I recently purchased a great little '93 Allante. The car only has twenty thousand miles and has very few things wrong with it. The most major, until a few days ago was a ding on the passenger door. Unfortunately, we had the car out on Sunday morning and couldn't raise the top when we were done because the pull-down motor that catches the rear of the top wasn't raising up.

Yesterday, I took my beloved '93 Allante to the dealership regarding the problem with the pull-down motor. While talking to the service advisor, Scott, I also asked him about the ding in the passenger door. He advised that their paintless dent guy comes on Thursdays. I would bring it back for that. I let him know that I had brought a service manual for the car with me and that the instructions for the top were in the driver's seat back pocket.

They pulled my car to the left side of the lanes, rather than taking it to the service area. While I was waiting, a tech came out to the car. Before I could stop him, he raised the roof incorrectly, sending the mini covers to clatter onto the floor. He then leaned over the side of the car to access the pull-down motor, without first placing a protective mat on the edge of the vehicle to protect the paint. Not surprisingly, his buckle scratched my low-mileage Allante's paint.

My wife arrived and we went to have lunch and run a few errands. I received a call from Scott who advised that the car needed a part which was no longer available. I told him that I would pick up the car and source the part myself. (It turns out that later I found it quickly at GMPartsDirect.com).

I returned to the dealer and drove my car home. I parked the car in my garage and was about to go in the house when I noticed something. A new ding appeared on the passenger side. Apparently, someone opened a door into it while it sat in the service lane.

I called Scott, but was advised that he was unavailable. Since I was pretty hot, I asked to speak to whoever is over the service department - out of town for the week. 'Is there anyone at all there who is in charge of things?' 'Nelson Andrews may be in, but I don't know if he'll speak to you.' 'Please transfer me.'

Somewhat surprisingly, he picked up the phone. I explained to him that the car came in with one ding and left with two. He asked me how I knew it wasn't there when I arrived. I explained how I had inspected the car a week and a half prior after having it detailed and it only had one ding. Since that time, it was safely stored in my garage, since we have had alot of rain. The only time the car was out of my direct control is when it was in their service department and I had spoken to Scott about having the single ding in the car repaired.

He told me that he would talk to Scott and get back to me. A short while later he called me back to tell me that there is no way it could have happened in their service department, but that he would be happy to discuss it further with me when I brought it in for service next time.

As if I will ever bring it back there.

I recently purchased a great little '93 Allante. The car only has twenty thousand miles and has very few things wrong with it. The most major, until a few days ago was a ding on the passenger door. Unfortunately, we had the car out on Sunday morning and couldn't raise the top when we were done because the pull-down motor that catches the rear of the top wasn't raising up.

Yesterday, I took my beloved '93 Allante to the dealership regarding the problem with the pull-down motor. While talking to the service advisor, Scott, I also asked him about the ding in the passenger door. He advised that their paintless dent guy comes on Thursdays. I would bring it back for that. I let him know that I had brought a service manual for the car with me and that the instructions for the top were in the driver's seat back pocket.

They pulled my car to the left side of the lanes, rather than taking it to the service area. While I was waiting, a tech came out to the car. Before I could stop him, he raised the roof incorrectly, sending the mini covers to clatter onto the floor. He then leaned over the side of the car to access the pull-down motor, without first placing a protective mat on the edge of the vehicle to protect the paint. Not surprisingly, his buckle scratched my low-mileage Allante's paint.

My wife arrived and we went to have lunch and run a few errands. I received a call from Scott who advised that the car needed a part which was no longer available. I told him that I would pick up the car and source the part myself. (It turns out that later I found it quickly at GMPartsDirect.com).

I returned to the dealer and drove my car home. I parked the car in my garage and was about to go in the house when I noticed something. A new ding appeared on the passenger side. Apparently, someone opened a door into it while it sat in the service lane.

I called Scott, but was advised that he was unavailable. Since I was pretty hot, I asked to speak to whoever is over the service department - out of town for the week. 'Is there anyone at all there who is in charge of things?' 'Nelson Andrews may be in, but I don't know if he'll speak to you.' 'Please transfer me.'

Somewhat surprisingly, he picked up the phone. I explained to him that the car came in with one ding and left with two. He asked me how I knew it wasn't there when I arrived. I explained how I had inspected the car a week and a half prior after having it detailed and it only had one ding. Since that time, it was safely stored in my garage, since we have had alot of rain. The only time the car was out of my direct control is when it was in their service department and I had spoken to Scott about having the single ding in the car repaired.

