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Went to pick up my brand new Cupra TDi 160 from ... today, which I thought would be a great day, how wrong could I have been!

I arrived at the Dealer at 11am (after a 2 hour train travel and then a 90 minute drive with my mates) to find the car had just been cleaned. Unfortunately, seeing it from a distance was about as good as it got, it all went downhill from there!

I was greeted by the Salesman and was given the usual stuff (handbook, etc) while a valeter drove the car around. Then we walked outside and I was given the keys and told 'All thats left is for you to give it a final check over'.

Before he had even finished the sentance I had already seen a stiny suspicious scratch in between the o/s/f door edge and sill. Only to open it and be greeted by 3-three inch scratches on the sill, they wern't light scratches either, these were pretty much right down to bare metal! Anyway, this was noted and we moved on. I then found 3 more paint defects after this one...

1) OS/F door has a deep 3 inch scratch underneath the wing mirror
2) O/S/F door edge has been chipped where it has been hit against another car
3) N/S/F door handle has about 13 white 'chips' on it, don't ask me why!

We then went inside to report these problems, leaving my friends to look at the car. Only to come back and find they had found even MORE problems!!

1) O/S/F wheel kurbed!!!! How the hell wasn't this noticed on PDi!!!
2) Brown spots on bonnet and o/s/f wing underneath the laquer
3) O/S/F door completely out of line, you could lift the window guide with one finger and see inside the car!
4) The car didn't have a DROP of fuel in it, despite being promised the day before there would be £20 in it

After going through allot of mixed emotions (and comtemplating the fact I had no real way to get home) I decided to reject the car and leave it with them. Needless to say, I am absolutely ****ing livid that I wasted 2 days off work (Friday to sort out insurance/money, Saturday going there!) for nothing. Then theres the £15 in train fairs and £50+ in fuel for my mates Evo, who in the end had to take me home! (cheers mate! )

To be fair, its not the Salesmans fault at all, he did pretty much everything I asked (except the fuel). Its seems to be the curse of the completely useless aftersales department again! I would've given the technician a piece of my mind had he bothered to come out, I didn't realise ... employed Stevie Wonder to PDi their cars

So, where do I go from here?

A) Reject the car for full refund (I can't wait for another car, as its another 3 months for cars with Cruise)
B) Reject the car and try and get them to swap for a Leon Cupra R
C) Give them a chance and let them fix the paintwork etc (I'd like to do this, but I'm not really convinced its worth it considering there first effort!)

Despite officially owning this car (all paid for on Friday) the closest I got to driving it was reversing it back litterally two feet to help someone get into a parking space! That was it!

It was looking good for you until the last sentence!

First question - is there finance involved? i.e. is the car actually yours to reject?

Second question - what *exactly* have you told them, and is it in writing (with receipt) to the Franchise Principle? I'm assuming that you have refused them permission to repair the car and have stated so in writing -- if not, you need to do this ASAP(!) (i.e. tomorrow or first thing Monday at the latest) to give you breathing space until you decide what to do.

The focus of my concern would be the brown spots -- are you sure they're under the laquer? Are you sure they're not just wax (but you'll know more than me if they even still use that stuff these days or just wrap everything....). If this is something that would need the whole panel resprayed you have to think of the effect of the increased paint depth on resale and this would - in my opinion - be grounds for rejection on the "satisfactory quality" argument.

You could expect the other things to be repaired to "satisfactory quality" if you gave them a chance.

If you have any concerns at all - get an independent engineer to do a report on the paintwork -- get someone from a local paintshop (not the one that dealer uses!) out and offer them £50 for an A4 statement of the problem. Use this to support your rejection.

But, it all boils down to how much hastle you want. Depending on what the brown spots really turn out to be rejection might not be the best option -- consider what you could now ask the dealer for by means of compensation - but - and this is very important - make sure that any compensation is supported by a written statement from the dealer that they acknowledge you are not accepting it as a settlement of a dispute. Very difficult to do, but my not doing it (with VW though) came back to haunt me when I tried to reject my car after ongoing problems a few months later...

Bummer.

Deek.

ps. apols for the edit in your post, but it's the sensible thing to do...

What an absolute nightmare

dxg wrote:It was looking good for you until the last sentence!

First question - is there finance involved? i.e. is the car actually yours to reject?

Yes, as I've still yet to sign the vehicle handover forms and I haven't 'accepted' the car yet. So in theory its still the Dealers problem

I'd give them a chance to sort it personally, and if they don't get it done to a decent standard within a reasonable amount of time then ask them to exchange it for another car.

this a brand new car? or is it nearly new?

