took my car in to my local delaer this afternoon to have a bent track rod arm replaced, no problems there it's been booked in for ten days and the part on order...

so I arrive and duly book it in at the service desk and hand the keys over - I'd said I'd wait as it should only take an hour or so. I then took a stroll into the local high street and said I'd be back in a while to see the car finished off.

so i wandered around aimlessly for half an hour and headed back to the garage, and surprise surprise my car was still where I had parked it 35 mins previous

i then headed inside and tried to find someone to speak to about why they hadn't started work on my car. When they eventually got around to speaking to me (oh what an inconvenience I was) they preceded to tell me that the part hadn't actually arrived and that they couldn't do the work!

they're now telling me that its a part on back order from skoda, and will be another 7-10 days before they get it, then I'll have to book another appointment and take it back in.

two things from this - why didn't they phone me before the appointment and cancel, and why didn't they realise about 2 mins after I had turned up that they hadn't got the part, rather then me wasting 45 mins in their poxy showroom

Name and shame them! That's no way to treat customers...

Thats so BAD!! I had to have a new turbo fitted under warranty by my dealer, and they made the effort to ring me twice when they couldn't get the part when I had the car booked in. They even now run a pick-up service for your car which gets me out of paying for a courtesy car, and I don't need a runaround when I'm at work. When the turbo was ordered a bloke came at 9am to pcik the car up, and they brought it back working luvverly jubberly at 5:15, when I left work. I don't know if name and shame can be reversed (name & fame??) - But the dealer is "Livery Dole" in Exeter - They alsoi sell Kia and Mitsubishi, for which I can almost forgive them...

Well, you can name and fame (or shame) here: http://forums.briskoda.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=887

Q.

that is discraceful it's "them" kind of dealers that give us dealers a bad name if that was me i would have phoned you to stop you comming in. as for devonutopia you have to pay for a courtesy car ? i ALWAYS supply a loan car free off charge and will do my best to keep customer satisfaction at it's highest level. i even take parts of off new cars (have currently 3 cars with bits robbed off) to keep customers cars on the road. i bet the franchise that gunnie went to was a large corperation that doesn't really care about cutomer safisfaction. it is commonley know by dealers that the larger franchises (vw, ford, vauxhall etc.) that they would give there right arm (AND LEG) to provide the sort of close customer contact/satisfaction that us small/medium friendly/family run businesses can supply. DONT JUDGE ALL DEALERS AS ARSEHOLES there are more good ones out there !

The whole reason I ended up buying a Skoda was because the dealer was so good - they were very open about everything, even down to making sure i sat alongside the 'manager' at his desk so I could see what he was typing into the finance/ordering system, etc. What also impressed me was that they agreed what was basically a token part-ex for my knackered xantia, which they stuck to even after I blew the clutch on it - they were ok with me having it towed to them, and they sorted me a long-term loan (of an ancient favorit - can't win em all, I asked for an RS!) until the fabia came in.

Compare that to the local Seat dealer - Went in, said I was interested in the ibiza sport, and got told I had no chance as they were like "rocking horse ****" (dealer's words) - talk about first impressions. He then proceeded to call the Xantia a piece of **** as well and they wouldn't touch it - fair enough as it was on its last legs, but they obviously didn't know how to present a good image. To top things off they slagged Skodas off bigtime and then tried to sell me the car on a ridiculous PCP scheme!

Both the above were smallish dealers, but the difference in how they acted towards me made all the difference. Shame that not all of them bother to make the effort though...

i'm quite happy to name and shame:-

essex park in wickford, essex

and those who have mentioned it they are a big dealership with a joint showroom and servicing site for honda, mistubishi, toyota and skoda - they might have a multi million pound brand new showroom, but their systems and customer services suck...they always have plenty of staff running around doing nothing

just as a note of interest it's not where I actually purchased the car from as the skoda salesman wouldn't beat the price I had from another dealer - they are unfortunately the nearest franchised dealer to where I live - time to do some ringing around other dealers I think