HONESTY

Always educate the customer

Our sales staff takes time to understand what you’re looking for in a vehicle, shares our knowledge, and does everything possible to help you make a wise choice.

Prestige service writers are experienced technicians who will explain the work being done, share useful tips, and give you all the information you need to make good decisions about caring for your vehicle. It’s your car and your money. So we do three things to keep you informed:

1.  Help you understand the problem, diagnose the cause and advise you of the total cost and time of repairs.

2.  Inform you of any other problems noticed while inspecting your vehicle and advise you of the total cost to repair.

3.  Inform you of the manufacturer's recommended maintenance based on the year/mileage of your vehicle.

Don’t do work that isn’t needed or could be done under warranty

If you don’t agree in advance that certain work is necessary, we won’t do it.  And if we encounter a problem that’s covered by your warranty or subject to a recall, we’ll advise you to have that work done for free by the dealer.

Prohibit high-pressure sales tactics

Shopping for a car at Prestige is a surprisingly relaxed process. There’s never any pressure. We’re not a high volume dealer so there are no sales contests or quotas to fill.

One of the biggest secrets of car dealers (and some other shops) is that the people who write up your service work are actually sales people working on a commission system. The bigger your service bill, the more money they take home. Worse yet, the compensation system for technicians will often include an incentive to push parts.

At Prestige no one works on commission. Service writers and technicians share common goals. Get it fixed right and keep the customer’s bill to a minimum.

Enforce a written policy on honesty

Prestige is, of course, a member of the Better Business Bureau. But beyond that, we have a written policy that all employees will treat customers with honesty and respect. The owner, Joe Licari, demonstrates this policy every day in his dealings with customers. All staff members know—without a doubt—that the same truthful approach is a condition of their continued employment.

FIX IT RIGHT

Focus exclusively on imports

By ignoring domestic brands and servicing multiple import brands for more than 30 years, Joe Licari has become the area’s top expert on import vehicles. If you’re looking to buy an import, we can provide an insider’s perspective on issues like performance, operating costs, resale value and long-term reliability.

Our service experience covers every import from Honda to Lamborghini. As with any car, mass produced design errors, quirks and malfunctions lead to brand and model-specific problems.  But our import-savvy technicians are more likely to recognize them than the typical “foreign and domestic” repair shops that attempt to work on everything.

That’s one reason why more than 95% of the vehicles that enter our shop are fixed right the first time. It also explains why dealers and other independents bring imports to Prestige when they’re unable to identify or fix a problem.

Invest in advanced technology and equipment

Prestige invests thousands of dollar every year to buy specialized test equipment and subscribe to databases with information about your car. By not having to support domestic brands, Prestige can invest more heavily in products and services that specifically support the imports.

Recent investments include the VIDA system for Volvos and the Autologic system for BMW, Mercedes Benz, LandRover, and Jaguar. We were the first Grand Rapids independent to buy each of these systems.

Hire the best technicians and make them even better

The most important piece of equipment in fixing your vehicle is still an experienced technician. Our service technicians average more than eight years with Prestige. And most were already working on imports when they were hired.

The four senior technicians are fully ASE certified in all eight areas of specialization. In addition to ASE testing, we send our technicians to a week-long Bosch-certified school every year for additional training.

Warranty all repairs

Most Bosch parts come with a manufacturer’s warranty of 12 months or 12,000 miles. Bosch also provides a labor warranty that matches the part warranty. Most OEM parts carry warranties of 6-12 months and labor is not covered.

If a problem is our fault, we will correct it at no charge.

FIX IT ON TIME

Don’t overbook service appointments

At Prestige more than 90% of service work is completed when promised. One simple reason for this is that we don’t overbook appointments. In fact, we try to leave some slack in the schedule to work in customers with emergency service needs.

Invest in large, modern facilities

A common productivity killer for most independent shops is lack of space. At Prestige we work in a spacious facility built to our specifications. This includes extra service bays. So if work on one car is held up to acquire a part or contact the owner, the technician can continue working in another bay without having to constantly shuffle cars on and off the lifts.

Employ enough technicians and service advisors

Many shops are chronically short-handed. That’s obviious when the first available appointment is 2-3 weeks out. Others fall behind because they don’t have enough service advisors. They’re the ones who interface with the technicians, the parts department, the people who prepare your bill, and most importantly, you. If a shop has more than four technicians per service writer, the service writer becomes the bottleneck.

At Prestige there are 6 technicians and 2 service writers for a comfortable 3 to 1 ratio. Both service writers are experienced service technicians who understand the work being done. And they know the most important part of their job is to communicate with you.

Maintain a large parts inventory and an even larger parts network

One of the features we designed into our building was a large area for parts storage. This lets us keep the most common parts in stock all the time. That, plus an active network of more than ten different parts suppliers means Prestige can quickly find any part you need.

COMPETITIVE PRICING

Offer good deals on great cars

Prestige sells the cars you always wanted—great makes like Mercedes Benz, BMW, Volvo, Audi, Lexus and more. Unlike a new car dealer that has to take customer trade-ins in virtually any condition, we’re extremely picky about what we buy and bring to our lot. Yet our prices are almost always less than you’d pay for the same year and model at a local dealer.