He told me that he would talk to Scott and get back to me. A short while later he called me back to tell me that there is no way it could have happened in their service department, but that he would be happy to discuss it further with me when I brought it in for service next time.

As if I will ever bring it back there.





I am very sorry Steven Bell had trouble with his experience at our store. This is a pretty frustrating situation from both perspectives – I can see why Mr. Bell feels the way he does, but I felt like we made decisions with his best interest in mind all the way through and took a beating anyway.

We have a gentleman on staff named Tom McWright who has more experience with Allante tops than any other tech I know. From 1988 through 1993, Tom was the guy who diagnosed and solved every little problem those tops had, and if you know Allante, you know what I mean.

Unfortunately Tom was not available when Mr. Bell came by Andrews Cadillac that day. Rather than inconvenience Mr. Bell by making him wait for Tom, we brought Chad Palmore up to the service lane to take a look at his car. While Chad does not have Tom’s years of Allante contact, he is a Cadillac Certified Master Technician with 15 years of experience at Andrews Cadillac. I know him to be an extremely conscientious man who puts a great deal of pride into his work.

Chad felt bad that he overlooked the mini covers, but they are made of a tough composite material and no damage was done by their fall. It is also correct that Chad did not use a protective mat, but that was not an oversight. We do not use metal belt buckles on any of our uniforms. Andrews Cadillac technicians have a choice of using a Velcro belt or not wearing a belt at all. Despite the fact that Chad didn’t have a belt buckle, we had someone from our detail shop come to the service lane and rub out the “buckle scratches” that Mr. Bell identified. Maybe we set a bad precedent, but we thought it would be better to rub out a few minor scratches than get into an argument.

During the few hours Mr. Bell’s Allante was at Andrews Cadillac, it never left our service lane. We have a 3 and ½ lane service drive, and our practice is to use lanes 1 and 2 for service drive through and then use the far side of lane 3 to park high end cars such as Cadillac XLR’s that are awaiting delivery. There is approximately 10 to 12 feet of space between the active lane 2 and the lane 3 parking, so it is a great area to keep a beloved car safe and visible.

When Mr. Bell called, I spoke to him and looked into the situation as he described in his comments above. Once I looked into it and found out where it had been parked, I called him back to explain that there had been a 10 foot buffer between his car and the next nearest vehicle, so it is extremely unlikely that his car was door dinged while in that spot. Despite that, I still offered to sit down with him and work something out.

I in summary, I feel like we treated Mr. Bell fairly:
• Even through our “go to” expert on this 15+ year old low volume car was out, we brought up a Cadillac Master Technician with 15 years of experience to assist on the service lane in the interests of Mr. Bell’s convenience.
• We didn’t complain about rubbing out “buckle scratches” supposedly caused by a “buckle less” technician.
• We diagnosed the problem with his top and gave Mr. Bell the necessary part number at no charge. Without Chad’s expertise, DMPartsDirect.com (actually a front end for Flow Chevrolet in NC) would have been useless to Mr. Bell.
• We kept his car parked inside in an isolated spot even though we’ve had very few problems with damage to any of the 100+ cars that are on our back lot every day.

At this point I still have never met Mr. Bell in person and I’ve never had the chance to see his car or the damage he claims we caused. Given the situation, I felt like asking to meet him and see the car was a fair request before committing to pay for a repair, but I guess he feels otherwise.



Nelson Andrews
General Manager
Andrews Cadillac Company

A few thoughts:


Sure, the uniforms don't have buckles. Do they have zippers? Do they have pockets that could be used to hold something that could scratch a vehicle's paint?
Whether or not there was plenty of room in the service area doesn't change the fact that my car left with damage that it didn't come in with. This damage clearly wasn't there prior to it's arrival since I had a conversation with your service advisor regarding the removal of the other ding. If the car had two dings, certainly I would have discussed having them both removed, wouldn't I?
I would have had no problem simply bringing it in and discussing the issue with you, but that's not what you wanted. You wanted me to discuss it the next time I brought the car in for service. Why in the world would I bring my car back there for service without having this issue resolved first?

Couple more thoughts:

First, Nelson makes a point to say that I wasn't charged for the visit. Given that they didn't actually do anything, I would suggest that the charge was about right. Come to think of it, the charge was kinda steep since I have to pay for the damage that they did.

Second, they did not give me a part number. They told me what the part was and that it was no longer available. If they told me the part number, they would have been able to simply order the part and fix my car.