Dealership woes
Discussion
Anybody here had a good experience with a dealership?
I bought an Audi TT nearly 2 months ago, 30k on the clock, for £18 500. As part of the sale I wanted various things done to the car, such as replacing the interior door levers (scratched to buggery), fixing the gearknob, a tracker, and an Audi cupholder. All this was agreed on the contract. During the test drive, I noticed the rear parcel shelf was squeaky, the salesman said it was the temporary number plate.
Went to get the car, no cupholder. Apparently they sent the wrong colour. No problem, just come in next week it only takes 5 minutes to fit. Arrive next week, only to be told it takes an hour, and nobody was available, I'd have to book it in.
that I thought, I took it away and installed it in less than 2 minutes.
The parcel shelf was still squeaking (very noisily), and while out one day, I tilted the passenger seat forward to get to the back seat, and the tilt lever snapped off in my hand.
Took it back, they said they'd have to order a part, and booked me in. Went along the following week, 'oops sorry wrong part has come, dont worry its a 5 minute job', make another booking.
The car starts making scraping noises from somewhere underneath the engine/exhaust/gearbox.
Go in the following week (was working in the morning), 'no sorry it requires the seat to be stripped, cant spare anybody this late in the day'. They install a new parcel shelf, so thats that done, and they promise to look at the noise when I'm in next (it requires a 'master technician')
Make another booking, go in this morning, 'oops sorry Audi have put the wrong part in the bag we received'. Now extremely annoyed, I ask about the noise, 'what noise?'. I remind them, and its 'oops sorry nobody is available'. I keep my calm, and in a very level tone with steam coming from my ears, tell them you don't need to be moving to hear it. They get it up on the ramp, can't find whats causing it, 'right lets have a look at it when you next come in'.
I'm thoroughly pissed off now, the guy detects this (its the only thing they've detected tbh), he offers me a courtesy car for the day, so they can drive out and pick up the seat lever part. I look at the courtesy car contract, and notice that the small print makes me personally liable for the first £1 000 of a claim where their insurance company cannot recover any money; basically if an uninsured driver hits me, ands off, I'm stiffed for a grand.
I tell him no way am I signing that. He asks if I can phone my insurance company on the spot and transfer my insurance. 'you ever tried getting through to an insurer in the day?'. Scrap that idea.
Now they've booked it for 2 weeks time, they are personally going to come and collect the car from my house, and return it, with a full tank of petrol (about 50 quids worth).
What should I do? All the repairs/replacements are free, but its the time and inconvenience and general incompetance thats making me consider a serious complaint to their manager/head office, and a bill for my time (I'm self employed, I charge about £250 for a days work).
I bought an Audi TT nearly 2 months ago, 30k on the clock, for £18 500. As part of the sale I wanted various things done to the car, such as replacing the interior door levers (scratched to buggery), fixing the gearknob, a tracker, and an Audi cupholder. All this was agreed on the contract. During the test drive, I noticed the rear parcel shelf was squeaky, the salesman said it was the temporary number plate.
Went to get the car, no cupholder. Apparently they sent the wrong colour. No problem, just come in next week it only takes 5 minutes to fit. Arrive next week, only to be told it takes an hour, and nobody was available, I'd have to book it in.
that I thought, I took it away and installed it in less than 2 minutes. The parcel shelf was still squeaking (very noisily), and while out one day, I tilted the passenger seat forward to get to the back seat, and the tilt lever snapped off in my hand.
Took it back, they said they'd have to order a part, and booked me in. Went along the following week, 'oops sorry wrong part has come, dont worry its a 5 minute job', make another booking.
The car starts making scraping noises from somewhere underneath the engine/exhaust/gearbox.
Go in the following week (was working in the morning), 'no sorry it requires the seat to be stripped, cant spare anybody this late in the day'. They install a new parcel shelf, so thats that done, and they promise to look at the noise when I'm in next (it requires a 'master technician')
Make another booking, go in this morning, 'oops sorry Audi have put the wrong part in the bag we received'. Now extremely annoyed, I ask about the noise, 'what noise?'. I remind them, and its 'oops sorry nobody is available'. I keep my calm, and in a very level tone with steam coming from my ears, tell them you don't need to be moving to hear it. They get it up on the ramp, can't find whats causing it, 'right lets have a look at it when you next come in'.
