Some questions remain to be answered, why leave it for 11 days for a service?, is he too tight to pay for airport parking?, and did he needlessly tie up one of the garages courtesy cars for that period, thus denying it's use to another customer?

A friend has been a Lexus driver for some yrs now, and he always books his car in for work while he has travel plans, be it a 2 day or a 3 week trip. He drives to the dealers, they drop him (and often me) to the airport, take car back to dealers for the work to be done. On the day he is due back they will deliver his car to the short-term carpark in the airport and drop his keys at the information desk. He does not tie up a courtesy car, it is a service the dealer offers, and maybe this Audi dealer does the same

any service dept worth their salt checks the car over before sigining it in, and they will do it while the customer is present, taking the mileage.

if i took it to a garage and they didnt, i would get my keys back and walk away. otherwise any damage on the car that they cause cannot be proven, nor if you happen to see it being ragged about.

i'd also agree with fordfan, more than likley most of the 27 drives were them moving it about on site, but even one trip which can be proven to have been at speed should be 1 too many

Well, I took my 105 Lux in to a dealer for a service and when I got it back it had lost 1/3 of a tank of fuel and gained 30 miles. What were they doing to it on that test run to be getting less than 20 MPG? I do know they had it over 80 on the M1 as the manager told me "that one goes well - we had it over 80 out of it". The cheek!!

TH

Out of interest how far should a car be driven for its service? I noticed that 40 miles what racked up on mine when it went in for its 30k service last month.

Out of interest how far should a car be driven for its service? I noticed that 40 miles what racked up on mine when it went in for its 30k service last month.

well I took them to task over the 30 miles that mine came back with. I'm pretty much at the point now that I would actually want to accompany them on any test drive they do as I just plain don't trust them. Unfortuately, for the Skoda Used Warranty you need to use the dealers and not just a VAT registered garage. Bugger.

When I used to sell Nissan cars in South Yorkshire, there was a 'chip car'. Whatever was the fastest car in the dealership was sent to get the fish and chips on a Friday lunch time. Some were in for a service, some just for sale on the forecourt.

I sold an Almera GTI (quite a nice car at the time) and the day before the bloke picked it up, one of the lads went out for chips. He misjudged a mini roundabout and badly damaged the front spoiler/bumper. Before the customer picked it up, a little man in a sooty van with magic paint and filler was called, he fixed it all up in one afternoon and the chap picked the car up the next day.

Shameful but true.

I'd allow a dealer around 5 miles before kicking off and demanding to know why it had been taken off site.

5 should be enough for most things to be road tested.

a garage i use to deliver to had two approved test routes highlighted out on a map in the back office that all mechanics had to stick too (funny enough none of the routes had speed traps on them either). one route i worked out to be about 10 miles long. i joked with one mechanic about it being a day out and a jolly and he said it was 1. so the car is warmed up 2. it is taken over various terrains (town/country stop/start) and also at different speeds with different braking patterns. basically trying to give it a huge variety to see if any problems still exist etc. a drive to the end of the road and back would not usually find any faults. the local vauxhall use to use a 5 mile route (expect they still do to). guess it depends on the garage really.

Out of interest how far should a car be driven for its service? I noticed that 40 miles what racked up on mine when it went in for its 30k service last month.

I can't see how 40miles can be acceptable to be honest!!!

I have heard complaints about the local Audi garage to us lending out customers cars are courtesy cars. One customer collected their car to find a child seat in the back. They don't have kids.

One guy I worked with about 10yr ago had a mk1 astra GTE. He caught the garage ragging his car round the countryside. They'd put 100 miles on the clock when he got it back. He just refused to pay the bill.

I can't see how 40miles can be acceptable to be honest!!!

Unless they had to test it 4 times, one for each warped brake disc

Some quite amusing and unbelievable stories in this thread. The 'chip car' is something I've never heard before. Taking a customers car for a thrashing isn't something I'd do without the customer with me. I had a bloke once let me take his M5 out for a run whilst he took an Octavia away for an afternoon which was very cool.