Is it any wonder dealers are going out of business?

-Chris-

leitrim lad wrote: »

chris,

i wasnt trying to encourage violance or break the boards rules ,

Glad to hear it

leitrim lad wrote: »

but what goes on in some of these dealers is actually criminal, and if that woman refused to do warranty work then it can be classed as intimidation against the individual who bought the car, and he could use this as a lever to claim that he was being singled out and bullied into a service that wasnt required,

There are lots of businesses doing criminal things, I hope they all get caught.
I'm not sure how that applies to this specific thread though.

The woman didn't refuse to do warranty work, so it's not intimidation.

leitrim lad wrote: »

i understand their cashflow problems , but thats their problem for mismanaging their company and squandering profits on big fancy showrooms and over priced offices, and its their problem if they cannot undertake their legal obligation to a consumers right to warranty, so i have no pity for them,

Again, the woman seems to be quite prepared to book the car in for service, so there is no infringement of the customer's right to warranty.

leitrim lad wrote: »

this man could park his car and deem it unsafe for his wife and child until the job is done and counter claim for loss of earnings, which would cost ten times more than the small warranty issue.

ASC is otherwise known as traction control:
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/technology_guide/articles/automatic_stability_control.html

The car is still safe to drive, but may lose traction if driven spiritedly or in a situation of poor grip. ABS and all that stuff still work to my knowledge...

leitrim lad wrote: »

however it can easily be resolved when you mention the entitlements of a consumer under certain acts and legisl;ation ,that may agetate the dealer,

Mention these entitlements to the right person and I've no doubt you'll get resolution.

leitrim lad wrote: »

and a dictaphone is a very handy tool in situations like this when dealing with cheeky go fors, ie, the secratery who told him to wait 3 weeks and bring it in today for a service,

Don't deal with the gopher anymore, go straight to the DP.

leitrim lad wrote: »

there are several loopholes here in this mans favour, let alone fully fledged laws and legislation,

What loopholes?

leitrim lad wrote: »

my opinion stands the sooner the lot of them enter liquidation ,the more eas will be on our shoulders , and we can say i told you so

My opinion stands that I think this is a pointless and inflammitory statement. I wish you'd stop saying it.

bmm

There isn't too many dealerships in Limerick with that kind of reputation and i think most people living in Limerick would know straight away who the OP is talking about. I had a similar experience with this dealership 10 years ago so it looks like they won't be improving customer service any time soon.

Remember if the car is under warranty you can bring it to any authorised service center. Elm motors on the Ennis road in limerick can do warranty work for various brands afaik. I have no connection with Elm Motors whatsoever and know nothing about the quality of their work. Good Luck.

Unregistered.

themacdaddy wrote: »

I am not condoning what happened I just think people should be given a chance to explain their side of the issue and hopefully clarify the situation. Albeit if the garage don't deal with OP issues in a positive manner he will be right to name and shame. I just think it can hold off until things are clarified.

Yeah, exactly, more less the same thing J.D. does every other day!

johncm

mickdw wrote: »

Do the dealers get a really crap labour rate from manufacturer/distributor for warranty work. I was told this is the case. It certainly makes sense as it is like pulling teeth getting anything done under warranty with vw/Audi at least.

They dont get a crap hourly rate its the time they get paid to do a job. Having worked in a couple of Fiat garages the rate was good but you would want to be superman to get the job done in the time allowed.

niceirishfella

So, the OP comes on blowing hot about a garage but still won't name then..........meh

Long Onion

niceirishfella wrote: »

So, the OP comes on blowing hot about a garage but still won't name then..........meh

Patience Grasshopper, they will be named once I have an outcome.

Boskowski

Long Onion wrote: »

I ... think that it is disgusting that my wife is driving our baby around in a car with a defect in its safety systems but will hold fire for now.

Cool it man. ASC is anti skid control, hardly something that is endangering your child. Cars were driving perfectly fine without these things and unless your wife drives like a lunatic this systems existence will never ever register with you or her only for the warning light.