I'm thoroughly pissed off now, the guy detects this (its the only thing they've detected tbh), he offers me a courtesy car for the day, so they can drive out and pick up the seat lever part. I look at the courtesy car contract, and notice that the small print makes me personally liable for the first £1 000 of a claim where their insurance company cannot recover any money; basically if an uninsured driver hits me, and
s off, I'm stiffed for a grand. I tell him no way am I signing that. He asks if I can phone my insurance company on the spot and transfer my insurance. 'you ever tried getting through to an insurer in the day?'. Scrap that idea.
Now they've booked it for 2 weeks time, they are personally going to come and collect the car from my house, and return it, with a full tank of petrol (about 50 quids worth).
What should I do? All the repairs/replacements are free, but its the time and inconvenience and general incompetance thats making me consider a serious complaint to their manager/head office, and a bill for my time (I'm self employed, I charge about £250 for a days work).
Oh yeah I forgot to mention, they fitted a tracker device to it, its been giving false alarms ever since, and when I told Audi about it, the salesman's response was that I would have to drive to the garage that fitted it for them, and have them fix it. Its still faulty, tracker uk are sending a man out to check it out.
Never mind the fact that I paid Audi for the installation, not the other garage, they still told me I personally had to sort it out.
Never mind the fact that I paid Audi for the installation, not the other garage, they still told me I personally had to sort it out.
parrot of doom said:
Anybody here had a good experience with a dealership?
Yes, at Sytner in Nottingham. Bought a used Alpina B3 in the way deals should be done.
Had a 3 way conference call between me, the sales guy and the dealer principle. Came to an acceptable agreement in 10 minutes (none of this "I'll have to go and see the boss, I'll call you later" bollox); they matched the finance available from the cheapest available unsecured loan provider, with minimal moaning; there were a couple of minor niggles that I documented (scratched bootlid where some nob had tried to get the badges off) and got the DP to commit to getting fixed, which were done; car was delivered with a full tank and 2 new rear tyres; nice touch was the umbrella, booze and flowers, and a pair of wellies for my little lad (the dog liked them anyway); steering pump went after 6 months, and the salesboy called to apologise (!) even though BMW Oxford fixed it within 24 hours.
In a nutshell, they'll be my first point of call for the M3 I've promised myself.
I bought a used TT from Preston Audi about 3 years ago. It had a few stone chips that needed replacing and a brake pedal that was almost to the floor. I had the car 6 weeks, 2 of which I was on holiday for and 3 of those in the garage whilst they tried to fix the brakes. I had a loaner whilst it was in.
Eventually, I rang up the DP and said, enoughs enough, what about fixing my car.
He said they couldn't, but could they get me another one instead.
I ended up with a TT a year younger 3,000 instead of 15,000 miles, better wheels, metallic paint and a cherished registration.
Top marks to them. Mind you their sales manager was a complete muppet, but thats another tale........
On the other hand, I bought a new STI8. Came to collect it, got 10 yards up the road and noticed a terrible din from the boot.
I turned round and took the car back and refused delivery until it was fixed. It was the two metal torsion bars for the boot mechanism that were rubbing each other. Sounded like a cat was being strangled.
How they missed that on PDI I will never know. Probably some chav mecahnic heard it and turned the radio up.
Anyway, the clutch went foobared so it went in to be swapped.
Forever after that when i braked hard or over a grid there was a clunk from the front end, and when I accelerated was a similair clunk as whatever was moving, moved back.
By way of a momento, they damaged my Prodrive alloys where the airgin had missed the wheelnuts. Got all arsey when I wouldn't let them deburr the alloy and repaint them. To$$ers.
Four attempts to fix it failed. Pity the dealer was 50 miles away!!
Anyway, bottom marks to Robinson$. Why do they feck up and expect you to compromise your P&J to make it cheaper for them? At the time it was a £26k motor car with the goodies I bought from them.
Problem eventually solved when house was broken into whilst we were asleep and nicked.
Eventually, I rang up the DP and said, enoughs enough, what about fixing my car.
He said they couldn't, but could they get me another one instead.
I ended up with a TT a year younger 3,000 instead of 15,000 miles, better wheels, metallic paint and a cherished registration.
Top marks to them. Mind you their sales manager was a complete muppet, but thats another tale........
