Where does he stand?

BoozyBabe

Hi Guys,

Looking for a bit of advice on behalf of my partner, as we don't have a clue where we stand in this regard.

9 months ago my partner bought a 2 yr old car from a reputable Dublin VW garage.
It cost €25k & had a 1 yr warranty as standard, & was sold as being in pwo. It has less that 40k miles on the clock.

He barely had it home (we live a long way away) when the first problems started.
It was brought back to garage & stayed there for about a month before finally getting it back, to discover nothing was fixed. They may have tried, but they didn't solve it, pretended they did & sent it back down the road.
They took his engine tray & then tried to say there was never one on it.

So, it was left back up again & again they had the car for at least a month & again came back no better off, this time several tools & screws were left under the bonnet & we had them when we got home.
Again, the car was anything but perfect.

All the while, they won't take his calls, won't call him back, are completely ignorant to him when we goes up.

This has been the story for a last 9 months. I think it's been in their garage 5 times now, & still the problems aren't fixed.

He absolutely loves this car, yet as you can imagine these things are really starting to get him down.
On a few of the occasions, a replacement car was given to him & you should have seen them. Brand new & in absolute bits!!!!
His confidence in the garage is at an absolute zero.



On one occasion the mechanic hadned him the keys for us to take the car home, where the car would have barely gotten us home (after we'd driven all the way to get the car) We called the head mechanic who couldn't believe we were told the car was fixed. It so obviously wasn't!!

Roll on last weekend when the turbo gave up completely. While having a look at it, he noticed he STILL has an oil leak which they've tried to fix from the VERY 1st visit.
& both his front tyres are about to burst from the amount of wear on the inside. (He keeps a very close eye on his car & the tyres were absolutely perfect before the last visit 2 months ago, so again, is this down to incompetence of the garage?)

So, his heart has just sank. He wants them to take the car back. They warranty will soon be up & he's going to be left screwed (if the last 9 months are anything to go by)
I feel so sorry for him, as he loved the car so much.
It really angers me that they'd sell him such a lemon for such big money.
I fear that they're just gonna say tough sh!t to him, or buy it back from him at a very insulting price.

I really don't know where he stand here. Has he any case against them where they could be forced to take it back, or what would you do in this situation?
Try & get them to extend the warranty? Would you really want that from a garage that has proved over & over again that they can't fix the problems?

He phoned them yesterday. Guess what. They wouldn't take his call, everyone was apparently OUT!!! They would call him back, & surprise surprise, no call back!!!

Any advice greatly appreciated.

gabgab

Hi Boozy,

That is awful treatment, I work in the motor trade and can see it from both points of view. I can probably where the service work is being done to this car, if you want to pm me I can see if I can help you out

My advice would to be get all the dates of phone calls, and unreturned calls, the dates it has been dropped down and all the faults and go direct to the head person,

It sounds harsh but in these cases if you cant get any hop you need to plague the top person, often these are situations they are unaware of.......

A documented list of all the faults, and brutal customer care will help your case guaranteed

Like I said if you would like some help please let me know,

cheers,

Gab,

crosstownk

What you describe is so typical of a lot of VW dealers. You could try talking to the VW importer, MDL (01 409 4444) but, tbh, they won't give a monkeys and will probably tell you to take it back to the dealer. (Roll on next year when MDL are out of the loop).

Your best bet is to go legal on the gounds that the car is not fit for the purpose intended and is not of merchantable quality. If you would prefer not to go legal at this point, you should, at the very least, engage the services of a competent automotive engineer. This is going to cost a few hundred so try get the dealer to agree to pay for the engineer if, in the engineers opinion, the dealer is at fault.

I reckon you do need professional assistance at this stage and every fault needs to be addressed and rectified and as a minimum, you should have the warranty extended by a further year. But you may wish to return the car and get a refund in which case you indicate this to the dealer as soon as possible and based on the reply you can decide whether or not to go legal.

gyppo

crosstownk wrote:

Your best bet is to go legal on the gounds that the car is not fit for the purpose intended and is not of merchantable quality. If you would prefer not to go legal at this point, you should, at the very least, engage the services of a competent automotive engineer. This is going to cost a few hundred so try get the dealer to agree to pay for the engineer if, in the engineers opinion, the dealer is at fault.

I reckon you do need professional assistance at this stage and every fault needs to be addressed and rectified and as a minimum, you should have the warranty extended by a further year. But you may wish to return the car and get a refund in which case you indicate this to the dealer as soon as possible and based on the reply you can decide whether or not to go legal.

What the man said.

