Main Dealer Service and VW Extended Warranty Experience

[ihpj]

Dear All,

I visit and browse the forum often but post infrequently as I don't believe I can contribute to the informed opinions often. As it happens today, I thought I would share the below to help other members who may be in the same situation.

We own a 2011 Polo 6R 1.4 (petrol) DSG that was bought as a Das Welt in 2017 with 45K miles. Car has a FVWSH, was one private owner when we bought it and, as part of the sale, the supplying Dealer competed a timing belt and water pump change. Given the known issues with the DSG box and various (fragile) electronics, we opted to renew the VW Extended Warranty (All Component). It cost us £189 with £100 excess last year (with 15K mileage limit).

My wife loves VWs and the car was bought because she fancied a change. Car itself has been very well behaved (for a VW), aside from an odd issue here and there (characteristically not covered by the Das Welt Warranty), such as chaffing to a wiring loom leading to a malfunction of the radiator fan. This year it was due:

* full variable major service
* brake fluid change
* MOT
* strip, clean, adjust rear drum brakes (car had new brake shoes when we bought it)

At quoted prices, VW were expecting us to pay £460-odd for everything other than the brake adjustment, for this they wanted full hours labour (£150 +VAT). We used their 'Service Price Match Promise' and were able to get it all down to a reasonable £340 (inc. VAT). The price match request was pretty painless and accepted without too much hassle. What helped was submitting the written quote listing VW part # for each of the service items used. As the car had the extended VW Warranty we were confident if other items were found we would push for them to be covered under warranty.

Sure enough, we got 'the call' from our helpful Service Advisor - car passed its MOT but the following items were highlighted (all were reported as 'AMBER' on the VHC):

* AUX belt cracking - £86.15
* Centre exhaust clamp corroded - £97.06
* OSF bleed nipple rounded off, corroded and seized. Requires replacing - £86.23
* Front suspension top mount bearings worn - £547.10

Since this is a car on longlife servicing and will see the VW Service Dept. once every 2 years, and given the timing belt and water pump was done when we bought it, we figured we would keep the car for the next 2 years so we should get these things looked at. We agreed to the work being completed, but requested they price match the labour rate (per hour) as used for the Service. They declined stating if we wanted them to price match this work, we would need to get a new quote. We duly did and produced a quote for 1.5HR labour units, which they dragged their feet on matching, but eventually agreed. Total cost, including parts, labour + VAT: £190.

On the latter item, they clearly forgot we had the VW Extended Warranty, and when we asked them if they had submitted a claim, their advice changed from 'get it done now' to 'its as an advisory only' and the Warranty would not agree to a claim so they were not intending to submit the claim. We had to push (and push) them to submit the claim. After about a days worth of to-and-fro for us running between between Dealer (unhelpful) and Warranty (very accommodating), the claim was approved (much to Dealer's surprise). Total cost, warranty excess only (£100).

The reason I have posted is to share my experience for the benefit of others when it comes to:
* VW Extended Warranty
* Service Price Match Promise
* Managing the Dealer to ensure they do the jobs you need them to do

Whereas I can see why the Dealer would want us, as retail customs, pay for costs of repair (Warranty rates are no doubt much lower than retail) you should not accept what they tell you at face value and be confident enough to challenge and push them. I found VW Extended Warranty couldn't have been more helpful with this claim, and it was only by us working with them, was the claim approved. My Dealer was sadly useless and I am pursuing this through other channels.

I hope our experience will give others the confidence in using the price match promise effectively, and if you are thinking about the VW Extended Warranty, our experience will help inform your view. Lastly, do not take your Dealers word for what they believe the Warranty will approve or not, always worth asking and pushing - on this occasion had we not pushed, the bushings would not have been changed and continued to wear...or worse yet, if we had been uninformed customers, encouraged into parting with the full cost of repair

All in all, this cost us £640 all in, and the cost saving is significant!



