What's Your Worst Experience With A Garage Or Main Dealer?

[bunglebus]

My worst experience of main dealers was working at them, four different companies at six locations. Glad I'm out

[DVee8]

Another Nissan dealer experience. A couple of years ago I put my X-trail in for a service at a different dealer as the last one is now a MG dealer.
I was on night shift, the first of 2, 12 hour shifts. The car was dropped off in the morning and I was told it would be ready by 3pm.

3pm came and went it got round to 4 and still no call so I rang them "oh just finished". We get to the dealer around 4.45 and we are just left standing at the service desk with out anyone in sight.
It's now 5ish and I start at 6 but I have to get there.

We are very sorry Mr V8 we have lost your key fob.20 mins later they found it.
So i go to dump my work kit in the car and it's a fuckin mess. They had washed it and left it in the sun to dry. It had only been washed the night before.

I had to leave MrsV8 to pay the bill and get to work, now it's the only time I have been late in 30 years but it was only by 3 or so mins.

Then there was the bill that I didn't see till the next afternoon. They had charged me £1.65 to fill my washer bottle.
That I had filled the day before.

I got a phone call from the service manager due to the way the service had been handled, I asked him about filling my already full washer bottle and charging me for it, "well it must have needed some fluid" so I asked what colour fluid the used, blue was the answer but I had used Halfords bright pink blueberry.

He offered to refund my £1.65 and give me 10% off my next service, bring the car over to them and they would wash it again. I told him to shove it and I would never be back and I would tell as many people as possible.

[Warren t claim]

The following tale is a post I put on AS. The story doesn't involve any garage associated with me.

I've got a friend who's helps out now and again at a garage owned by his cousin, in fact a fair few of his family are employed there. About a year or so ago they rang me asking for a taxi to take them home and when they got in the car they told me this story and showed me the pics.

They had a Renner Clio 197, maybe a 2017 year in for some job that I can't remember. This particular Clio was the hot RS 197 model and when it came to road test the Renner a mechanic took it out forgetting that it was keyless and left the fob on the roof. As you have probably guessed and when he returned the fob had long since slid away. The owner rings the owner and after much arse kissing asks him for the spare so he can get a duplicate made. The owner brings in the spare fob and agrees to come back tomorrow afternoon to collect his car.

The replacement fob arrives the following morning as promised. That lunchtime the garage owner decides to go home for lunch in the Clio. The garage is in North Wirral and the owner lives about 20 miles away in Chester, by sheer coincidence only about a mile from the @Cavcraftsuper sales centre. Whilst driving towards Chester on the M53 the owner decides to engage in a race with a BMW M140i and managed to run out of talent around Ellesmere Port and stacks the poor Renner into the motorway crash barrier inflating several airbags and writing the Clio off.

The police arrive and arrange for a speed recovery to clear the motorway as that section is only two lanes. Much to the utter surprise of the garage owner, plod accept his glib excuse and don't ask any further questions, which is handy because the driver was disqualified from driving and serving the sort of long term ban that'll involve him passing several drug and alcohol tests (fat chance!) before he'll stand a chance of getting his licence back!

With the wreckage recovered our protagonist gets his MOT tester to take him back to base and break the bad news to the Clio owner. A phone call is made explaining a totally fictitious account of that lunchtime's events. As it happens the Clio owner had the car up for sale and as long as he got paid the advertised price from the garage he'll take the matter no further. Money changes hands, doubtless obtained from the garage owner's mother in law, who to be honest pretty much funds both the garage and his lifestyle, and the matter is settled.

[SubPar]

Admittedly I've hardly dealt with main dealers due to running bags of shite I can work on myself.

However, the recent notice I got for the steering column recall on my E36 was one such occasion where I did deal with a main dealer.

Douglas Park BMW of Stirling first of all refused to give me a lift home, let alone do something insane like provide a courtesy car when I tried to drop it off. Courtesy cars are for the sales department only, apparently. How does that work?

Anyway, I managed to get them to collect it instead. That part was fine.

They returned it later the same day with a shiny new section of steering column in the engine bay, as expected.
However, when I drove it I discovered the steering wheel was utterly on the piss.
Irritated, I went round and asked them if they have a machine for checking tracking, and they said they did.
I asked why the hell they didn't use it.
Ah, but that's not part of the recall. Tracking will cost £120+VAT, sir.