ZiabR

You should at least arrange for a letter to be sent by your solicitor to the garage stating that you are going legal with this case. Then see if they come back to you and

A: Offer to have the car fixed
B: Offer you your money back
C: Offer you a new car in replacment

Sorry to hear how you have been treated but unless you put the foot down and go legal or at least threaten legal then you might be running around in circles. The garage will know the car is not road worthy and will know they stand to lose more money than its worth if it goes to court.

Let us know what you do and best of luck

franksm

Agree with Logik's... er.... logic

You've been through enough, they could have rebuilt the car in that time, and it smells like they are just stalling for time until the warranty runs out.

So, solicitor is the only way to go - it wouldn't be expensive and they'll help recover other costs too that you had to incur through being without this car. I don't like the "sue you" point of view, but in this case it's totally legit

ismynametoolong

i would suggest writing a detailed but polite letter to this garage requesting that all the issues be addressed . Copy the letter to MDL and see what happens it is probably best to avoid the legal eagles at first but you can always imply that it may be the next course of action plus if you go legal you will have documented evidence of requesting the situation sorted .

ninty9er

AFAIK, warrantys only expire 12 months after the last work was carried out under warranty. Was told this when I got my phone repaired by Nokia 3 times.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

ninty9er wrote:

AFAIK, warrantys only expire 12 months after the last work was carried out under warranty. Was told this when I got my phone repaired by Nokia 3 times.

That doesn't generally hold. Anyway, the guarantee does not affect your statutary rights under the Sale of Goods act. Just make an attempt to talk to the Garage owner and then go straight to a solicitor.

mikemac

Quick tip as I had a similar situation recently
There is good advice already posted but when sending the letter, make sure you use registered post.

Otherwise, they can deny they ever recieved it.
Only costs €5 or so

BoozyBabe

Thanks guys for your responses.

Who would you post this polite letter to?
The sales building is separate to the repairs building, though they are all the one, they are different offices.
Should it be sent to the repairs garage, or to the main office?
Service so far that the repairs has been appalling, so I can't imagine sending it there will be all the beneficial, although if you sent it to the main sales office, it'd be the 1st they'd have heard of it.

Problems I can think of have been this:- an oil leak, which is still there.
I'm not mechanical minded, so I can't remember all that's been done, but I think spark plugs were change, diesel pump was changes, injectors I think were changed, some actual piping I think was changed, I know they over tightened something & crack it, so it had to be replaced, they'd to replace the engine tray, cos they lost the original, after they admitted the car had one.
My partner has had to point several of the problems out to them, cos they couldn't or wouldn't find them themselves.
It is still leaking, the turbo has stopped working, there are bushing gone which causes a clunking noise & it's idling (which they've attempted to fix several times, & told us it was now absolutely perfect) is terrible, you'd have to feel it to believe it.
The front tyres are now shot.
Yet, the car is driveable (though by no means what you'd expect from a 2 yr old, €25k 40k milage car), so has he a leg to stand on.

Also point out, that none of this is down to my bf's driving. i.e. bushings & tyres. He's the running joke around our area about how carefully he treats his car, the car is almost stopped going over bumps, no exaggeration!!

IrishRover

My father has had a similar experience with VW in Dublin - three letters in the name of the place.
Grudgingly took the car in under warranty, did a botch job made it worse, keep saying they can do nothing until "germany tells them what to do". He was told by them that they can't hire anyone good to work for them because they won't pay anyone properly.
Lots of people are having problems with VWs and the VW after sales service. A lot of people have decided to make nuisances of themselves and demand new engines and they have got them. I think the only way is to make yourself a nuisance on their forecourt and don't be bullied by them, and put everything in writing and get them to put what they say in writing.

Yet still there are those who will say VW are reliable - based on nothing more than a clever marketing campaign from the 80's "If only everything in life was as reliable as a Volkswagen".

crosstownk

Sounds like an MSL garage from your description. If it is, then MSL are part of MDL.

Call the garage (anonymously) and ask for the name of the dealer principle and write the letter to him. If you want cc the letter to Volkswagen Customer Service, Motor Distributors Limited, Naas Road, Dublin 12.

ZiabR

BoozyBabe wrote:

Thanks guys for your responses.

Who would you post this polite letter to?
The sales building is separate to the repairs building, though they are all the one, they are different offices.
Should it be sent to the repairs garage, or to the main office?
Service so far that the repairs has been appalling, so I can't imagine sending it there will be all the beneficial, although if you sent it to the main sales office, it'd be the 1st they'd have heard of it.

Problems I can think of have been this:- an oil leak, which is still there.
I'm not mechanical minded, so I can't remember all that's been done, but I think spark plugs were change, diesel pump was changes, injectors I think were changed, some actual piping I think was changed, I know they over tightened something & crack it, so it had to be replaced, they'd to replace the engine tray, cos they lost the original, after they admitted the car had one.
My partner has had to point several of the problems out to them, cos they couldn't or wouldn't find them themselves.
It is still leaking, the turbo has stopped working, there are bushing gone which causes a clunking noise & it's idling (which they've attempted to fix several times, & told us it was now absolutely perfect) is terrible, you'd have to feel it to believe it.
The front tyres are now shot.
Yet, the car is driveable (though by no means what you'd expect from a 2 yr old, €25k 40k milage car), so has he a leg to stand on.

