I’ve had my Wrangler for 4 years now exactly and I’ve noticed an interesting trend with my dealership after they merged with Al Mulla who are renowned for their terrible service centers.
– An oil and filter change originally used to cost me KD8. I would pop into the quick service center and come out 30 minutes later. It was still called Behbehani Motor Company here.
– An oil and filter change later became KD12. I would pop into the quick service center and come out an hour later. This is after Behbehani Motor Company and Al Mulla merged.
– An oil and filter change now costs me KD16. I now pop into the quick service center and come out two and a half hours later.
31 replies on “Service getting worse”
first
One think I don’t understand in this part of the world.
When you have such economical situation the demand goes down so in order to increase your selling it is common sense to reduce the price isn’t it !
I have noticed that most businesses in here are increasing their prices to compensate their loss!
One Example is the Harley Davidson of Kuwait and another example is the American cars! GM is about to go bankrupt and cars prices are extremely low in the states and no affect still to show on the GM dealers of Kuwait.
think =thing 😛
I used to own a ’92 Wrangler, had it for 10 years, only been to the local agent once, and never again. The most I had to do with it was replace the radiator (which cracked due to a faulty thermostat setting by the AGENT!). And that’s when the agent was only Behbehani!
With such a simple engine & gearbox, there’s absolutely no need for me to spend so much on Agency fees, just so I could retain the warranty. Reading your post now, I see that things still haven’t changed!
I experienced the same with my wrangler… now this is an interesting fact tht happened with me….
i walked in the behbehani service station in al rai
ME: i wanna get my car serviced!!
Receptionist: Do you have an appointment???
ME: NO
Receptionist: Sorry we dont accept cars without appointments anymore.
ME: ok give me an appointment
Receptionist (after checking her computer): Next week is ok for you??
at this point i burst out laughing at her…..
anyways…i spoke to the manager there and told him…i have a few porblems please consider taking my vehicle in….
2 days later, one person calls me and tells me the estimate for my car is 735 kd….and i asked y….they gave me a hell lot of reasons like knuckle joints, fuel pump etc etc…..i told them not to touch my car and took it back…. i got it computer tested and fully checked up at the sharq service station….. and i found out…there wasnt anything wrong with my jeep….
this is ridiculous….!!
this was a personal experince so i thought i’d share with u’ll.
What is the sharq service station?
I took the BMW for oil service KD 34. Next day they called & gave me a bunch of other things to do !! The bill around KD500 !!!
Mark,
Just one point regarding change of oil,,,, 4 years ago Crude was at $24 a barrel, then as you know it ascaladed to $ 145 so did all rlated items such as lubricants,,,, & also the exchange rate for Euro increased .It takes awhile for lubricant prices to go down as a result of the new Crude oil prices.
HeartBeat,
you are right that prices are droping but most stock in Kuwait was purchased at the higher prices & therefore big discounts are not possible.What the manufacturers are doing is sweeten the local deals with insentives ,,, like GMC “s promotionf of Get $7777 cash , BMW’s promotion of 4 years warranty & service ,,,which is alot
JoJo that is true but if you notice the higher prices didn’t come at the same service quality. Everything is taking much longer now and generally its a big mess.
Before we used to have a dedicated Jeep garage now after the merger its jeep, dodge and chrysler and its just chaos.
there used to be a service station in sharq before right behind their showroom…..guess its closed down now…
the price seems to be reasonable if not pretty good for it to be changed at an authorized service centre. It is ridiculous the time it takes them though. It should take no more than 15 mins tops.
whats wrong with average mechanic ? they do a better job.
Adam, if you compare it to my beemer, I pay around KD26 to get my beemers oil changed at the BMW dealer but I only have to do it every 10,000KM. With my Jeep I pay KD16 but have to do it every 5,000KM. So my Wranglers oil change costs me 32KD every 10,000km which is more than my Z4’s.
Happy Wantoning us!! I feel an amazing sense of dispair when I read such articles. We are prepared to pay Donald Trump prices at Dean and Deluca, and other ommmphhhh hooch’s (it sounds so uplifting) but when it comes to essentials we complain about rising / mounting costs.
Just a comment, nothing more, brickbats “arent” welcome!
nyx I am complaining about the increase in price alongside the decrease in service quality. I am also complaining now about the fact how an oil change for my Wrangler costs more than my Z4 lol
Hey Mark; Know precisely the point you are making. I was just getting the ‘socialistic’ demon inside me to come to life and kick Capitalism in the rear!
It used to cost 6.750 KD for an oil and filter back in 2005 , and i have experienced the increase of price till it reached 12.750 KD which is almost the double,from that date i started to do oil and filter in the cooperate society (Jam3eyah) car service center which costs 6.750KD
I literally hate the way they treat there customers nowadays .. i mean its understandable if they tell you that you have to take an appointment .. but @least the service should be worth it .. i pay like 52KD just for the oil change for my charger .. imagine .. my car is fully insured so every time i go for a service and i tell them to fix things for me for example a noise was coming from the brakes .. they just give me a report that everything is fine in the car nothing is wrong and if something ever goes wrong you can get you car back to us .. and that makes me even more furious !!
Same for me. And they have stupid reasons for not fixing issues for cars which are in warranty. They force us to extend warranty and later they say excuses for not changing parts. I wonder how come a reputed company can go so worst on their service.
