OPC Idiocy... (Porsche Centre Glasgow)

[Technomad]

...so my 997.2 C2S starts playing up: the remote fobs stopped working a couple of weeks ago. After a long drive, they'll start working again, but are dysfunctional again by the following morning. I tried: resynching the keys. No joy. Changing the batteries in the key fobs. Nowt. So I go through all this with Glasgow OPC and send them an email detailing what does and doesn't work and then also tell the driver who comes to pick the car up exactly what does and doesn't work. two days, 150 miles/half a tank of gas later I get the car back and what have they done? Yep, they've changed the feckin' batteries in the key fobs! Next morning, and we're back to square one.

What is it with these people and their complete sodding inability to actually listen to their customers? This sort of disregard for their demographic really doesn't show them fit to run a whelk stall, let alone a car dealership with pretensions to the high-end. And apologies to any whelk stall franchise owners on the forum.

I had exactly the same experience with a main BMW dealer - a parking sensor fault that both I and the service manager could see and which was consistent and repeatable but, because it didn't show a code on the diagnostic computer, they refused to do anything about it. That's part of the reason I've been moving away from BMWs - corporate idiocy by the dealers and BMW UK. Now it looks like Porsche have exactly the same attitude. Kia, anyone?

[DMC2]

Good rant. Hope you feel better now

I've had a couple of bad OPC experiences so I'm on your side.

[Flat6er]

So they tried the most obvious thing first, and collected / delivered your car. At worst you are down a tank of fuel, have you asked them to replenish, and rectify, or was your first thought to name and shame?

Honestly can't see the issue here. They have only been given one shot to rectify something.

[Great Pretender]

Technomad said:

...so my 997.2 C2S starts playing up: the remote fobs stopped working a couple of weeks ago. After a long drive, they'll start working again, but are dysfunctional again by the following morning. I tried: resynching the keys. No joy. Changing the batteries in the key fobs. Nowt. So I go through all this with Glasgow OPC and send them an email detailing what does and doesn't work and then also tell the driver who comes to pick the car up exactly what does and doesn't work. two days, 150 miles/half a tank of gas later I get the car back and what have they done? Yep, they've changed the feckin' batteries in the key fobs! Next morning, and we're back to square one.

What is it with these people and their complete sodding inability to actually listen to their customers? This sort of disregard for their demographic really doesn't show them fit to run a whelk stall, let alone a car dealership with pretensions to the high-end. And apologies to any whelk stall franchise owners on the forum.

I had exactly the same experience with a main BMW dealer - a parking sensor fault that both I and the service manager could see and which was consistent and repeatable but, because it didn't show a code on the diagnostic computer, they refused to do anything about it. That's part of the reason I've been moving away from BMWs - corporate idiocy by the dealers and BMW UK. Now it looks like Porsche have exactly the same attitude. Kia, anyone?

Get hold of the service manager and don't stop pestering him until it's fixed.

[Deerfoot]

Flat6er said:

Honestly can't see the issue here.

Really?

[Callughan]

Take it back?

[London GT3]

Flat6er said:

So they tried the most obvious thing first, and collected / delivered your car. At worst you are down a tank of fuel, have you asked them to replenish, and rectify, or was your first thought to name and shame?

Honestly can't see the issue here. They have only been given one shot to rectify something.

You show a remarkably tolerant attitude. I am with the OP here and I would feel as cross and frustrated as he clearly does. The dealer repeated an attempted fix which the owner had already tried. What a waste of everyone's time.

[Magic919]

Some days you are the statue, other days the pigeon.

[Technomad]

Flat6er said:

So they tried the most obvious thing first, and collected / delivered your car. At worst you are down a tank of fuel, have you asked them to replenish, and rectify, or was your first thought to name and shame?

Honestly can't see the issue here. They have only been given one shot to rectify something.

Hmm. No, the issue is that I very very carefully checked through the obvious stuff myself and briefed them on what was and wasn't working and what they'd be able to see under what circumstances, and then they completely ignored everything I'd done and said, repeated the first thing I tried and declared the problem solved. That's the issue. Of course, some problems are intermittent/difficult to diagnose or multivariate and can take several shots to resolve. That's fine, as long as the dealer is in a dialogue with the owner so that both are engaged in the problem. When they ignore that, they are - IMHO - in contempt of the customer, are wasting the customer's time and demonstrating that they're operating at the level of semi-trained simians who can't look beyond the God of Diagnostic Computers.

Oh, am I still ranting? Damn - time for another cuppa...

[Mousem40]

Good, well thought out,structured and delivered rant 8.2/10

[Olf]

I presume the mileage cost of a 997 is £1.50 at least? That makes you at least £225 down. Then a driver for half a day and the petrol. All in all prob £500 worth of effort for fk all result - no wonder we're in the state we are.

