Dealers damaged my car (again)

[dxg]

So, my car is flat black. Largely because of this I take huge amounts of care of it.

This is the car that never goes into a city centre (unless I have to for work). Never goes to a train station car park. Never visits Tescos when it's busy. All that sort of thing.

As you can imagine it was spotless. No scratches. No dents. No stone chips. Just an ongoing tree sap and swirl mark "situation"

Went to pick it up from the dealer this morning (sevicing and (yet more) warranty work).

It's not spotless any more. A good four inches worth of lots of short, horizontal, deep (can feel with with a finger nail (i.e. won't polish out)) scratches right down the cetnre of the driver's door. Forgot to see if the panel's bent, but something large has been rolled / driven into it. The rubbing strip was also damaged, and this is what drew my eye to it.

This is the second time my dealer has damaged that door.

What makes it worse, is I'm now stuck with *no transportation*. Refused to take the car off their lot, but had to hand their hire car back as my insurance would only cover it until this morning.

I also doubt that they've looked at the rattles in the dash, as evrything (dirt, coins, soft toy ) was in exactly the same places as I'd left them.

Dealer's attitude royaly stank.

I wanted to go back home to get a camera to take some pics, and the girl refused to give me the courtesy car back(!!). All she could say was "I have to get that washed" -- quite frankly, dear, that's the worst of your problems.

In the end, I just took the courtesy car's keys off the desk and walked out. Came back in half an hour with my camera, took some pics of my car and gave the keys back.

Rediculous.

Right now, VW is off my list for the next car I'm looking to buy in 6 to 9 months time. Unless the Polo GTi's really something special, I guess I'll have to follow the herd and go for a CTR (or a GTM Libra(!) - they're made just up the road from me). Although, the Fiesta ST should be out by then - all depends if I can handle the shame/depreciation of a Ford.

So disappoiinted but this, for me, is the straw that broke the camel's back. The dealer knows me. Through from their sales to their service manager through to their MD. And for this to happen is a final "yes we say all these things to you, but when it comes down to it, we just don't care".

Deek.

[jrw]

Tell me about it, mine was damaged the last time it went in (the drivers door) and they repaired it. This was in Feb and washing it the other week I could see blotches in the paint where they had fillered it.

So I phones them up to explain and book it in the body shop and asked for a few warranty items as well (rattles, dodgy heater etc.). I took it in on Monday. Had a phone call Fri to say it was ready apart from they couldn't find the paint problem. I said the bloke who went out with me saw it ('sorry he's not in today'). They said you'll have to come down and show us (its a 25 mile trip each way!!!) so we can take pics of it to send to warranty. If they'd listened they'd know it wasn't a VW warranty job. (by this time I was getting rather pissed off with them). Oh in that case we'll have to book it in to the body shop for you. Erm hang on isn't that what I did 3 weeks ago when I booked it in originally?

Incompetence isn't the word! The best of it was he still wanted me to pick the car up until the bodyshop can book it in. I told him where to go and he said he'll have to speak to a few people and see what he can do.

Do they really think they can walk all over us like this?

[andyg]

That really sucks, id be pretty angry also.

My opinion of VW dealerships is that they are relying on their reputation far too much. Its a sort of "well VWs have always sold well and always will". VW need to overhaul their attitude, when there was ever a problem with my car it was such a ball ache and all because of stupid little problems, like them never having the part in stock after they took my car to work on it. Or the time they told me there would be a curtosy car but when i turned up all i got was a lift back in a sharran (cheers VW).

So yeh i know how you feel, its a bummer and its the main thing that puts me off buying another vw.

[dxg]

Great.

Dealers are now claiming it couldn't have happened while in their care because, if it had, their "technicians would have owned up to it". They say it's been scrapped on a wall and they don't see how could have happened as "they don't have any walls like that".

Absolutely fuming. It definately was not on there when it went in. It's right down the middle of the driver's door. There's no way I could keep walking up to any car with that on it, let alone my own. I'd have paid to get it fixed immediately, if I'd caused it. (I've done it before and have even gone through their bodyshop!!!)

[dxg]

So,

Now their bodyshop people have looked at it and have said it could have been a door opening into it. Because of this, they've now at least agreed to fix it.

Talked through what had been done to it on warranty - and it doesn't sound as if they've looked at the most annoying of all the rattles - the one burried right inside the instrument binnacle somewhere.

What a wonderful, stress-free way to ease myself into the working week.

Grrr.

Deek.

[dxg]

And just to top it off, my house painters - whose work was appauling and has failed after six months - have started playing the spec game - "all we quoted was to prime and gloss, no mention of how long it would last".

Ex-QS's don't fall for those kinds of tricks.

Still a little conversation about the judgement of a reasonable man and the mention of court, and they're coming out to "fix it". <insert evil grin>

Sometimes, the being really p****d off at VW, putting you in a foul mood for the rest of day, pays off!

Fun times at chatuex DXG!

Deek

[carmadaaron]

im really not going to ANY garage unless it is absolutely necessary!! (for modified bushes, 18s fitted etc)
i dont feel too confident when other ppl are driving my new car.

