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Poor Service From Main Dealer

Sorry for those who know my own story with Jemca, Croydon but to repeat I bought a 1 owner 100 from them. I went to see it in the workshop and told the engineer there it had to be properly serviced. I collected it and inspected it when I got home and found the following.

1. 4 mismatched tyres.
2 LARGE hole in spare, obviously flat and scrap.
3. Propshafts not greased.
4. Air filter and housing full of pine needles.
5. Washer bottle not full.
6. Damaged front hubs and wheels. Long story but THEY did it. Wheels and hubs were perfect when I saw them down there and off.
7. No rear air con. Pipes cut off in engine bay.

They gave me a posh certificate saying the car had been prepared to "the highest possible standard".

They paid me nearly £2000 to put everything right and I only found the air con fault 2 years after I bought.

Tony I don't think you can or should service air con. If it's working it cannot be serviced. If it does not work it has at least a leak. Contrary to popular belief the gas does not come out slowly naturally so it cannot be "topped" up if low.
 
Wow stepped away for a sec, come back and learnt heaps about aircons. Cheers guys very interesting
 
Just thought I'd add this here.....
So today I got a car we've not seen before, simple job cd changer had stopped working. Can't communicate with it but it will eject etc so has power. Found an issue with the fibre optic which it uses to communicate, it's had a 'repair' done.
I then got the full story about the car. It's been to a 'specialist' auto electrician (customers words of where it's been) for a simple phone kit fitting. (I'll come back to the phone kit)
They'd damaged a fibre optic line and obviously not understanding how it works had a go at repairing it, tried joining in a new section with little success, pretty much bypassed the optic loop for the car and just connected it directly to the cd changer, used a full 7M long repair line when needs about 2M, coiled up the extra and managed to kink it so light won't travel properly anyway.
So I made some new optic lines to required lengths and appropriate end connectors, changer now works and optic link now fully working.

While sorting out the optic lines I'd noticed the wiring for the phone kit, positive wires direct from battery with no fuses running along to the dash area one of which was pressed up against the steel dash carrier and had been rubbing!! Thermal incident waiting to happen and the ground was just a bared back wire wrapped around a section of the dash carrier, truly shocked at the job. I ripped it all out and fitted it correctly.

The place that did it said not for them to pay as only fitted a phone kit and not their problem!!!
Spent just over 4 hours sorting it out plus a few parts, charged the bloke £100 told him it's now wired safely etc and he was happy, the bill should've been a lot more as our hourly rate is more then that.

As much as some people slate dealers and say rip people off etc, yes some are a disgrace and need a good kicking, we're not all the same.
On a very regular basis I get cars that have been to independents and 'specialists' and the work done is shocking, the price is often shocking too and often more then what we would charge!!
 
Gary, that is amazing service from yourself, clearly above and beyond.

I suppose the thing that bugs me about the service I received is that they have had good money out of me over the years, LC was purchased from them, solely serviced by them, and anything that broke (water pump, high pressure fuel lines, etc) was always sorted by them at the quoted price, I didn't even quibble with them over price, so when they tried their sharp business tactics on me I was pissed.

So have I done anything apart from moan on here, nope. I really don't have time during the day to call/write etc. So I have moved on, and will find somewhere else to service my LC if I can't be arsed to do it myself.
 
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I'd be pissed off too mate, you don't keep customers by doing that and you lose loyal customers doing it too.

We quite honestly went through a stage where stuff was being reported for replacement unnecessarily, we had quality issues with some techs work too, corners being cut and some really crap repairs being done!

It prompted a change in bonus schemes (I don't earn bonus anymore as I'm now salaried) and some of our processes. Techs are bonused on customer satisfaction more then anything with an element of productivity/hours sold, catch is though if satisfaction is below a certain threshold you don't get the other part regardless of how well you perform.

Too many places look short term, they just want every penny they can out of customers while the vehicle is with them, basically the same thing they tried to do with you!!

I'm not saying my place is perfect btw, we still get issues with quality and other such things, not every customer is 100% happy for various reasons (see 40 ish cars a day on average). I think we do well though.
 
Some of the trouble is that most the management has no clue about mechanicals. When my golf broke down the techs told me lies about what was wrong. I asked for a meeting with them and the MD and they told the same lies to him in front of me. As the MD did not even understand about metal fragments and filters!! he did not know who to believe.

In the 50's my uncle was a very successful salesman in Wales selling Gascoigne milking machines . I remember him telling me "you must have complete faith in your product and know it inside out". Those days have gone.
 
I agree Frank. I cannot sell anything without having complete faith in it. Trouble is everything is built to a price. You've only got to see on The Apprentice that selling junk pays and people don't like to pay the right price for quality stuff.
 
In my opinion every business/person makes mistakes, but it's how the company deals with it that counts.
 
Had our Subaru in for a service at main dealer last week and they phoned wife to say front and rear discs corroded and worn and all brake pads worn, £550 to replace them.
I called back and told him I fitted new rear discs last year, and new front discs and pads all round year before, and only done about 15k miles in last 2 years and pads hardly worn when I checked in April when I took winter wheels off. So I said they don't need replacing, he said ok "I will put quote on invoice" and put the phone down....
Trying it on... Not impressed


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
So just to update this thread, I have just replaced my front pads, 8 months after the service, seems that they have worn down pretty quickly.

In hindsight and in fairness to the dealer, the pads did not make it to the next service, so had it been someone else it would have been good advice to change the pads at the service.
 
Ive only just been able to talk about this recently. A couple of years ago i bought a new rear hatch off my main dealer, cost me a small fortune but justified it by the fact it should last me the rest of my life. I had it sprayed, i then swilled lots of wax oil all around the inside and fitted new genuine glass, gasket and wiper. Looked great and was really pleased with it. About 18 months later i noticed about 20 rust blisters allover the hatch. Gutted. Main dealer said it was the body shop and didnt want to know, body shop said moisture must of been under the factory primer and didnt want to know... so ive done nothing wrong, spent a small fortune and a fair amount of time. What am i left with? A rusty rear hatch and a very very bitter taste...
 
chapel gate said:
Ive only just been able to talk about this recently. A couple of years ago i bought a new rear hatch off my main dealer, cost me a small fortune but justified it by the fact it should last me the rest of my life. I had it sprayed, i then swilled lots of wax oil all around the inside and fitted new genuine glass, gasket and wiper. Looked great and was really pleased with it. About 18 months later i noticed about 20 rust blisters allover the hatch. Gutted. Main dealer said it was the body shop and didnt want to know, body shop said moisture must of been under the factory primer and didnt want to know... so ive done nothing wrong, spent a small fortune and a fair amount of time. What am i left with? A rusty rear hatch and a very very bitter taste...
Click to expand...

It's always someone else's problem, it seems CG. :icon-rolleyes:

I've been very lucky, both with my service workshop and the body shop I use. Great guys, good work, right price and always willing to take any remedial work on without quibbling.

Worth a fortune, they are, compared with some of these horror stories.
 
clivehorridge said:
It's always someone else's problem, it seems CG. :icon-rolleyes:

I've been very lucky, both with my service workshop and the body shop I use. Great guys, good work, right price and always willing to take any remedial work on without quibbling.

Worth a fortune, they are, compared with some of these horror stories.
Click to expand...
I know whos fault it wasnt clive, mine. I expected much much more from a main dealer. Toyota uks pricing policy is an absolute joke, so i expected good service when things went wrong, maybe a little return for all them years of being ripped of on parts.
 
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