Its brand new! I hope the dealer can sort out the problems - 3 months wait for another car of the same spec is a long wait indeed!

wooot? a brand new car, shocking stuff!

not so sure i'd be happy at getting my brand new car resprayed!

Especially as you've not even driven it on the road!

Any news? Did you get your letter in today?

Deek.

OK, the story...

Basically, after spending the whole Sunday without transport, I was left with nothing much else to do other than stress about the car (lost 1/2 a stone in last 5 days) and what to do with it.

Anyway, on the Monday, pretty much behind my back my Dad (i'm only 19, so hes naturally still protective ) rings my Salesman at Marshalls and has a word with him. Then he goes as far as to agree that Marshalls Bodyshop work on the car.

Naturally, after reading about other peoples Aftersales experience with Marshalls Of Bedford I naturally with ****ing mental!! Phoned up Nas (my Salesman) straight away and said in these exact words; 'If anyone from your Aftersales Department or Bodyshop goes within 3 feet of that car without my permission I will reject the car straight away, and I mean that'.

He (naturally) seemed a bit suprised by little outburst, but at that point I was so pissed off with the whole situation I couldn't care less what he thought!! I told him I would be at the Dealership within the next 4 hours to look at the car again and move-on from there.

Four hours later, we grab the keys and check the car again. My Dad (ex-VAG Bodywork specialist) and me agree that most of the scratches will polish out. So we go back to see Nas.

Now, before I go on. My salesman Nas was never the problem at all. He always made me feel like a wanted Customer and always kept me updated on the vehicles progress. I found the Sales Department at Marshalls excellent! It all went downhill when the other muppets at the Dealership got involved with the car...

So, I agree to take the car. On 2 simple conditions;

1) The kurbed wheel is swapped with the showroom Cupra (which was my original car, that turned up without Cruise Control)

2) The non-Warranty paintwork (scratches most likely caused by Marshalls) shall be repaired by the Bodyshop Melford Panelcraft, a VAG Approved Bodyshop who I KNOW will do a good job.

He immedeatly agreed to point 1. However, he insisted the Bodywork was sorted at the Marshalls bodyshop (a dingy unit which was part of the Dealership). After sticking to my Guns and getting nowhere I eventually said 'we can sit and argue about this all day, but if the bodywork is not done at Melford, I am not taking the car'.

So, Nas goes to speak with Peter Moden, the Franchise Manager. He goes to check the damage outside on my car (after walking past me and blanking me in the showroom like I wasn't even there ) and finally gives in.

So, we (me and Dad) went to a Pub down the road, had some late lunch and when we got back the car driven outside the Dealership, with wheel replaced and a full tank of fuel!

So, what do I think of Marshalls Bedford? Top marks to my Salesman Nas, who after the false start on the Saturday made sure I left the Dealership a happy Customer! No marks to the Aftersales Department who checked the car when it came it, and failed to set the time on the dash, tune the radio and notice the coolant system was overfilled by 1 litre over the maximum mark!!! (which I had to remove myself today )

Good to know that it has been sorted out one way or another!

Well done for sticking to your guns and getting what you wanted just a shame that it took a little longer than expected

Glad you got something sorted out - but makes u wonder what kind of monkeys work there though with the amount of errors they didn't notice. I don't mean to sound pesimistic but i'd still be worried about anything else wrong with the car that I couldn't see from the outside, I hope it all does get sorted out though and after all the fuss you get to enjoy it as you deserve

Yeah mate, glad you got what you wanted, and stuck with the car.
At least you get to drive it now! glad the idea of the Leon soon passed. Good job.

That is absolutely Shocking

i bet ya the reason that stuff was not picked up on the Pdi was because it was done on the Pdi

near me their is an audi dealers where they have a seperate unit to unwrap the cars and clean them as per Pdi, i saw a lovely audi A4 convertible, reversed into a bay straight up a kerb, kerbing the crap out of an alloy, an the parking around thier is a joke, its packed with cars its commonplace to see them get bumped when they are moved about


do the VAG group not like money? damaging cars that they havnt even sold is stupidity,

but, at least you got it sorted, although, didn they not reduce the price of the car? as a brand new car with resprayed body panels? the paint will never be a 100% the same, and it now has what is essentailly a second hand wheel on it?!


unbelieveable

~Jez~