Mark,
BMW uses fully synthetic oil & thus the 10000 km . If you use the same oil in the Rangler then you can also run it for 10000km, whever a point to always remember is to check the oil level evry 1000 km.If low , top it up with the same type of oil,,,& you will not have to worry about an oil change.It is also better for the engine to be running always at the proper oil level
The merging of the garages caused a huge disastor.. I still don’t know how they came to the conclusion to Megre all the dealerships together.. and they didn’t improve they got worse overall.. it didn’t even average out..
I always heard to them referred to as Al Thief. Is it true that after the invasion they not only made car owners pay back the loans on cars which had been stolen or destroyed, but were ALSO reimbursed by the UN for their losses?
They slapped a travel ban on a 65 year old (cancer treatment receiving) woman I knew because she was the guarantaur for an English woman who had left in the invasion and refused to pay up. Fortunately a kind and embarrassed elderly Kuwaiti man stood guarantaur for HER and Al Mulla still got their money ( twice). I have made sure NEVER to buy anything from them in 17 years since this story.
Teach; dont know if what you posted is true or not, but if it is; Shame on them! On hindsight it does sound possible with these people!
Believe me, the story about my 65 year old colleague who had a travel ban put on her by Al M is certainly true. She stood in tears outside the court and an elderly Kuwaiti man came by, saw her and asked what was wrong, when she told him, he was so embarrassed for his country that he wrote her a cheque immediately to cover the amount and told her she could pay him back when she could.
What Oprah calls ‘a gratuitous act of kindness’.
We have the worst dealers in Kuwait. I bought 2004 H2 brand new from Alghanim back in 2004. If it wasn’t for Hummer Customer Service in Dubai I would have sold it after the first service. The car was perfect but Alghanim service was the worst I have ever seen.
Forget Oprah teach! Kuwait has some extremely kind hearted people. Just one of the many tens of reasons I love Kuwait~! You go Kuwait! That old man, if met by anyone, please say thank you from my side. Alf Mashkur (hope I got that right)!
Get a Toyota .
Its strange that you guys have had bad experiances with al mulla, I had purchased a brand new galant in 2005, I have always serviced my car at the dealer service center. i have never faced any problems yet. I pay around 6 -7 kd for a oil and filter change along with a free car wash plus i get the satisfaction of my car been taken care by a qualified mechanic. instead of any other average joe in shuwaikh garages who is exploited and learns the job the next day he arrives in kuwait. The regular garage would charge around 4-5 kd for the same service but without a carwash.
Mark,
Obviously you enjoy posting about a subject that you know gets plenty of hits and comments… We’ve constantly heard the ranting from car owners complaining about their bad experiences in Kuwaiti dealerships, yet when a blowout offer is available, or a brand new hot car is launched, everybody runs to the dealer and buys their cars, disregarding the so called “bad reputation” of that dealer!
Somehow, dealers are always “thiefs” as teach said (please elaborate on how you came to that wise conclusion), yet you all go and buy cars from these dealers. If you don’t like their service, or you think their products are crap, don’t buy them. Better yet, if you like the cars but don’t want to deal with the dealer, import it yourself and get it serviced elsewhere.
Comparing the price of a service on a Jeep to your BMW is pointless. The dealer does NOT set the type of work that needs to be done on a car, nor does he even buy the parts of materials locally. Manufacturers enforce strict rules and regulations as to what needs to be done to a car, what parts to use, and how often to do that work (hence the shorter service intervals).
I’ve bought 3 cars from Al Mulla & Behbehani since their merger (3 years ago), and have had excellent overall ownership experience. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Neither is my experience with Al Sayer Toyota, Behbehani Porsche, Al Zayani, and Al Bisher. Yet, they’ve al had their ups and downs, some more than others. It all depends on who your service advisor is, what month of year it is (everybody rushes their car in around April for service before the Summer, hence the backlog of customers), and how good the technician is. Does that justify a bad service experience, no. But it just goes to show that nobody’s perfect.
And that story about the 65 year old with an outstanding loan, sorry, but it sounds made up. Every outstanding loan prior to the invasion was paid off by the Kuwaiti government post invasion, including all car loans.
I am riding a Dodge Nitro and I went to the sales office of Al Mulla & Behbahani, 1st of all the smell was exactly like bathrooms, the place looks very old and dusty and all of the items are shown in very dirty glass cabinet, Then I started my question to that guy at the front desk:
Do you have MY GIG ?
he said: Your GIG :S
my gig is the stereo and GPS system which is made by Chrysler, and as they are the main brand agent, they supposed to know such a perfect product, then I didnt reply and I said khalas khalas 🙂 ,,, do you have a floor mats for my car ? he said wait a second and he kep serching for the item on his excel sheet for about 10 mins, then he said ,,, one min,, and went to the manager office and came to tell me yes its available, next question was,, for how much ,, he said wait a sec 🙂 WTF and he went to the store, came out with the box and said we only have this color (BROWN) and its for 28 KD ,,, and I didnt take it 🙂 and I was about to ask for more accessories for my ride ,, but I was very late and had to got my work ,,, so maybe I will go by Saturday while I am free 🙂
These knucleheads at Alganhim don’t service imporeted vehicles anymore! This is “backdoor” robbery! If I am willing to pay out of pocket for a professional to work on my H3,why would you turn away business?! I really don’t know where their “F”ing heads are at? There are too many issues the garages on the outside can’t deal with! Something has got to be done about this!
Al- Sayer so- called quick service’s the worst. After booking a 9am appointment to service my car & taking it there on time, they take it saying “we’ll call you when we’re done”. They call 7 hours later to say it needs brake pads!