...as for the seized bleed nipple, we figured if one side was seized/rounded the other would likely not be too far behind so we bought a second bleed nipple and they agreed to fit for free

[davo172]

Interesting review who was the dealer out of interest?
I have had extended VW warranty on a few vehicles and had to claim a few times but never had any issues at all found my dealer to be very helpful and warranty very good.
Also the vw rescue with dedicated VW techs have also been good.

Think dealers vary greatly as I have also had awful experience with dealers who were truly awful!

[RUM4MO]

Extremely greedy initial prices quoted there though all points raised being typical for a VW Group car of that age especially the exhaust centre clamps, my daughter’s late 2009 Ibiza ended up with the clamps at both ends of the joining sleeve failing from excessive rusting, so replacing them was a 15 minute job, cracked auxiliary belt, if that cambelt and water pump were replaced by an indie VW Group specialist, they would have insisted on including replacing the aux belt.
As a DIYer I tend to plan to replace all the brake bleed valves round about the 6-8 year mark as the exposed area will have “shrunk” from corrosion, top mounts, wear and tear, there was a part revision but probably that car started life with the revised parts.
My wife runs a 2015 Polo 1.2TSI 110PS SEL but I have an 2011 Audi S4 and the prices Audi hand out are obscene - but I don’t think that embarrasses them one bit, just as well there is healthy support for VW Group products out there from VW Group indies!

[RUM4MO]

I’ll also add that it does sound like a very cynical business model that VW Group dealerships use, typically customers want their car not to be in the garage and to remain roadworthy, so hitting them on the phone with any price so that the work gets done there and then will normally work. Now that they all offer to price match will also be pushing initial prices up to keep the daily income at a “good” level, ie those that accept the initial price will be part funding the lower prices that result from price matching. They are a commercial business after all, but playing fair when giving support for the products they sell should repay just as well or even better than trying to be so greedy, with the bonus of having more satisfied customers and satisfied customers can be very good proxy salesmen.

[ihpj]

The Dealer in group in question is Lancaster. A key consideration in us extending the warranty with VW directly was the fact it should make any claims easier to handle and third party warranties are not worth the paper they are written on. I did not expect so much resistance from my dealer in submitting the claim when it was they who highlighted the issue.

On the matter of the claim, they were quite adamant the claim would be rejected as the wear was not significant enough to warrant replacement. Aside from the fact they were telling me on the job card the top mounts were worn (note: not wearing) and quoted £500+ to repair. I had to push them to submit a claim, which they did and was promptly rejected. When I queried it with them, they told me this was because they were not sufficiently worn. I then called Warranty directly and spoke with them about the claim, much to my surprise, Warranty confirmed the claim had been submitted and denied because as I had not reported any issues/faults with the car, they could not entertain a speculative claim. Had I reported issues and this then prompted the dealer to investigate and subsequently find the top mounts are worn, it is likely they would have approved the claim.

Now bear in mind when our car was last with the same dealer late last year, we did complain about noises from the front end of the car. They had investigated then but no fault found - to their credit they didn't charge the £60 diagnosis fee. But this is materially significant because when the dealer submitted the claim on this occasion, they omitted to supply Warranty with the most important piece of information: we had previously complained about noises coming from the front end of the car. When this was fed back to Warranty, they instantly approved the claim - much to the dealer's surprise.

A key take away for us is one should always mention/highlight/report any concerns and ensure they are recorded on the service record, even if NFF at the time. You should also follow up any denied claim with Warranty directly to understand why. In our case, it was obvious as the dealer was not motivated to submit the claim in the first instance and only did so upon our insistence. Either through their incompetence, unprofessionalism or sheer bloody mindedness, they submitted a poorly crafted claim which resulted in it being declined. Had I not spoken with warranty and simply accepted the dealer's word, the top mounts would not be replaced now.

I don't think we were being unreasonable in our expectations or that in some way we were asking for more than would reasonably be expected. I hope this experience informs others!

[awsm]

Informative post. I have a used VW still under initial 3 year warranty and considering the extended VW warranty when it ends. For the VW Service Price match you have to get written quotes for the jobs. How does one approach a garage and request a written quote with obviously no intention of actually having the work completed by them? I suppose you could email garages also and the response quote would count as a written quote?