First service and dealer experience debacle..am I expecting too much?

[neilsupermac]

I won't name the dealer at this point but here goes...

 

Sept 18: 

Purchase car @ 12 momnths old - 7K miles

 

Oct 18: 

Service car 3 wks later in October @ 9k miles - presumed first service - car is collected and returned to/from dealer.

Take out service plan through dealer for 1 x interim and 1 x major service at same time - pays for this service.

 

End Dec'18 : 

Car reaches 15K miles and dash reports it needs an oil change in appx 1500 miles

I call the dealer to report this as it can't be right. The dealer says they will ask someone to get back to me. 

One business day passes, no call.

I call back in. No real explanation, apology or other for not returning my call - doubt it was ever going to be returned.

I explain at length that it looks like the car was serviced in Oct 18 by dealer and the technician has failed to complete that by setting/resetting the service status.

 

Jan 18:

With a 3 week wait to get it into the dealer, car goes into Dealer on 16th Jan. 

Dealer collects car.

Dealer phones @ 3pm on 16/1/19 to simply ask what would I like the service reset to flexible or fixed and then the can of worms is opened. No explanation of what it is currently set to, what went wrong and details of options..nothing.

 

I asked what the options are and they said either. I do 140 miles a day, motorway all the way apart from 10 of them. However if I opted for flexible at this point there are a few problems :

1) There are 7000 miles where the car won't have been monitoring under a flexible scheme (possibly as I still don't know what it was set to)

2) I have a fixed servicing service plan that dealer set up for me.

 

The proposal at this point sounded like a hack to simply set the car to fixed for another 10k  miles and then when it comes back in at around 26k miles that will be roughly equivalent to a flexible service interval. 

 

That means the car won't have been on true flexible servicing - what happens to manufacturers warranty when you in effect have just missed the next fixed service when you bring it in at 26k miles and it should have had a service at ~20k miles?

 

The the dealer starts to google fixed vs flexible to explain the differences - he doesn't know. I did question all of it and whether my experience is a main dealer experience. I'm read a list of all the things they check but I point out that returning a car from a basic 10k service without setting up the service interval correctly isn't what you would expect from a main dealer.

 

The dealer then proceeds to read through the details again...this time it becomes apparent that there is a service logged against the car, with a main dealer in Jun 198 @ 7K miles.

 

When I booked the car in, in Sept 18 to have a service at ~9k miles, nobody thought it was worth looking and telling me it had had one in Jun @ 7K miles.

 

Things now get worse as in effect I have now serviced the car at 9K when there was no need.

 

At this point the service adviser says he is going to speak to a manager and we agree that he will do that and call me back.

 

At 5pm I still have had no returned call, so I call in. They tell me the manager just wanted to check something and was waiting for some information and would call me back.

 

at 6.15pm, my car is delivered back to me by a very nice chap who is the best of this bad lot.

I am handed a note that simply says they have "reset the oil light". There was no oil light showing.

I now don't know what they've done and as you might appreciate am happy with none of it.

 

I call in to speak to manager at 6.30pm and do get to speak to him. He seems to appear to have a) no interest b) not familiar with what I am asking about.

 

So I explain to him all of it and that I am beyond unhappy. He still seems uninterested but says he is going to look into it and call me back on 17/1/19 once he has looked into it?

 

A few Q's :

 

1) I feel I am absolutely right to be unhappy that I wasn't told about the service @7k Jun 18 when I booked it in,in Sept 18 - there are no log books now and we are all reliant on information held by the dealer?

 

2) At point of service in October 18 : not being asked about what sort of servicing I was on/wanted/checking any of it and ultimately not setting the service interval and mode up correctly

 

3) The general lack of customer service, no apology, no attention to detail, no reliable communication and ultimately not resolving before delivering the car back.,

 

Am I expecting too much?

 

Edited 17 January, 2019 by neilsupermac
fix title

[Ivan8192]

No, you are not expecting too much to have sensible service intervals according to your usage. 

 

What made you have the October service at 9k? Service warning light?

[neilsupermac]

3 minutes ago, Ivan8192 said:

No, you are not expecting too much to have sensible service intervals according to your usage. 

 

What made you have the October service at 9k? Service warning light?

I think I'm also stunned at the poor level of service and competency of the dealer. Had two Seats until mid this year when I bought a new Kodiaq and this skoda approved used Superb.

 

I bought the car in September. Car was one year old when I bought it and in the deal the dealer gave me cash of price instead of service. The reason for that was purely that I bought the car on delivery from a dealer in the north (I'm in south east) and I thought getting the car and whacking it through service would check it out once I had it, during its 30 day exchange period. 