[david burton]

gutted mate

this is SHOCKING service - especially from someone you should trust.

[Speedlaw]

I can feel your pain.

If it's not their car, they _do not_ care. At all.

I don't leave my car alone anymore at the dealership. I just hang around, ask questions, look at everything they do, everything they touch. It's time consuming, but it pays off.

They've gotten used to me hanging around while they work on it.

They even ask me to go with them when they're taking it for a test drive (if they have to).

All I've had so far with this method is a fingerprint on the leather, which came off fairly easily.

Hope they get it sorted mate!

[Clawz]

I had the same problem when they screwed up the roofing in my car and placed nice scrapes over the boot of my car.

I called in and complained, saying that they weren't there in the first place.. then the next minute the technician called me back and ranted and raved down the phone how he hadn't done a thing to my "damned" car and how he had actually handled it with kid gloves!!

Not to mention how he didn't even go near those bits.

To be honest they're a law unto themselves.. short of photographing every part of the car prior to it going in there's not a lot we can do. They've got the law on their side unfortunatley and we have no proof.

[dxg]

Well, they did sort it in the end.

It's just annoying that I almost expect this to happen now. And it's not as if I would call them a "bad" dealer. They do seem to care, yet stuff like this happens. Spot the dichotomy!

What really got to me this time, was there acquisation(sp?) that the damage had been there when I brought it in! I wasn't standing for that, and - fair enough - after making my thoughts about that view perfectly clear to them, the customer care bod did apologise repeatedly.

I guess the lesson for the next time is to get someone out to the car to look it over and agree its condition before handing it in for work. But I really shouldn't have to to do that.

But still:
- my washer jets now clean the driver's side of the windscreen!
- the folding rear seat now folds back up!
- the steering wheel's now on straight (didn't even ask for that one - they fixed that themselves!)
- the clutch pedal now fully disengages the clutch (air blocks in system after previous replacement of master cylinder - apparently).
- and...


... wait for it ...



.. no rattles (for now!)

Deek.

[Babe RuthLess]

I feel your pain too, dxg.

Regular visitors to these forums will recall my ordeal with VW after some idiot crashed into my car. 60 days and a lot of vitits to pick up a half-finished, dented car.

The worst thing is, by law the dealer has to register ANY damage to the car, and the fuel level, before taking it in. Which they did (car was spotless apart from the area affected by the crash).

The dealer made three (!) attempts to return my car, either damaged during the repair (I was particularly furious about the dented BONNET) or with half-finished attempts at repairing the crash damage.

Right now, the door's finally sealing properly, and all dents have been removed. However I susped the paint on the wheelarch will start peeling off soon.

Oh, and they RUINED the door rubbing strips with wax and have refused to replace them aguing that (it's a normal thing and you probably let some wax on them before). Yeah OK.

Still, it seems to be worldwide problem, this sub-standard service from VW. At the prices they charge I'd expect nothing less than royal treatment from them. How naïve.

[/end rant]

[jrw]

Its been 9 days now mine has been in and had one phone call which I told you about earlier on Friday. How that for Customer care. Still waiting for him to phone me back like he said he would friday afternoon! only 5 days late for a call when the car was booked in for 3 days!

Oh well I don't care anymore, the courtesy car is approaching its 600th mile with me and it has air-con so i'm not bothered!

[dxg]

I just keep putting pressure on them.

For example, when my latest episode kicked off, when I was refusing to take my car off the lot, the service receptionist was all "well, you'll have to call xx on Monday to explain it all to him then". I just made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that it was *their* problem that *they* had created and I fully expected *them* to be doing the chasing around to sort it out. Consequently, it was their customer care guy who was calling me on the Monday morning.

Although I didn't do it this time, another trick I have to is call them at the end of each day - 4.30 ish to find out what they'd done to it that day, and asking them to talk through the job sheet with me. They seem to get fed up of the amount of their time that this chews up pretty quickly. But this was ealrier on in the car's life when it spending three or four weeks at the dealers each time it went in.

Yet another tactic I've developed is asking them to explain what they've done to fix "the faults", rather than asking "have you fixed X?" It puts them on their toes and seems to make them admit when they're not totally sure of what's been done to it, or if their fixes will work at all (I'm talking rattles, mainly).

Oddly, I have had to develop balls when dealing with them. I'm normally such a nice guy, too...

Oh well I don't care anymore, the courtesy car is approaching its 600th mile with me and it has air-con so i'm not bothered!

I'll admit to having gone through this phase, too!!! Kinda explains why my car only has 9.5k on it at two years old!! Eventually I started caring again when Ibegain to question why my finance mayments were going on a car a few miles away and not the hired Corse/Polo/Fiesta sitting in my drive...

Deek.

[dxg]

Although - with the M6 toll, you must be less than an hour from Loughborough.

If you don't get yours sorted, you could give my dealer a shot, if you wanted...

They are quite small, but they do try. I could put you onto the service manager bod who's been dealing with my problems so far. He's a decent bloke. But his spanner monkeys, well...

(And the for thenext few weeks, they shoudl be paying closer attention to their customer's cars...)

Deek.