VW customer (dis)-service
Discussion
My wife and I bought a three-year old Polo TDi from a VW main dealer.
After only six weeks of owning it it needed new rear brake discs and pads due to excessive corrosion that everyone agrees (inc. the dealer!) should have been picked up by the PDI; guess what? Neither the dealer or VW UK want to know, VW UK saying that it was the retailers responsibility and nothing to do with them, and the dealer refusing to do anything, telling me that I would have to sue them for the money. After much argument VW UK have now offered half of the cost. Accept or sue??
After only six weeks of owning it it needed new rear brake discs and pads due to excessive corrosion that everyone agrees (inc. the dealer!) should have been picked up by the PDI; guess what? Neither the dealer or VW UK want to know, VW UK saying that it was the retailers responsibility and nothing to do with them, and the dealer refusing to do anything, telling me that I would have to sue them for the money. After much argument VW UK have now offered half of the cost. Accept or sue??
Edited by carltonboyce on Thursday 23 July 11:33
Edited by carltonboyce on Thursday 23 July 11:34
A noise developed from the rear of the car after six weeks. Our nearest VW main dealer looked at it and diagnosed excessively corroded rear discs (a strip of about 10-15 mm around the friction surface on both sides is corroded and has a lip, preventing full contact by the brake pad). They spoke to the supplying garage and emailed photographs to them. They agreed that this should not have happened so quickly, agreed that they needed to be replaced, but said that discs and pads are service items and so are not covered by the warranty.
We paid to have them replaced on the advice of the local main dealer and retained them as evidence.
We paid to have them replaced on the advice of the local main dealer and retained them as evidence.
carltonboyce said:
We paid to have them replaced on the advice of the local main dealer and retained them as evidence.
You need to look at how much you paid to have them replaced and how much it would cost in your time and court costs to take it to court, do you have enough evidence to produce to make a viable case etc.Personally from my experience your not going to get anywhere with a dealer, they do this stuff day in and day out so if VW UK have offered half then take it and think your self lucky.
DaveL86 said:
Personally from my experience your not going to get anywhere with a dealer, they do this stuff day in and day out so if VW UK have offered half then take it and think your self lucky.
And that is the point, isn't it? They bully people day in and day out, and think that they can do it with impunity. And it is the sheer rudeness that makes it all so galling. Even VW Customer Services are cocking things up; they get my name wrong, they deny having received any emails from me until I forward their own replies back to them, change the person dealing with the problem so you have to explain it all again, don't phone when they say they will, have a disdainful air when they talk to you, etc., etc. It seems that they wage a war of attrition, hoping that I will get bored and go away. (Having said that, Sytners of Leeds have been absolutely brilliant, and couldn't have been more helpful.)Maybe I have a naive perspective, but when this kind of thing happens it makes me want to sue the buggers, regardless of any inconvenience to me. It happened once before, when I bought a Land Rover from a very well-known dealer, and he had lied about the service history. He wouldn't even discuss it with me, until ten minutes with Google showed a prior conviction for tampering with odometers. I pointed this out to him and said that I'd use it as evidence and he paid up very quickly...
The latest news is that "Honest John" the Telegraph columnist has taken up the cause, and even if I do get the money, he is going to name and shame the dealer, which might (yes, I know, no bloody chance in the real world) jolt them into not ripping off their customers.
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