 

So ultimately, I assumed, because I knew no different, the car needed 12 month service.

 

[Ootohere]

Sorry, i cant read all the post on the phone, 

but have you purchased the wrong 'Service Plan' for your usage / needs, (or were mis-sold) and then encountered a bunch of hopeless muppets.

http://volkswagen.co.uk/owners/service/regimes

^^^Sums them up.  Typo done on purpose by me.

 

http://volkswagen.co.uk/owners/servicing/regimes

 

 

Edited 17 January, 2019 by Skoffski

[neilsupermac]

Just now, Skoffski said:

Sorry, i cant read all the post on the phone, 

but have you purchased the wrong 'Service Plan' for your usage / needs, (or were mis-sold) and then encountered a bunch of hopeless muppets.

http://volkswagen.co.uk/owners/service/regimes

 

Thanks for looking at any of it...there is quite a bit but I needed to put it all into context. 

 

It's possible I was mis-sold on the basis no one actually questioned what the car was currently set to, in terms of service regime and nor what I wanted  - which I would have thought a new customer with a 1 yr old car coming into a dealer would have been asked...

[daveo138]

I would have thought that the supplying dealer should provide a printout of the service history with a used car, particularly as there is no service book. 

 

As for the way the dealer has treated you, it’s not good, but all too common, I’m afraid. 

[Auric Goldfinger]

Name and Shame, you have given them chance to explain/rectify and no definite response or Interest

 

 

That is all

 

AG

 

 

 

Edited 17 January, 2019 by Auric Goldfinger

[neilsupermac]

Thanks for responses...I won't name the dealer yet as things are getting interesting and they are trying to resolve. It sounds like there are problems because I'm now going in to meet the head of business, who started today who is fully accepting of what is going wrong here and wants me to come in and meet him to sort it out. So I'll let you know what happens. Looks and sounds to me like this particular dealership is addressing issues with a reshuffle.

[neilsupermac]

and I'm right...they have dropped some key people back into this dealership from other dealerships to "fix" this one. I met in person with one of them today and to be fair, they've taken the car back in and are now looking at it, sorting it and going to compensate me accordingly once they work out what hasn't/wasn't done.

[Danny 57]

People/dealers make mistakes, it is how they respond in the end which is the important part.

 

Hope it goes well.

Edited 22 January, 2019 by Danny 57

[neilsupermac]

Just now, Danny 57 said:

People/dealers make mistakes, it is how they respond in the end which is the important part.

 

Hope it goes well.

I agree, hence not naming and shaming at this point. I've been totally reasonable and patient about it so we'll see what they come up with.

[Whaty]

@neilsupermac I'm not sure if this helps you in anyway, possibly as a guide maybe? I opted for a flexible service plan when I got my car expecting to do 15k per year, due to a slight change in circumstance I'm only doing 12k per year but never-the-less my service notification popped up at approx. 18k, this was for the 1st Oil Service. I noticed that the 'Service' was also due 1,500 miles later so asked my dealer if they could do both at the same time. The car went in, service mileage reset (18k) and they charged me £170 all in.

 

I didn't know if this info would help in your negotiations with the dealer, sorry I'm a little late in responding.

 

Terry

[neilsupermac]

20 hours ago, Whaty said:

@neilsupermac I'm not sure if this helps you in anyway, possibly as a guide maybe? I opted for a flexible service plan when I got my car expecting to do 15k per year, due to a slight change in circumstance I'm only doing 12k per year but never-the-less my service notification popped up at approx. 18k, this was for the 1st Oil Service. I noticed that the 'Service' was also due 1,500 miles later so asked my dealer if they could do both at the same time. The car went in, service mileage reset (18k) and they charged me £170 all in.

 

I didn't know if this info would help in your negotiations with the dealer, sorry I'm a little late in responding.

 

Terry

 

I think that's all mostly coincidence.

 

I've now rectified this with the dealer:

 

1) Dealer has had customer service issues and new managers etc are in place to "fix".

2) They've taken the car back in and moved it over to flexible servicing.

3) The car didn't need servicing when they booked it in as it was serviced at 7K 6/18 and then they serviced it again @ 9.5K in 10/18 - they are now refunding me the full cost of the service I paid for.

 

Overall, the (new) managers I've dealt with have done a good job of holding hands up and helping me put it all right. So much so that I will give them another go with my Kodiaq next month.