Fault fixing and servicing

Fault fixing and servicing

Author
Discussion

Dixy

Original Poster:

3,146 posts

212 months

Saturday 26th October
quotequote all
It would seem that prompt access to dealer support is a thing of the past. Phoned to book a car in for a 2 year service 6 weeks before it is due and was given the earliest appointment in 7 weeks.
If you got a small fault in the past you could just pop in to the service department, within half an hour a technician would pop out, have a quick look and either re-attach a loose clip and fix it quickly or say it need to come in which would be usually within a week.
Now it is like organising the Olympics.

BunkMoreland

1,042 posts

14 months

Saturday 26th October
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Dixy said:
It would seem that prompt access to dealer support is a thing of the past. Phoned to book a car in for a 2 year service 6 weeks before it is due and was given the earliest appointment in 7 weeks.
If you got a small fault in the past you could just pop in to the service department, within half an hour a technician would pop out, have a quick look and either re-attach a loose clip and fix it quickly or say it need to come in which would be usually within a week.
Now it is like organising the Olympics.
Combination of things

- Less dealers than before.
- Cars are now ever more complex. Its unlikely to be a loose clip anymore. And everything takes far too long to do because the manufacturers are making their cars ever more craply! Sporadic network faults that present with the customer and then work fine with the dealer is far too common. And warranty wont pay ANYTHING for the latter. Faults that the manufacturers literally have no idea how to fix and don't actually care since they aren't the ones facing the irate customer. And parts supply is usually miles behind what it should be!
- Most of the dealer groups in the UK at least are now owned by HUMUNGOUS billion dollar multinationals. So everything is costed to hell as the first people who need paying are the CEOs which means the focus is ever more on money, money, money than customer service. Why waste a money having any techs waiting for walk in jobs. Better to have that tech already earning the company thousands of pounds a day and the walk ins can rebook.

Jamescrs

4,883 posts

72 months

Saturday 26th October
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Are you asking for a courtesy car when trying to book a service? I have tried that with the local BMW dealer and the delay is frequently 6-8 weeks where as if i'm happy to take it in and walk away it's usually much quicker, but can still be a couple of weeks.

Now my car is out of warranty I doubt I will go back