NO!

Every business decides what products and services it offers. It’s not snobbery, we gladly care for the older vehicles of our existing clients, but the older-vehicle-new-client scenario often produced challenging situations we decided long ago to avoid…

We have many longstanding clients with older vehicles, and we plan to keep them happy for years to come!  We are happy to inspect and accept older vehicles from existing clients when it makes sense as well. We have developed good relationships with these clients, and both parties know the vehicle’s current needs and conditions.  We will continue to service an older vehicle as long as it makes sense, but years of experience taught us not to start new client relationships based around older, often challenged vehicles.

We do our best to maintain trusting, long-term relationships with our clients, but a new service relationship can be challenged by the quality and condition of the vehicle being serviced.  Many first time older vehicles need so much work to make them safe or reliable that the cost of needed repairs exceeds the value of the vehicle.  We offer solutions based on our client’s best long-term interests and don’t like to be in the position of prioritizing repairs on vehicles that are beyond proper repair.  Also, one of our biggest values is letting clients know when the economic viability of their vehicle has passed and it’s time to move on to a different vehicle instead of just fixing the current failure and getting it back out on the road.  Once we’ve built a trusting service relationship with a client, they listen to us if there is a glitch in a repair or we tell them it’s time to part with their vehicle.  It’s impossible to build that kind of relationship with a first time client around a vehicle that is already worn out.

Our maintenance programs will extend the life of your vehicle, but it’s rarely worth playing “catch up” to get an older, poorly maintained vehicle running safely and reliably.  We hate to say “no” to potential new clients, but we have too much respect to start a relationship that is not mutually beneficial.  Vehicles will come and go, but the service relationship can last for generations.

In closing, as hard as we try to explain this policy, one of our clients may have done it best.  Here’s a 2012 review from Robb W. on Yelp that puts it very succinctly…

“Tom Dwyer’s is solid as hell across all fronts.  They know most makes and models and bend over backwards to make your experience there the best you could ever imagine…seriously.  Is your car less than 15 years old?  Then they will be able to take care of you in all likelihood.  Why 15 years? Their philosophy is that after 15 years, your money is better spent on a newer car…that the repairs will mount and it is no longer cost effective to continue to fix your old hooptie.  And no, they don’t sell new cars as a side business…it’s just smart thinking and they’re not trying to take your money doing a bunch of avoidable repairs.

Hell, sometimes they’re not trying to take your money at all.  I have been there on two separate occasions where they have put my car up on the lift, actually done some work and refused to charge me…not a single thin dime.  This after taking me to work in their shuttle.”

Thanks, Robb!