The glove box lid on my 2 year old Audi, made a loud crack when I opened it just dropped rather than a damped descent. Complete fracture of the plastic hinge. No problem, booked into local Audi franchise, 3 weeks wait for an appointment. Phone call after dropping car off, "sorry the glovebox failure is not covered under warranty due to you forcing the cover and breaking it" I requested proof of my crime...needless to say its was not forthcoming, lots of mumbling about things maybe getting caught when closing it etc. I advised him that as it is a well known weak point they only thing I keep in the glove box is an Ipod and couple of pens, but that did not wash. "No problem, just line up the service manager and tech when I pick it up, so I can face my accusers eye to eye and we can see how they come to be able to state that I forced it, and at the same time I will phone Audi customer service just to advise them of said issue, oh and by the way, the 5 attempts you made to diagnose a fault on my car 2 months ago, and could never find the problem, mysteriously was diagnosed the first time Audi CS were involved, and was exactly the issue I claimed it to be first time, ie duff propshaft. How much is the glovebox? "£280" WTF!!!" 20 minutes later phone rings "Very sorry for any misunderstanding, can we keep your car overnight as we have a new lid on order and will fit it tomorrow morning, we have moved things around and you can keep the loan car as well" As usual half decent product is let down by third world customer service.
prestige car = Prestige price for parts. tis a bitch But dealers will do their utmost not to pay out if they can get out of it I found Honda to have the best after service. I don't have a Honda Car anymore and never used Honda Bike dealers for anything other than buying the blade. Also I've had a Santa Fe and now on a Sorento. Need a large 4X4 for work and both Korean cars, their dealers have been great to deal with. the worst has been Ford which was a shame as I've always been a Ford Fan. the price for the glove box is a lot but it could have been worse when you look at the old "how much for a wing mirror thread a year or so ago.
Kent.. its a similar theme from the Audi dealer here in Aberdeen.. GPS "shark fin" arial went in my 18 month old car.. they asked my if I power washed it as this can let water in under the seals.. I said that they must have forgot to tell me that you can't wash a f***ing new Audi!! idiots.. they paid for the new roof arial soon after.. and 5 days to tell me the squeaks and rattles are normal.. agggrrrhhh
Not good, on a positive a bought a merc e coupe and the battery went dead when left for just 2 weeks ,roadside charged me £280 for a new battery! Went into local nerc garage Salisbury and they refunded me the money I nearly fainted.
got an audi a4 2007 b7 model .. glove box hinge is a well known fault ,that is why they sell for a fortune second hand when they come up on ebay . Audi still will not admit that they have a problem with the 2.0 d engine which is well known for the tensioner that fails causing the oil pump to stop turning which then knacks the turbo and causes the engine to destroy itself as low as 60k miles.
Take a minute to remember guys that the dealers aren't always wrong, had a customer today wanting to reject his car because he couldn't get his clutch down fully, rang finance company / trading standards and everyone automatically said reject due to unroadworthy condition. Car is 3 weeks old and when he got through to me I asked him to come down and I will road test with him. Problem solved. He had 3 sets of mats and was trapped under clutch pedal.removed 2 sets and job fixed! Just a thought for the dealers! You get some horrendous ones and some fantastic ones....I've worked at a few with serious neglect for customer service. But some are fantastic. It's all down to the management and not the car maker. Your Audi situation was a good will claim...they should have just said...this isn't a warranty issue but we will claim under goodwill and you would have thought...thank you and when can I collect. Hope you all spare a thought for the dealers in the country who just keep opening the doors to keep customers happy and pay the bills...the 2 come hand in hand. Bike dealers too.....some fantastic ones and some not so good ones. Glad you got sorted thou!
well said mate.... would have liked to seen the guys expresion on his face when you told him about the mats
Had similar issue with my boot release on my 09 A4 handy button to open boot when your hands are full, only prob was it shot open at 110mph and nearly took my head off! Apparently that wasn't covered under warranty either several phone calls later it was fixed for free but pissed me off still Still missed that car though
Mate I am with you on a lot of that, as I have worked in the motor industry for a number of years previously, and my son is a salesman at a franchised dealer, so I still hear a lot of familiar stories. But, in my case it was not goodwill, picked my car up yesterday after a 45 minute wait for a service advisor to become available, and the glovebox was put through as a warranty claim. So there I am driving home, and something averted my glance to the new glove box lid as I sat at the traffic lights....yep all fitted nice and proper, but what was causing me to stare at it was that the lock barrel was missing, so obviously still in the old one they removed! Couple of phone calls later and the poor tech that worked on it phoned to apologise, which I thought was out of order, there is a structure above him that should deal with that crap, not drag him through it. Sh*t happens, but just goes to show that there was no QA done on the car after he worked on it...
Well I've been in the motor trade all my life, 28 yrs of it.Worked in franchises and independent garages as well as factors etc.Some of them were out n out crooks.Reasons why I didn't want to be a part of it. I now work for myself buying, selling, servicing mot's and paint work on cars.As well as running my own car and cycle shop. The horror stories from customers roll in on a regular basis.It seems to me that the majority come from a few big garages that rip the arse out of people and are still trading some years later.There are about 16 dealers in this town and only 3 I would say buy from.None of them are main dealers, one is a big outfit who the MD is very customer focused and and fair.The other two are small forecourts who sell a few cars through me as well.All 16 dealers use me for paint BTW.Our little lot have had issues etc but never have we between us fobbed someone off.It's not our way.We want repeat business and want them to tell their friends to buy our cars too.We have no qualms giving people money back if its not the car for them.On the other hand I've seen dealers been smashed about where they have fobbed off the wrong people.I know one rogue who is on borrowed time. Just annoys me the bike dealer I had used is such a nice friendly outfit but the workshop is hit n miss.
That is now common practice in most car dealers,getting the guy who worked on your car ring to apologize if something he did was wrong.He will have to fix that and lose the time it takes to finish the job off.Most do it in their lunch breaks.
My boss had exactly the same problem with a Golf TDous. Three times it went back to the dealers and got a clean bill of health. I thought I was going to plotz when we found out. Twat! I've had good dealers and bad, unfortunately, more bad than good. When I had my Celica, the local Toyota dealer was shit hot and they lost the franchise. The next two dealers that took it up locally were very good two. But, you have to balance that against the Peugeot and Mazda dealers I've had since...
Nah its the car I bloody loathe french cars.As for the Mazda its the dealer. Mazda's rarely go wrong.