On the other hand, I bought a new STI8. Came to collect it, got 10 yards up the road and noticed a terrible din from the boot.
I turned round and took the car back and refused delivery until it was fixed. It was the two metal torsion bars for the boot mechanism that were rubbing each other. Sounded like a cat was being strangled.
How they missed that on PDI I will never know. Probably some chav mecahnic heard it and turned the radio up.
Anyway, the clutch went foobared so it went in to be swapped.
Forever after that when i braked hard or over a grid there was a clunk from the front end, and when I accelerated was a similair clunk as whatever was moving, moved back.
By way of a momento, they damaged my Prodrive alloys where the airgin had missed the wheelnuts. Got all arsey when I wouldn't let them deburr the alloy and repaint them. To$$ers.
Four attempts to fix it failed. Pity the dealer was 50 miles away!!
Anyway, bottom marks to Robinson$. Why do they feck up and expect you to compromise your P&J to make it cheaper for them? At the time it was a £26k motor car with the goodies I bought from them.
Problem eventually solved when house was broken into whilst we were asleep and nicked.
Must've been a fecking big truck that made it away with your entire house!
Tell me about it. I bought the car in August and the story was very much the same (saleman agreed to sort out some issues before I picked it up). Of course this never got sorted and even after a letter to Audi UK customer services they still don't call me when they say they will and I am still 'waiting for parts' !!!
I must say I am quite shocked at the poor level of service from Audi. If you're spending a large amount of money with them I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a high level of service.
I must say I am quite shocked at the poor level of service from Audi. If you're spending a large amount of money with them I don't think it's unreasonable to expect a high level of service.
Ya see its like this.
Dealers tend to employ arsy tossers in the form of front counter staff who dont have any clue what it means to actually "deal" with a customer.A nice tie and fancy pants dont necessarily make a good customer service representative.
All these monkeys wanna do is get you outa the door asap so they can get on with the "important" work, like stiffing the warranty company for parts ordered, keeping the new part then sending an old bolloxed one back to the warranty company, that didnt even come off the sameing model....seen em do it personally.
Customer service is something most dealers dont give a hoot about.
As a technician (grease monkey?? lol) i used to speak to the customers myself, especially if they were worried or had any kind of concerns, but the thing they used to appreciate most was someone actually being HONEST with em, instead of the continual fobbing off that the "customer service" staff used to do.
If a customer had a noise or something that was bothering them, say a noise while driving and it was on the repair sheet, id take em for a run round in their car and see if we could re-create the sound they were hearing.Even if there wasnt a noise reported, if i heard something while on test, id ask the customer myself if theyd heard it.
9 times out of 10 theyd go away happy bunnies cos they were being involved in the process and could see what was being done to solve it.
I used to let em watch me work on their car if they preferred to, and that seemed to go down well with them also, again because they were being included in the process of service and repair, and cos they could see i was taking care of their property.
And thats just as it should be.
As for the parts departments....sheesh. Again a lot of em dont know their jobs.
I used to work for Volvo many moons ago, and when the V70 turbo diesel came out there was a recall regarding the dual mass flywheel that required it to be replaced.
I had one of the first ones of these to do and the parts were scheduled in by the parts staff.
Only thing is they got the flywheel bolts for a petrol model not the diesel engine, (totally different).
So here we are with the car in bits and the customer due back in a few hours...panic anyone?
Panic cos the bolts they needed were on back order in sweden for at least a month! lol how i laughed.
One phone call later and the local Audi dealer despatched the bolts needed (for a volvo!) in an hour.
Same engine as in the audi you see
I knew that, why didnt they? Cos they werent familiar with the parts or the product.
This kind of thing, ie ordering wrong parts happens time and again, with blame being passed back and forth between various parties, it dosent help the customer get any satisfaction though.
I think there are a few bad and good dealers out there, witht the rest just being indifferent.... thats my take on it anyway.
Dealers tend to employ arsy tossers in the form of front counter staff who dont have any clue what it means to actually "deal" with a customer.A nice tie and fancy pants dont necessarily make a good customer service representative.
All these monkeys wanna do is get you outa the door asap so they can get on with the "important" work, like stiffing the warranty company for parts ordered, keeping the new part then sending an old bolloxed one back to the warranty company, that didnt even come off the same
ing model....seen em do it personally. Customer service is something most dealers dont give a hoot about.
