem, they just start changing parts, starting with the easiest one to reach. If doctors did that, every patient who came in not feeling well would leave with a transplanted liver and the advice "maybe that will help." I don't expect medical certainty from Prevost service, but I do deserve better than what I got.

[Orren Zook]

Good mechanics are a rare breed - you can only learn so much from training seminars and technical data. Hands on experience separates the men from the boys when computer data can't point the technician to the faulty item. I hate paying full price labor cost to be the guinea pig while a new tech learns his trade.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I once had to have service while on the road and my schedule did not provide me with the time to do it when I got home so I pulled over the pit and was assigned a mechanic at a truck repair shop.

To his and the manager's credit they said they were not as familiar with buses as they should be and said they would do their best. While Di made dinner in the coach, I put on my coveralls and got in the pit with the mechanic and pointed out what he needed to do.

I don't think they anticipated I knew the coach as well as I did, but I learned that if they would just be honest with us, as customers we can never complain when something is overlooked. In Bryan's case they should have had the mechanic get a detailed explanation, at which point they could have explained about intermittent problems and their difficulty in analyzing them, or they could have said we think it is the governor but it could be something else. Either way Bryan would have definitely not put himself in a remote location without having verified the problem is solved. Returning a coach with brake issues to service is a dumb ass thing to do because of the potential danger.

I don't know if Prevost does this, but car dealerships no longer allow mechanics to talk to custormers. Instead they have Mr. Smiley Face write up the problem. Mr. Smiley Face is usually not a mechanic, and he is the first break in the communication chain. In case anyone thinks that system works, guess again.