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

[marvinsmom]

Many years ago when i was a young going getter type i had a Ford Focus Ghia company car.

i loved it, it had been thrashed and abused from day one, that is until i got it serviced by Polar Ford in Thirsk.

usually the servicing was done by the local Ford dealership, a family run affair that went out of business when Ford took the franchise off them.

so that left me having to take the car to a chain instead. well they did service it, and gave me it back all washed, valeted and without any water in the radiator. as i found out when i got stopped in traffic in the middle of York later that evening, and the temperature needle jumped from normal to snapped off though the red, and out the other side.

well i did manage to get some water for it, and it did get me home, though the head gasket was toast, and the engine itself had to be replaced by them cos it was FUBAR'd.

another instance was with the Rover 820, and Robinsons the thieving sods in Malton, who had been Rover/MG Rover dealers before the fall. see that car was making a terrible creaking from the front end, which they fixed at some expense for a new bottom ball joint. a joint which then snapped on me about a fortnight later. looking at the car, it was OBVIOUS that the ball joint had never been touched as it was rusty as fook. well they ended up having to replace the drive shaft, steering rack, and bottom arm, though i think i ended up having to find a wing and pay for the paintwork to put the car right. i have not been back there since!

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

off-road experience day

That's now been replaced by The Land Rover Experience. They basically drive onto a motorway, park on the hard shoulder, disable it and leave you there for three hours until a recovery truck pulls up.

I had to laugh at a breakdown story in last month's CAR mag with some current model Range Rover piece of shit with 2000 miles on the clock. The alternator belt threw itself off and as it's such a major job to refit it, the POS was taken by truck to a dealer. Turns out it's a software issue putting too much load on the alternator. What the actual fuck??

Ford should have sold JLR to Toyota.

[paulplom]

A mate recently put a deposit down on a evoque. His lass doesn't work and he's a digger driver. He's always had fancy cars and currently has a 2017 merc on finance. They've lived in the same council house for at least 25 years that I can remember. He also has a trashit the same as mine for going back and forward to work to keep the merc clean. His lass doesn't drive either. £40 odd k for this new evoque and it's not even a decent spec. The only option he picked was the lane departure thing at £500. How the fuck do they afford it? and why the fuck doesn't he buy his house instead of wasting it on fucking cars? He"s a bit older than me at 55 but his lass is only about 45.
Insanity at it's finest.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

1990 , me and another chauffeur sent to pick up a Rover 820 Si Fastback from our local dealer , Bletchley Motors .
“ Someone’s already taken it mate” was the Service desk response.
Cue many phone calls back and forth , eventually it was established it had been nicked.
Later that same night , I spot the Rover whilst out with Mrs N and my oldest,then aged 3. Luckily she was actually strapped in her seat, not something we were super strict on back then. Did I stop and call the Old Bill? Or engage in a dangerous and reckless 25 mile chase?
What do you fucking think?
My405 GRi was easily a match for the Rover except on a long stretch of dual carriageway when the Rover pulled away at an indicated 120.I turned off my lights so he thought he’d lost me , went across the roundabout at the end the wrong way and was just about to do a Pit Manoeuvre on him when good sense( screaming wife) prevailed.
Eventually he went into a dead end on an estate, 3 lads jumped out and ran away. I didn’t care about them , just getting the car back. Phoned the Police from the house we were outside , they didn’t care either, just said to take it home!
Next day took it back to dealer to get it checked out, they didn’t believe the whole theft and recovery tale. Accused us of wasting their and the Polices time to cover up somebody having picked it up. Cunts! Saved them an insurance claim too.

[mercrocker]

Sounds a bit like the time my mates and I saw a garage on fire, two of us tried to drag out the Herald that was in it whilst a third knocked the house door to alert the owners. They called the police accusing us of starting the fire.....