As a technician (grease monkey?? lol) i used to speak to the customers myself, especially if they were worried or had any kind of concerns, but the thing they used to appreciate most was someone actually being HONEST with em, instead of the continual fobbing off that the "customer service" staff used to do.
If a customer had a noise or something that was bothering them, say a noise while driving and it was on the repair sheet, id take em for a run round in their car and see if we could re-create the sound they were hearing.Even if there wasnt a noise reported, if i heard something while on test, id ask the customer myself if theyd heard it.
9 times out of 10 theyd go away happy bunnies cos they were being involved in the process and could see what was being done to solve it.
I used to let em watch me work on their car if they preferred to, and that seemed to go down well with them also, again because they were being included in the process of service and repair, and cos they could see i was taking care of their property.
And thats just as it should be.
As for the parts departments....sheesh. Again a lot of em dont know their jobs.
I used to work for Volvo many moons ago, and when the V70 turbo diesel came out there was a recall regarding the dual mass flywheel that required it to be replaced.
I had one of the first ones of these to do and the parts were scheduled in by the parts staff.
Only thing is they got the flywheel bolts for a petrol model not the diesel engine, (totally different).
So here we are with the car in bits and the customer due back in a few hours...panic anyone?
Panic cos the bolts they needed were on back order in sweden for at least a month! lol how i laughed.
One phone call later and the local Audi dealer despatched the bolts needed (for a volvo!) in an hour.
Same engine as in the audi you see
I knew that, why didnt they? Cos they werent familiar with the parts or the product.
This kind of thing, ie ordering wrong parts happens time and again, with blame being passed back and forth between various parties, it dosent help the customer get any satisfaction though.
I think there are a few bad and good dealers out there, witht the rest just being indifferent.... thats my take on it anyway.
Tyre Smoke said:
Excellent post deltaf.
I agree with everything, especially about dealers not caring about their customers any more - I have a similar issue with a certain TVR dealer in my area. Lack of attention to detail/pride in their work.
Thank you sir/madam! Just tellin it how it is i think..
A lot of PHers will think the same. Franchised dealers are arrogant t0ssers who want your money and no hassle. Sweeping generalisation, yes, far from the truth, no. Have had many dealings with many dealerships including those who should know better, they've all got their snouts in the same trough. Disillusionment comes as standard these days 
turbobloke said:
A lot of PHers will think the same. Franchised dealers are arrogant t0ssers who want your money and no hassle. Sweeping generalisation, yes, far from the truth, no. Have had many dealings with many dealerships including those who should know better, they've all got their snouts in the same trough. Disillusionment comes as standard these days
yeah... massive generalisation...
Trouble is we all love a good moan dont we... start a thread on good experiences and although many PHers will have had one, its not cool to write about it..
It remains very difficult to help the general public and remain happy in your job when you get spoken to like shite every day, talked down to and treated like an idiot...
But it doesn't matter because they are all arogant to55ers in dealers that dont realise it...
cheers....
Both the Mercedes main dealer and the OPC we take our cars to are excellent.
The OPC has always been utterly faultless, the Mercedes dealer has been a different story.
All I can imagine is that the dealer (network?) has had a huge kick up the ass recently, and not before time. The last two times I've taken the taxi in, I was stunned. Chalk and cheese describes it perfectly. Now much, much more professional and courteous, what it ought to be.
Its quite simple: vote with your feet, or write to the dealer principle and tell him what you think. You might be pleasantly surprised.
The OPC has always been utterly faultless, the Mercedes dealer has been a different story.
All I can imagine is that the dealer (network?) has had a huge kick up the ass recently, and not before time. The last two times I've taken the taxi in, I was stunned. Chalk and cheese describes it perfectly. Now much, much more professional and courteous, what it ought to be.
Its quite simple: vote with your feet, or write to the dealer principle and tell him what you think. You might be pleasantly surprised.
I've seen two sides to main dealers… when I was looking to buy a Chimaera I went to three main dealers… two of them ignored me even though I had an appointment, made myself known AND in one case travelled hundreds of miles! (these two should be thankful for Ted's "no naming and shaming policy"… but then Silverstone TVR proved that some dealers do care about their customers...
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