Declared 'Persona non Grata' by Dealer

[clarky2]

Hi Everyone

 

Exactly one week after collecting my brand new Skoda Yeti from my local dealership, Vindis Cambridge, I received the email below from the managing director. Effectively I have been told that I am no longer welcome there for future servicing, warranty or maintenance work.

 

In October, my previous vehicle an Octavia VRS, which I had also purchased new and was annually serviced by them was diagnosed with a catastrophic engine failure. Information from this forum and other sources confirmed that engine failures with early versions of the 2.0 TSI engine are common and linked to faulty timing chain tensioner and cam bridge issues, both of which seemed to have been involved in the damage to my vehicle. Skoda and the wider VAG group have been aware of these issues, but have never issued a recall instead dealing with each failure on a case by case basis. A new engine was required and the dealership quoted £8250, which effectively wrote off the car.

 

What followed was a four month nightmare, which by January this year looked as if it would only be settled through court action. I had made it clear that if I was forced to go down that route I would share details of my story as widely and publicly as possible. Thankfully at that point the Guardian newspaper became interested in my case and this article was published: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/feb/04/skoda-engine-fault-warranty-claim 

 

Their intervention persuaded Skoda UK to increase their contribution offer by £2000 and I was advised that I could use that contribution either towards the cost of a new engine or a replacement vehicle through Vindis Skoda. I elected to purchase a new Skoda Yeti and paid nearly £13,000 after deduction of the contribution and the process and service from Vindis went smoothly enough. I had assumed this matter was finally closed until I received this email.

 

 

Dear ***

 

As you may be aware, over the course of the entire situation with your previous vehicle, I had been liaising with *** at Cambridge Skoda, as well as with Skoda UK to ensure that all developments were logged and responded to; not least as this is part of our internal investigatory and companies procedure. 

 

Now that the situation regarding your complaint with your vehicle has been closed, I felt it appropriate to write to you as part of the final conclusion.

 

Firstly, I would note that I am extremely pleased to learn that the situation has been resolved and that you collected your new vehicle on 1st March, and may I wish you many years of happy motoring. 

 

Secondly, the closure of the complaint has allowed me to complete a full review of the case and to analyse its evolution and the required involvement of my Senior Management Team, along with an objective analysis of the company’s position, and meeting any necessary legal requirements. Having reviewed everything in relation to your situation and taking the whole situation into consideration, I am now of the opinion that the Vindis Group are unfortunately not going to be able to satisfactorily fulfil your service and maintenance requirements moving forward, and as such I would direct you to your nearest Skoda Approved Repairers that do not form part of the Vindis Group - I have listed their contact details below:

 

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you the best for the future and hope that you enjoy your new Skoda.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

***

 

———————————

 

Dear ***

 

Thank you for your email. This is a bit of a surprise, as I thought that we had reached an amicable settlement of this matter with my recent purchase of a new Skoda from Vindis. I saw *** briefly at the collection last week and he gave no indication of this.

 

This unfortunate matter was clearly a manufacturing issue and my disappointment throughout has been with Skoda UK and their attempts to avoid liability for what was a common problem with the engine in question. I had assumed that purchasing a new vehicle from yourselves would also help you to recover some of the contribution you had made. The last five months have certainly been a very tough time for me and this seems like further punishment especially as I thought the matter had been resolved.

 

Are you now advising me that if there are any issues with the new vehicle that you have supplied that I will need to travel to another dealership?

 

I discussed service plan options with ***  last week and was looking forward to putting this matter behind me and continuing as a regular customer with Vindis locally as I have been for the past seven years. Your effectively barring me from local servicing and maintenance has obviously come as a shock. Can you please confirm the reasons why this decision was made?

 

 

Kind regards

 

—————————

 

Dear ***,

 

With reference to my email sent on 8^th March 2017, I simply stated that I do not believe the Vindis Group will be able to fulfil your maintenance and service requirements moving forward.