Also point out, that none of this is down to my bf's driving. i.e. bushings & tyres. He's the running joke around our area about how carefully he treats his car, the car is almost stopped going over bumps, no exaggeration!!

I really can't believe all that is wrong with such a young car and for the price of it. The letter should be sent to the Office part of the company and i would also send another letter as crosstownk has said to VW main headquaters. Explain everything that has happend and threaten taking it to court if you don't get sorted. The person that owned that car before your partner must really have driven the crap out of it.

The sooner this letter is done the better by the way. After work today or whenever you can, sit down with your partner and get a list of all the faults and then start the letter. Contact your solicitor as soon as possible also. Get the ball rolling and i really hope you get the car sorted.

Oh and by the way, if this was me, i would not be interested in having the car fixed. It seems to be in bits and if that is the case i would want a new car or my money back, no if's or but's. 25000 euro is alot of money for a car and you expect it to be in fully working order when the money changes hands. It is clear the car your partner has bought was not. You are well within your consumer rights to take this to the highest level if needed.

MercMad

Send your letter to the MD of the dealer and put a "cc" on the end to your solicitor.

You WILL need a solicitor. Forget about the distributor because it is not a new car, they will wash their hands of it. Forget about the SIMI but consider investing in an AA report, a couple of hundred quid and at least you will have the facts !

Good luck !

BoozyBabe

Thanks guys!

Ye're all saying what I was sort of thinking, but I have a tendency to speak my mind & sometimes I may not be in the right for doing so, so I just wanted to see if they can be made do anything about it before I started shouting my mouth off.
Plus, it's not my place to shout anything, it's not my car & he's as quiet as a mouse!!!!

ZiabR

BoozyBabe wrote:

Thanks guys!

Ye're all saying what I was sort of thinking, but I have a tendency to speak my mind & sometimes I may not be in the right for doing so, so I just wanted to see if they can be made do anything about it before I started shouting my mouth off.
Plus, it's not my place to shout anything, it's not my car & he's as quiet as a mouse!!!!

Well you are doing the right thing, wanting to take this further. Don't let the garage get away with that crappy treatment. Do what needs to be done and best of luck with it.

Let us know how it goes

oilsheik

Ulrich Bach in VW in Germany is the regional manager with responsibility for Ireland. I don't have his contact details but if my put "cc. Ulrich Bach, Regional Manager, Volkswagen AG" on the end of the letter your going to send to the garage it might help move things along.

calsatron

Got my golf from a reputable VW garage and although I havn't had any problems with it, fortunately, the standard second hand warranty that came with the vehicle only covers it for faults that develop as a result of deffective parts/installation/design and not normal wear and tear.

This gives the problem that being second hand you've no real idea the wear and tear the car was subjected to, other than the mileage, and would find it extremely difficult to prove the point that the faults were not due to wear and tear.

I'd get an independent mechanics report and involve a solicitor.

crosstownk

oilsheik wrote:

Ulrich Bach in VW in Germany is the regional manager with responsibility for Ireland. I don't have his contact details but if my put "cc. Ulrich Bach, Regional Manager, Volkswagen AG" on the end of the letter your going to send to the garage it might help move things along.

Good idea - or so you'd think. I did the same in relation to a problematic Passat last March - here's the exact, word for word response from Volkswagen AG, Wolfsburg:

Dear Customer,

Thank you for contacting us.

Please understand that we are unable to attend to all our customers from our headquaters in Wolfsburg, but count on the competence of our world-wide network.

Consequently, we have forwarded your correspondence to our importer, asking them to look into this matter and get in touch with you directly. Please await further contact from them.

Thank you for your understanding.

Yours sincerely,
Volkswagen AG,
Customer Care.

So there you have it. It really made me feel like a valued customer!

The response from MDL was similar and explained that "If it were possible to claim perfection, warranties and guarantees would not then be necesssary" and went on to say "We would recommend contacting your local Volkswagen dealer in a view to booking your vehicle in so as the dealer can diagnose and rectify any concern" Great, said I, as the car had been in 7 times for the same fault :rolleyes:

TBH, your best bet is a solicitor and an engineer. Any thing else is just going to delay the whole process adding to your frustration. Call you solicitior and see what he has to say.

ballooba

I have had a similar bad experience with MSL. That is why I now drive a Toyota.

ZiabR

Any update on this? What route did you guys take?