r/partscounter

So last week I had someone call in looking for a new key, I hate key calls but not the point of the story. I ask them for the vin and like usual they don’t have it. I quoted them $1000-2000, look if you can’t be an adult and have pertinent information readily available than I’m just gonna blow you out and move on with my day. Yes, I know I could’ve done it differently. I end the call and go about my day.

Yesterday morning my PM comes to me asking about about the call and shows me a survey and it’s the person on the phone all butthurt about how I gave them a ridiculous price and also saying I hung up on them. I didn’t hang up on them but whatever. The PM is a close friend of mine and he covered for me with the GM.

What really gets me is that dealerships live and die by surveys. Dealerships are supposed to be on their best behavior while the customer can be a complete jackass and there’s no recourse for that.

For the folks using xtime, when quoting parts, does anyone else's xtime, after typing in a "1" for quantity, then tabbing over to the next box, and start typing the part number, by itself, change the "1" to a "0" and then delete the entirety of the part number?

I would consider myself a decently fast typer so typing a 5-10 digit part number is as fast as copying and pasting for me

Seriously anyone know?

No, I didn’t. I said “I need the last eight.” The words don’t share a single letter between them.

Guys I need advice.

My neighbor offered me a job managing/counting car parts. The salary is decent, but I have ADHD and I already know repetitive inventory-type work is really hard for me mentally.

What pressures me is that he basically said this isn’t a short-term job and if I join, I should stay long term. Since he’s my neighbor, I’d feel guilty quitting later.

I’m not interested in the field at all, and I’m scared I’ll accept because of pressure then end up trapped and miserable after a few weeks or months.

How do people with ADHD know when to push through a job vs when to refuse something that clearly doesn’t fit them?

Our dealership is being bought out and they are switching us to Tekion. From everything I’ve heard and read there are mixed reviews of Tekion.

One thing I want to know is if Tekion has something similar to SDL on CDK? I love my short codes and it makes life much easier than having to input all part numbers individually or having to remember recall part numbers.

Also is there a reporting function similar to PDA or Employee Productivity?

Was just offered a company parts director position with multiple GM and Chrysler stores. Been with GM forever and well versed in all that. Parts is generally parts across the board but is there any Chrysler specific things that you guys could give me the run down on when going into that side of it?

This week I F’ed up, was going through my surcharge list and noticed a nice little Ford Engine surcharge ready to be shipped back to Germany. Nice €1000 there.

I approach an open box in the workshop, tape it up and the return gets approved, so I send it on the next truck. Fast forward two days, a technician has stripped a car and removed the engine, a few hours later comes to me and asks where I’ve put the new engine as the only one left in the workshop is an old unit.

My heart sunk, realising I’ve sent a completely new unit back for a surcharge. I was in the phone instantly to our hub, it was the longest day of my life but luckily after some tracking they stopped it at the PORT ready to be shipped back, so now I’m just waiting for delivery again on Monday.

My boss is surprisingly chill about it, but I’m still quite stressed. I’ll definitely be looking in the boxes from now on to spot old units.

Make fun of me all you like I know it’s a really bad and stupid mistake.

I’m one of those “Swiss Army Knife” PMs.
The rural area type of dealership where there is only two parts people. We gross like 35-55k a month. When it gets around 40k a month for a manager that has to do literally every job in the parts department, your brain starts to hurt.

My other guy also gets overwhelmed when we start getting around that mark as well. Because I can’t get in the weeds with him all day long because I’m in my own weeds. He is 100% counter. Retail, wholesale, techs, service. We are also a CDJR dealership..for those that know, you know.

The other day he ordered a remote start as a special order directly on Dealer Connect. Unfortunately, in the quantity selection he put the bin number there. Our special order bin number, you might have guessed, is 1010. Yea, he ordered 1,010 remote starts. I only caught it by accident for just randomly looking at the order status list in Dealer Connect. All I saw was the near $80k for one single order. My stomach was in my throat. Because when you order something as a Stellantis brand dealership and it isn’t on back order, it goes into process and you cannot cancel it. I clicked on the order and it said, “In Process.” My heart dropped into my nutsack. I almost went into panic mode. Luckily, it was a supplier ship direct part that was actually back ordered, but all SSD orders go into a “In process” status whether they have the part or not. I was able to cancel it. Otherwise, we would have become the new supplier of that part lol. Our special order bin isn’t 1010 anymore either.

How many of you are blessed enough to deal with people that need tires but never, EVER know anything about what they want?

Got a brand preference? no

Got a tread pattern / design in mind? no

Do you prefer all season or more on the aggressive side? I don't know, I will leave that to you to make that call.

Like, no the fuck you will not. This is NOT my car, it is YOURS! I will help educate you on things you might not know about tires, but for the love of all that is good and holy give me something to fucking work with!

Like that tag says. Im in the South West in a medium VW sized store 10 master techs like 5 lube techs for reference and MAY IS SO SLOW HERE. 10-15 apt a day slow. This whole year as been a bit wonky but we grind and end up ok yoy every much (alittle down but close enough) but this month its just abnormal for a May as spring and summer always heats up buisness here. Anyone else like this ESPECIALLY if in a VW store?

https://preview.redd.it/1d2dhxknvj0h1.png?width=1254&format=png&auto=webp&s=9bcb8f01c0812ea6c04e02976b8bbeb4097d8c00

I hate it. It's the worst electronic catalog I have ever used. The lack of diagrams for even simple things drives me absolutely fucking nuts. I hope when things get migrated to RMI it improves. Shoutout to TCS for making it super easy to find diff seals and stuff though.

My dealership has myself and one other guy in the parts department. Him and I are pretty close friends. He is in the upper echelon of friendship categories. Basically, my best friend. I’m 46 and he is 61. We both love the movie Snatch. Well, we were afforded the opportunity to basically skit out a part from the movie at the unknowing expense of a phone customer.

I pick up the phone and say the normal greeting spiel. The customer is a woman and she says, “I have a Grand Cherokee. Y’all have a Cadillac convertible for it?” Without a second thought I yelled at my coworker, “Will, do we have any catalytic converters on hand?” He replied,” Yea, dude, we have some catalytic converters.” The customer can hear the whole conversation btw. “Yes ma’am, we’ve some Cadillac convertibles.”

Will is doubled over laughing hysterically. I’m trying to keep it together myself. Then she asks the price. So I lost it with laughter after that. I couldn’t keep it in anymore. I know for a fact if the boss knew he would have fired me.

Anyways, I tell the lady that a tech walked in with his shirt on backwards and I thought it was funny and couldn’t hold in my laughter. Then, I asked her for a VIN and quoted the part. She never once caught on to any bit of it and continued to call it a Cadillac Convertible. Maybe we were the ones being trolled? lol