 

There are several reasons that have led me to this conclusion and I refer to some statements made by yourself to the Vindis Group over the course of the last few months:

 

-          On the 14^th November 2016 you wrote in an email to me…

“Failing satisfactory response, and having taken advice, I will have no option but to issue a small claims court summons for the full cost of repair and any out of pocket expenses. In addition I will seek to share my experience with press consumer champions and via social media networks”.

 

-          On 13^th December 2016 you wrote in an email to me…

“I have some background in social media campaigns and having been media trained intend to publicise my experiences in this matter via a wide range of media channels.”

 

-          On 27^th January 2017 you wrote in an email to ***…

“As we spoke about in our previous meeting, I have planned a comprehensive social media campaign in the event that we cannot reach a settlement acceptable to me and I am forced to issue court proceedings. That would consist of a number blogs and you tube video logs to be shared widely across various media platforms and websites. I also obtained quotes for sign writing the vehicle, which would be parked prominently on Cowley Road in Cambridge and would be likely to attract wider media coverage.”

 

You explain in your email below that your disappointment throughout this situation has always been with Skoda UK, however, the above statements are clearly aimed directly at a specific campaign looking to negatively impact the reputation and standing of the Vindis Group.

 

As mentioned before, I am extremely happy to learn that the situation is now resolved, however, I have to take a position to look to protect our organisation, and I do not take kindly to statements of the above, nor indeed you attempt to drag Vindis Skoda into the printed media debate - especially as our intention throughout this whole saga has been to meet a fair and reasonable resolution that you were happy with.

 

With the above said, I stand by my initial observations of my email of last week and I wish you the best in the future.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

————————————-

 

Dear ***

 

To clarify the situation. You are now saying that the Vindis Group will not honour the warranty or future servicing and maintenance requirements of the vehicle I have just purchased from you?

 

My previous vehicle which was purchased and fully serviced by you suffered a serious engine failure caused by well documented issues. The support of your front line staff and the initial response was a credit to Vindis, however it soon became clear that Skoda were not prepared to accept any liability for the damage.

 

Clearly this matter would have escalated to court proceedings and I would have been forced to go public with details of my situation had it not been for the intervention of the Guardian newspaper. Their involvement secured a further contribution that I thought had enabled us to finally settle the matter.

 

The article that subsequently appeared in the Guardian was in no way critical of the dealership and to date I have not publicly criticised Vindis on any public forum. That the threat had to be made at all was very much down to the unfair manner in which I had been treated by Skoda and your subsequent alignment with their position. Frankly I was left with no option and anything that would have been published simply a statement of facts for people to make their own minds up.

 

I have suffered for four months trying to resolve this matter, which could and should have been settled quickly and without wasting so much of everyone's time. Indeed as the customer involved I would have been very happy to feed into your review of this incident. 

 

Having thought the matter settled, everyone I have spoken to is frankly amazed that you have now adopted this position.

 

Kind regards

 

—————————-

 

Dear ***,

 

In regard to warranty and service/maintenance work, this can be completed at any Skoda dealership within the network, it does not necessarily need to be within a Vindis Centre.

 

As mentioned to you below, I have to take a position that protects our organisation and based on the events that have occurred during the last 4 months, I believe the conclusion I have reached is the right one.  

 

Yours sincerely,

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

[Llanigraham]

And?

Any business is entitled to refuse to deal with an individual.

Good luck with finding another Skoda dealer that will deal with you.

[Ryeman]

Unfortunately VW has a problem of accepting that they have an inability in the third millennium to manufacture a bullet proof series of engines that no other manufacturer, that I know of, has failed at.

If you have a sense of invincibility, how can you have an official admission of failure.

Being in a rush to beat Toyota seems to have consequences.

Could you imagine a Honda or Toyota equivalent?.