Bunch of absolute cunts. I had to bite my tongue and just turn on my heel.

[Hooli]

They shouldn't have touched the tracking to do the column anyway! Just sloppy work not keeping parts aligned.

[SubPar]

They shouldn't have touched the tracking to do the column anyway! Just sloppy work not keeping parts aligned.

My thoughts exactly.

They mustn't have secured the steering wheel when they disconnected the column, then just threw it back together.


I moved the steering wheel round a couple of notches myself, but I'm going to get the tracking done soon anyway, as it just doesn't feel as positive when going straight ahead as my other E36s did. I can move the steering wheel back to the right position again when I fit the standard one I've ordered (to replace the hamburger-like M-tech wheel that I hate the look of).

[mercrocker]

This is one of those threads that makes me grateful I am a skinflint. My only experiences with anything approaching main dealer chicanery were getting the odd Ford-only part for a 10 year old Mk3 Granada and I once lived opposite an MB franchise where the stores lads were very helpful in giving me chunky discounts on W123 parts they still had in stock.

I've gone through life with three or four trusted local garages, two barbers and the same dentist for 30 years so I've been lucky I suppose.....

[christine]

My old Astra van mk2 in for an MOT , diesel creep down on the brake pedal , fail.. New master cylinder fitted £300 ,same diesel creep.. pass though . My Pajero does it too.. new mot guy who doesn't miss much but is fair , says " they all do that sir ., stops alright though dunnit , ?"...pass

[paulplom]

I bought a new fiat ducato in 2005. It was getting towards the end of the three year warranty and it needed a couple of small jobs doing. One was the sliding door had to be slammed to get it to shut the other was the passenger door handle was loose or stiff I can't remember.
Yes sir she said we'll book it in. It'll be £100 plus vat to put it on the computer. But it doesn't need to be on the computer for a door handle and the side door alignment.
Standard practice sir. You either pay or don't book it in. The fucking robbing, conning bastards.
I didn't book it in.
So any *free warranty work was £120. Cunts.

[Guest]

Vw did try, but failed to fix my Polo, fortunately it was a lease car for work so I sent it back early. Peugeot the same when I had a 205 on lease.

Land Rover, stupidly I had bought it a 2003 Td4 Freelander, it was lovely when it went.
A few random electrical issues where I always got told "we have reset it" rather than why it needed resetting.

The clutch pedal felt odd one day, do I called in to the dealer. I was told there was nothing wrong with it. Unsurprisingly the following day I had no clutch pedal.
Phoned Land Rover 24 hour assistance (I think they promise to answer the phone within 24 hours)
Couldn't get an answer, rang the dealer direct who said they couldn't collect it "as they wouldn't be insured".
Luckily I had RAC cover and got them to come out. I got the car out of the garage and around the front by starting in gear and stalling.
I then got taken to the dealer. I was left in the showroom but not told what was going on. I asked if someone could drop me to work but nobody was available (sales staff sat up on balcony eating their breakfasts). Unfortunately nobody available at my work either.

There's only so much free coffee and biscuits I can stand, I had read the newspapers, mixed up all the brochures, tried on various Land Rover hats. Every time I went to ask what was going on someone would go to find out and not come back. I ended up the only person left in the showroom.
A couple arrived outside in a nice big Mercedes and came in the showroom. I was the only person there so they came to talk to me. It ended up an interesting conversation which finally got one of the salesmen off his arse to come downstairs. By that time I'd told them the Freelander was great when it was going, but the aftersales wasn't the best. They had told me they were looking to buy a Discovery and a Freelander but had left another dealership without buying as the salesman was only prepared to let them have one off-road experience day as it would be one transaction. At the time you got an off road day thrown in when you bought a new Land Rover, they both wanted a go.
The salesman tried to hurry them away from me, but the chap told him to go to find out what was happening with mine first and he would wait.
And mine was ready (replaced the master cylinder) why they couldn't be arsed to tell me what was going on I have no idea, but that was one of the factors that made me decide I did not want to keep if once the warranty was up.