Set competitive hourly rates for service

Hourly rates at Prestige vary by brand. Mercedes owners pay a higher rate than Honda owners, for example, because the greater complexity of their vehicle requires a greater investment in specialized equipment and training. In general, hourly rates at Prestige are roughly 15-20% lower than corresponding dealer rates.

Only bill for actual time spent

Virtually all repair shops rely on industry guidebooks to estimate the time required for certain tasks. Yet dealers and many other repair shops work on a flat-rate system where actual customer charges are also set by the book.

For example, if the book says a repair should take two hours, you will be charged for two hours of labor even if it takes less. If a technician can, for example, squeeze in nine hours of flat-rate work in an 8-hour shift, the shop gets to bill all nine hours.

You might think this policy could work in your favor should your repair take longer than normal. But the guidebooks are conservative and that rarely happens. What’s more, most shops would still charge you for the extra time. Remember, the purpose of this system is not to help you get a lower price but to help the shop maximize its income.

The flat rate system guarantees that the customer will never get a break on labor costs. Even worse is the fact that the system pressures technicians to “beat the book” and some will cut corners to look good. That increases the chance that your vehicle will not be fixed properly.

Prestige Import Repair believes that a straight hourly system is the most fair to both the customer and the shop. Since its technicians are so highly trained and certified, they’ll do a thorough job and you’ll often pay for fewer hours of labor than you would at a flat-rate shop.

Offer less expensive options on parts

There are four price levels in automotive parts. (1) Original equipment, (2) Aftermarket, (3) Remanufactured, and (4) Used.

If you take your car to a dealer, you’ll get only one option, the highest priced, original equipment (OEM) parts. Their contract with the vehicle manufacturer doesn’t allow them to offer you anything else. Prestige uses quality aftermarket parts from Bosch, which are functionally the same as OEM parts but sold at a lower price.

When your vehicle needs a particularly expensive part, using a remanufactured part can cut the cost even more and still provide good service. If you’ve got an older vehicle that you don’t plan to keep much longer, it might make sense to consider used parts, if we can locate a compatible part.

Don’t charge for extended test drives

You know the situation. You have an intermittent problem with your vehicle that won’t show itself when you go in for service. The dealer will just tell you to come back later when the problem is more apparent. But that might be too late to avoid a breakdown or serious damage.

You could insist they keep the car for a few days and keep driving it. Even if they agree, you would pay hundreds of dollars for extensive test driving by an hourly-rate technician. The only way to solve this problem is with a shop that places an extremely high value on customer service.

When a customer at Prestige Import Repair has this problem, it’s treated as a challenge to be met head on. If a problem occurs when the engine is cold, just leaving the vehicle overnight can be the answer. If it needs to be driven more extensively, the owner and service manager have taken customer cars home and lived with them a few days until the mystery can be solved. Such extraordinary diagnosis work is done at no charge. 

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Become a one-stop source for automotive services

One of the best things we can do for our customers is save them time. That’s why we’ve assembled a broad offering of automotive services under one roof. See the One-Stop Services section for a comprehensive list.

Operate in a safe location with convenient hours

Used car dealers and independent repair shops are often located in low-rent neighborhoods. Prestige is different. We’re located in a modern building on 29^th Street, just a short walk from Woodland Mall. You’ll never be concerned about being in our neighborhood. In fact, many customers take advantage of our convenient 24/7 drop box to leave their cars the night before a service appointment. See the Hours section for the convenient hours of our sales and service departments.

Provide free shuttle service for customers

Naturally, we provide a clean waiting room with free hot coffee. Yet many customers prefer to drop their car off and pick it up later. We’ll gladly provide a ride to your home or work location. Or we’ll even drop you off at Woodland or Centerpoint Mall for a few hours of shopping. If you can’t arrange your own ride back, we can even pick you up after your car is ready.

Treat customers like family

Many of our customers have 2, 3, or more imports to service. And quite a few have been coming to us for ten or even 20 years or more. We appreciate their loyalty and do our best to continue earning it.

Here are some of the exceptional things we do for our customers that keep them coming back:

If you have a particular car in mind that we don’t have on our lot, let us know. We’ll check our sources and see if we can find one for you. If you can give us a few weeks to conduct a careful search, we may be able to find exactly what you want.

Has your car broken down somewhere? Just have it towed here and we’ll do our best to get you up and running in a hurry.

Have you purchased tires or other accessories from remote suppliers but still need local installation? New car dealers, tire stores, and auto electronics shops won’t help you, because you didn’t buy from them. As a service to our customers, we install tires, performance accessories, and many other items purchased elsewhere.

Some of our customers also own domestic vehicles and prefer that we work on them. Even though that’s not our specialty, we’ll gladly do it as a convenience for our customer.

Want to save time and avoid another stop? Drop off your vehicle for any service work and we’ll hand wash it, inside and out, for just $10.

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