(let alone Renault etc)

[YetiVRS]

That doesn't surprise me, they seem to think customers are an unnecessary nuisance they can do without........

[Ryeman]

Just now, YetiVRS said:

That doesn't surprise me, they seem to think customers are an unnecessary nuisance they can do without........

.....more a matter of using them as the endurance proving ground.

[Gyp]

Ignoring the previous situation etc it's completely up to them if they wish to deal with you and up to you if you wish to deal with them, however...

 

...as they have sold you a new vehicle, your contract is with them and they have a responsibility under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for the first 6 months

 

As far as I can tell, they can decline to do servicing or warranty work (the warranty is provided by VW not the dealership) but they cannot opt out of their responsibilities under the Consumer Rights Act.

[Falmouthboy]

This is shameful.  If you hadn't bought the car from them in the first place and was simply relying on them to deal with the failure as a warranty issue, their attitude would be more understandable.  However, as under the sale of goods act, your contract was originally with them, they are being unreasonable and ignoring their place in your complaint.  In all of this you are just one individual and they are a substantial franchise operating with backup support from a massive multinational.  The fact that you took them on and threatened to use every weapon in your arsenal to fight your corner perhaps comes as as surprise a surprise to them.  You are 'the mouse that barked'.

 

Any 'bad publicity' you espoused would clearly have been subject to the slander and libel laws and I suspect you are savvy enough to have avoided falling foul of making any statements that couldn't be defended in court.

 

Graham is of course correct that they can legally refuse to serve you (unless on discriminatory grounds - sexuality, race, religion etc), and declare you vexatious.  However, to do so under these circumstances is unwise.  All that they have done is alienate you and give you the justification to launch a truthful media campaign on the subject.  I sense from you that they have probably shot themselves in the foot!  Clearly you shouldn't go there in future now and should find another dealer - hopefully not as difficult as it would be in a rural area like Cornwall.  However, I suspect you won't be letting this lay and they haven't heard the last of you!

[Ryeman]

Maybe they subscribe to the saying that all publicity is good.

[mac11irl]

Not condoning their actions, but in the emails they sent explaining their new position the quotes included from your emails do show you planned on naming and shaming their franchise group and basing your media campaign on them. For example, Signwriting the car to park near their dealership is a threat to them, not SUK. If you were emailing SUK to park your car outside their corporate HQ etc, and keeping the dealer group up to date thats a different matter.

It kinda feels like you were happy to slate them when it suited to get what you wanted (fair treatment on a manufacturing issue) and now youre surprised and want to slate them because they no longer want to deal with you after resolving the difficulties. 

Tbh, im surprised you even want to still deal with them anyway. Idve been taking my new car and driving away to find a new place to do business...

 

 

[Graffiti]

Maybe the emails were direct but seeing £££££ go down the drain would see me do more than some strong emails......  

 

It must have been a very stressfull time.  Time to close the door's on it.

[Rustynuts]

I'd ask if they're attempting to refuse your statutory rights as a consumer. This has nothing to do with warranty or servicing, but is laid down in law (Consumer Rights Act), and if they agree that they're prepared to uphold those rights then you can always argue that having the vehicle serviced or repaired elsewhere would possibly prejudice those rights. You entered into a contract when you paid them for the vehicle, and they cannot discharge their legal responsibilities just by saying "We don't like the way you spoke to us so we don't want you to come back again". I presume you'll copy SUK into the conversation, as ultimately if something does go wrong under warranty or under your statutory rights, then you'll need to know that you still can return tto the dealer with such a problem if necessary.

 

But as pointed out, I wouldn't particularly want to revisit them and would prefer to have a dealership who have a little more respect for the people who have money and wish to spend it.

Edited 19 March, 2017 by Rustynuts

[Breezy_Pete]

Which engine did you opt for in the Yeti?

[Nobbi1977]

Post a copy of the letter to your paper friend and then have done with it. 

 

A lot of dealers do not want customers, they want consumers who just pay up and leave.

