Main dealers - has common sense been lost?
Discussion
I've just bought a three year-old car from a main dealer two hours' drive away. I'm very pleased with it but both HID headlights were adjusted very low. The HIDs go through their normal up/down/sideways calibration whenever I start the car so I didn't feel that the low adjustment was a system failure; just a calibration one.
The supplying dealer offered to take a look, but rather than drive four hours to get them adjusted I dropped into my local dealer on Friday and asked their advice. "Ooh, there could be any number of things wrong, from an issue with the rear body height sensors to the motors that raise and lower the beam. You'd need to book it in to us so we can take a look. Oh, and by the way only failed parts would be covered by the warranty; the labour charge of diagnosing the problem wouldn't be covered by the [manufacturer-backed] approved used warranty."
A bit of Googling this weekend revealed a forum thread in which a helpful chap described how each of the headlight units has two manual allen-key adjusters, for beam vertical and horizontal alignment. A tweak this evening and a test drive have got them pretty much perfect.
WTbloodyF were the dealers playing at?! Why couldn't the supplying salesman or the local service manager have applied some common sense and told me about these adjustment points?
/rant
The supplying dealer offered to take a look, but rather than drive four hours to get them adjusted I dropped into my local dealer on Friday and asked their advice. "Ooh, there could be any number of things wrong, from an issue with the rear body height sensors to the motors that raise and lower the beam. You'd need to book it in to us so we can take a look. Oh, and by the way only failed parts would be covered by the warranty; the labour charge of diagnosing the problem wouldn't be covered by the [manufacturer-backed] approved used warranty."
A bit of Googling this weekend revealed a forum thread in which a helpful chap described how each of the headlight units has two manual allen-key adjusters, for beam vertical and horizontal alignment. A tweak this evening and a test drive have got them pretty much perfect.
WTbloodyF were the dealers playing at?! Why couldn't the supplying salesman or the local service manager have applied some common sense and told me about these adjustment points?
/rant
Sump - The owners' manual says "Headlight levelling is adjusted automatically". There's no mention of the manual adjustment method. Silly me for reading the manual. 
It's fair enough for the local dealer to charge diagnostic labour if the manufacturer's warranty doesn't cover it for something like this (I wouldn't expect it on an engine problem, for example). My irritation is simply that a 30-second show-and-tell with my car in the car park would have given me an easy thing to try first before they got all medieval with their diagnostics on it, and I'd have walked away delighted with their customer service. Instead I came away feeling as though they were either robots blindly following the manufacturer's complicated diagnostic instructions, or they were incompetent.
I had a similar thing on my last car, an Audi. Before taking it to the continent I asked the supplying dealer how to adjust the HID lights. Their service advisor sucked his teeth and told me I'd need to book it in for an hour's labour and, oh sorry we can't do it while you wait, you'll need to leave it with us for the day, and we don't have a courtesy car until a week's time. And it'll be the same process when you get back. I called another local dealer whose response was, "Pop over with it now and we'll do it for you. Takes ten minutes. No charge." When the first service was due it was the second, smaller dealer who got my custom.
Actually, I've just realised: it's the same main dealer group who pissed me around with the Audi that just failed the common sense test on the new car. Doh! Why am I surprised.
It's fair enough for the local dealer to charge diagnostic labour if the manufacturer's warranty doesn't cover it for something like this (I wouldn't expect it on an engine problem, for example). My irritation is simply that a 30-second show-and-tell with my car in the car park would have given me an easy thing to try first before they got all medieval with their diagnostics on it, and I'd have walked away delighted with their customer service. Instead I came away feeling as though they were either robots blindly following the manufacturer's complicated diagnostic instructions, or they were incompetent.
I had a similar thing on my last car, an Audi. Before taking it to the continent I asked the supplying dealer how to adjust the HID lights. Their service advisor sucked his teeth and told me I'd need to book it in for an hour's labour and, oh sorry we can't do it while you wait, you'll need to leave it with us for the day, and we don't have a courtesy car until a week's time. And it'll be the same process when you get back. I called another local dealer whose response was, "Pop over with it now and we'll do it for you. Takes ten minutes. No charge." When the first service was due it was the second, smaller dealer who got my custom.
Actually, I've just realised: it's the same main dealer group who pissed me around with the Audi that just failed the common sense test on the new car. Doh! Why am I surprised.
Edited by threadlock on Monday 15th July 09:07
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