Edited by Olf on Saturday 12th January 16:42

[Olf]

I presume the mileage cost of a 997 is £1.50 at least? That makes you at least £225 down. Then a driver for half a day and the petrol. All in all prob £500 worth of effort for fk all result - no wonder we're in the state we are.

Edited by Olf on Saturday 12th January 16:43

[hidetheelephants]

Imaginative use of whelk stall;

[Flat6er]

Technomad said:

Hmm. No, the issue is that I very very carefully checked through the obvious stuff myself and briefed them on what was and wasn't working and what they'd be able to see under what circumstances, and then they completely ignored everything I'd done and said, repeated the first thing I tried and declared the problem solved. That's the issue. Of course, some problems are intermittent/difficult to diagnose or multivariate and can take several shots to resolve. That's fine, as long as the dealer is in a dialogue with the owner so that both are engaged in the problem. When they ignore that, they are - IMHO - in contempt of the customer, are wasting the customer's time and demonstrating that they're operating at the level of semi-trained simians who can't look beyond the God of Diagnostic Computers.

Oh, am I still ranting? Damn - time for another cuppa...

Fair one, That wasn't clear from your first post the lengths you went to to diagnose first.

Either way, Have you spoken to the opc yet? as I would have approached them before publicly burning bridges.

[Trev450]

Flat6er said:

Technomad said:

Hmm. No, the issue is that I very very carefully checked through the obvious stuff myself and briefed them on what was and wasn't working and what they'd be able to see under what circumstances, and then they completely ignored everything I'd done and said, repeated the first thing I tried and declared the problem solved. That's the issue. Of course, some problems are intermittent/difficult to diagnose or multivariate and can take several shots to resolve. That's fine, as long as the dealer is in a dialogue with the owner so that both are engaged in the problem. When they ignore that, they are - IMHO - in contempt of the customer, are wasting the customer's time and demonstrating that they're operating at the level of semi-trained simians who can't look beyond the God of Diagnostic Computers.

Oh, am I still ranting? Damn - time for another cuppa...

Fair one, That wasn't clear from your first post the lengths you went to to diagnose first.

Either way, Have you spoken to the opc yet? as I would have approached them before publicly burning bridges.

"I tried: resynching the keys. No joy. Changing the batteries in the key fobs. Nowt. So I go through all this with Glasgow OPC and send them an email detailing what does and doesn't work and then also tell the driver who comes to pick the car up exactly what does and doesn't work."


What is unclear about this?

Edited by Trev450 on Saturday 12th January 17:44

[anonymous-user]

Nothing worse than the garage ignoring your input towards helping them fix your problem OP.

I've had numerous occasions where I have booked a car in for work only to find when I turn up to drop the car off most of the problems are not on the job sheet, not porsche, other marques.

Sympathies.

[Martian O]

London GT3 said:

Flat6er said:

So they tried the most obvious thing first, and collected / delivered your car. At worst you are down a tank of fuel, have you asked them to replenish, and rectify, or was your first thought to name and shame?

Honestly can't see the issue here. They have only been given one shot to rectify something.

You show a remarkably tolerant attitude. I am with the OP here and I would feel as cross and frustrated as he clearly does. The dealer repeated an attempted fix which the owner had already tried. What a waste of everyone's time.

I've experienced this with an OPC as well. I got fed up and went to a good independent who fixed the problem in one visit. Have I ever been back to said OPC in 3.5 years, no.

[anonymous-user]

Flat6er said:

Technomad said:

Hmm. No, the issue is that I very very carefully checked through the obvious stuff myself and briefed them on what was and wasn't working and what they'd be able to see under what circumstances, and then they completely ignored everything I'd done and said, repeated the first thing I tried and declared the problem solved. That's the issue. Of course, some problems are intermittent/difficult to diagnose or multivariate and can take several shots to resolve. That's fine, as long as the dealer is in a dialogue with the owner so that both are engaged in the problem. When they ignore that, they are - IMHO - in contempt of the customer, are wasting the customer's time and demonstrating that they're operating at the level of semi-trained simians who can't look beyond the God of Diagnostic Computers.

Oh, am I still ranting? Damn - time for another cuppa...

Fair one, That wasn't clear from your first post the lengths you went to to diagnose first.

Either way, Have you spoken to the opc yet? as I would have approached them before publicly burning bridges.

How clear do you need it? Did you read the post?

The OP is right to be pissed, this sort of thing is common, amongst all brands to be fair, and is significant in main dealerships having the poor reputations they enjoy.

Of course, with Porsche being relatively unreliable compared with other so called prestige brands, the dealers' reputations are more at risk than some.

[Chrisp5782]

Deerfoot said:

Flat6er said:

Honestly can't see the issue here.

Really?

+1

[majordad]

It can be very difficult to find intermittent faults. I assume no code showed up on the PIWIS, so they changed the batteries ( low cost and who knows how good the new ones you fitted were ). Maybe they should have retained the car for say a week and waited see if they could repeat the fault.