 

You had the right to fight and got what you deserved, now take your hard earned cash to someone who might appreciate it.

[clarky2]

Thanks for all the comments on this. It's good to get the perspective of others as it has often felt a long and lonely battle to get this sorted. 

 

I'm sure that if a friendly journo had not got involved Skoda UK would not have increased their offer. He told me that he'd had several run-ins with them before and that they were very difficult to deal with. They certainly seemed willing to go to court and use the limitations act to try and avoid any liability. I eventually felt I had no option but to threaten to shame them publicly on this matter and as you rightly state would not have shared anything libellous or untrue, but simply shared my experience extremely widely.

 

I was loathe to implicate the dealership who were initially helpful in this matter. Indeed you will note that the article subsequently published by the Guardian is in no way critical of them. However it became clear by the time we reached the impasse at the end of last year that they were not prepared to support me any further and had aligned themselves with the position taken by Skoda. I was also denied a copy of the vehicle damage (DISS) report. As local representatives of the marque and having originally sold and serviced the vehicle, it is difficult to see how they could expect to avoid any fallout if an amicable settlement was not be agreed. You would also expect that purchasing hundreds if not thousands of VAG vehicles a year through the Vindis dealer network would give them some leverage with Skoda UK when things go wrong for their customers.

 

I was a huge Skoda fanboy and had always had a good relationship with Cambridge Skoda prior to this incident, however I now feel badly let down. I would not have invested a significant proportion of my recent redundancy money in a new Skoda had there been a cash settlement available and I am now unable to maintain the car within a 30 mile radius of my home.

 

I was advised when I initially raised the prospect of sharing my experiences via social media that these channels were monitored and that I could expect a robust response. I was also told that I could not believe everything I read on these forums (had it not been for the information here and on other similar forums I would not have discovered how common these engine failures were).

 

Finally, I find it a bit bemusing that within a couple of hours of posting this thread, which is about a new Skoda Yeti and being unable to service it locally, was removed from the Yeti forum and placed in the 'off topic' chat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ryeman]

The fundamental problem is that once VW, the bottom line, refuses everyone down the line has to pick up the tab.

That's not fair either.

Skoda/SkodaUK/SkodaCS plus the dealerships have the liability of the VW attitude to THEIR mechanical components.

 

[Breezy_Pete]

If this was about your new Yeti, you would have answered my question.

 

[ColinD]

The outcome isn't great, but it's not unbelievable. Good to share, I'm happy to maintain the topic. I might end up with a lawyers letter, if I do I'll be in touch. Please keep ALL records!

 

There was a classic business study case years ago where a US bank looked at it's costs. It found that all it's free account holders were also the ones who took up the most time on support etc. The outcome of the study is the bank helped all those 'costly' customers to open accounts at a new bank.

 

As to the topic move, ideally it should be in buying advice or appended to a dealer review. As the topic has it's own life, it's best if you add a post to the vindis dealer topic lining back to this. This topic isn't specifically about a yeti, it's more about an octavia and specifically vindis business with you. I'll move it to the thinking about buying a skoda forum, which is as close to a general owners awareness forum as we have. We don't really have a forum per dealer.

 

 

Moved to https://www.briskoda.net/forums/forum/288-thinking-about-driving-a-skoda/

 

[CWARD]

I can see why they don't want your custom as you effectively blackmailed them with threats of a social media campaign against them if you didn't get an outcome that satisfied yourself. However you should have never been in that position in the first place had they manufactured the engine correctly rather than waiting until they went wrong with the customer then having to fight to get the repairs done.

VAG must be running out feet to shoot themselves in. With their present campaign of disdain of their customers, who have been loyal to their brands for many years, it doesn't make any sense. Truly the worst manufacturer I've had the misfortune of dealing with but I'm once bitten, twice shy. It will be interesting to see how many others will keep coming back to be savaged.  

[Falmouthboy]

2 hours ago, CWARD said:

I can see why they don't want your custom as you effectively blackmailed them with threats of a social media campaign against them if you didn't get an outcome that satisfied yourself. However you should have never been in that position in the first place had they manufactured the engine correctly rather than waiting until they went wrong with the customer then having to fight to get the repairs done.

VAG must be running out feet to shoot themselves in. With their present campaign of disdain of their customers, who have been loyal to their brands for many years, it doesn't make any sense. Truly the worst manufacturer I've had the misfortune of dealing with but I'm once bitten, twice shy. It will be interesting to see how many others will keep coming back to be savaged.  

I'm sorry, but the OP didn't 'blackmail' anyone!  Blackmail is illegal and involves setting out to extort an outcome from someone that you aren't entitled to.  The OP used every weapon at his disposal as an individual to challenge a corporate foe who appear to have been adopting 'bully boy tactics' to avoid their responsibilities.  Clearly the OP ran the risk of a deformation counter-claim but he seems to know how to steer a way through that risk.

[CWARD]

On 18/03/2017 at 22:51, clarky2 said:

 

-          On 27^th January 2017 you wrote in an email to ***…

“As we spoke about in our previous meeting, I have planned a comprehensive social media campaign in the event that we cannot reach a settlement acceptable to me and I am forced to issue court proceedings. That would consist of a number blogs and you tube video logs to be shared widely across various media platforms and websites. I also obtained quotes for sign writing the vehicle, which would be parked prominently on Cowley Road in Cambridge and would be likely to attract wider media coverage.”

 

Seems like a threat of bad publicity which would be a loss to the dealer and Skoda if the OP's demands "we cannot reach a settlement acceptable to me" are not met  

 

Quote

Blackmail is an act, often a crime, involving unjustified threats to make a gain (commonly money or property) or cause loss to another unless a demand is met

 

If the OP had gone to court he would have had these actions held against him and would have most likely spoilt any chance of a positive outcome. 

[Ryeman]

Gain or compensation?.

[CWARD]

It would be compensation for loss suffered i.e. repairs or engine less wear and tear but that is negotiated on not forced into by threats of bad publicity.

 

Quote

The terms extortion and blackmail are often used interchangeably, although there are differences. Extortion is the illegal and intentional use of threats to one’s person or property, coercion, or fraudulent claims of right of public duty (such as impersonating a police officer) for the purpose of taking money, goods, property, services or some other thing of value from a victim against his/her will. These threats can be those of violence, physical harm, criminal prosecution, or public exposure of harmful or secret information that would damage a person’s reputation and/or standing in the community.

 

I'm not against the OP, in fact quote the opposite if you read my posts. I'm merely highlighting that actions can have consequences too.

[clarky2]

7 hours ago, Wino said:

If this was about your new Yeti, you would have answered my question.

 

 

Apologies Wino. I went for a 1.2 petrol drive model in the end given the recent bad publicity around diesels and as the L&K 1.4 version was a little rich for me. Cheers.

[ColinD]

I'm not a lawyer. I guess it's a choice between I'm going to or I will be doing so. The latter I see as purely informing them you are doing something. The former is alive and well in most school playgrounds and it's something I reckon humans have been doing for millennia. Billy stole my Lolly, I'm going to tell on you unless you give it back. Companies are in fear of social media, still new and misunderstood to the suits and bean counters. Fortunately it means we can be free of overwatch  as we're not on most dealers radar and skoda, well that's another topic ;).

 

Anyway I'm not a lawyer so I'm not saying it is, or it isn't. Lets agree that the point of the topic is .... actions have consequences. Poor show's must be reported on as much as exceptional customer service, of course this isn't going to win an exceptional customer service award.

[Jigger72]

8 hours ago, Wino said:

If this was about your new Yeti, you would have answered my question.

 

 

Is the engine in the Yeti relevant to the story?