I mean I agree with you on the actual case, but this is a bit over the top I think.

I bet you have a 'baby on board' sticker, too, admit it

niceirishfella

Long Onion wrote: »

Patience Grasshopper, they will be named once I have an outcome.

easy there Tiger, get to know you statutory rights to aid you in your quest for warranty.

knifey_spoonie

OP

Couple of questions first

Did you purchase from the garage in question,
Is it an english import.

For the record for anybody who wants to know, in most case's warranty is paid at a reduced labour rate usualy -20-30% and theres a warranty parts discount aswell.

So yes warranty work does mean that there is less cash coming in for hours worked, Also you have to take into account the warranty is done on credit and may be paid quaterly this could add up to €100,000 very quickly.

OP I would just give a quick call to the DP(Dealer Principal), Inform him of your story, find out if its normal procedure in the garage and take it from there.If it is vote with your feet.

Now to deal with Leitrim Lad.

You have some non-sensical, idiotic way about yourself

Firstly when did they ever refuse to do the warranty work, All they did was offer their next available slot for warranty.

You are some man to talk about the garages intimidating behavour(which is non existant), when you suggest he should pin someone against the wall. Pot..kettle...black comes to mind.

With you comment about all in the motor trade being crooked well i dont even know where to start with that one. If thats you view thats your view but its so unfair and totaly untrue.

Your comment on squandering profits on glass showrooms has been delt with by others. But i ask you as you say you buy equipment upto 7 figure sums, im presuming you own a business and have invested in your own business.Now what garages have done by building these "Glass Houses" is invested in the garage by meeting brand guides that have been set by manufacturers.They do this so they can keep the main revenue stream which is car sales, which if carried out through a brand. So if you call investing squandering go ahead.

You can call me biast all you want and yes i do work in a garage, infact its a family business which i love.I would'nt do anything eles, A person with the views you have really makes me wonder.I work damm hard to keep our customers happy.We as a business have high customer retention and customer satisfaction rates. The great thing about it is that i know we are not only garage who gets these high satisfaction ratings, I know there are places who do even better than us.

I also know your bitter grossly inacurate views, are exactly that your own views and i or no one else can change that. But Seriously cop on

Saab Ed

leitrim lad wrote: »

chris,


my opinion stands the sooner the lot of them enter liquidation ,the more eas will be on our shoulders , and we can say i told you so

My opinion still stands too. The sooner your posts go into liquidation the better it will be for everyone. There wasnt an once of knowledge or common sense in either of your posts. There's not much point giving bad advice now is there.

Long Onion

knifey_spoonie wrote: »

OP

Couple of questions first

Did you purchase from the garage in question,
Is it an english import.

For the record for anybody who wants to know, in most case's warranty is paid at a reduced labour rate usualy -20-30% and theres a warranty parts discount aswell.

So yes warranty work does mean that there is less cash coming in for hours worked, Also you have to take into account the warranty is done on credit and may be paid quaterly this could add up to €100,000 very quickly.

OP I would just give a quick call to the DP(Dealer Principal), Inform him of your story, find out if its normal procedure in the garage and take it from there.If it is vote with your feet.

Hi Knifey Spoonie,

The car isn't a UK import and wasn't purchased from the Garage in question - we have moved house and are a long distance away.

This should not be an issue though, as consumer I am entitled to have the warranty work carried out at any authorised agent.

I should say that it is not the time frame itself that is annoying me, if all garages have a long waiting list that's fair enough. The pain in the ass is that if I am willing to pay, they will do the work, if the manufacturer is paying, they don't want to do it.

Long Onion

Update.

Heard from the manufacturers, the service manager has recieved my correspondance. He is taking it quite seriously and is now contacting the dealership. He will revet to me tomorrow morning with a resolution. I'll update then.

Cheers

Henry Ford III

Long Onion wrote: »

Update.

Heard from the manufacturers, the service manager has recieved my correspondance. He is taking it quite seriously and is now contacting the dealership. He will revet to me tomorrow morning with a resolution. I'll update then.

Cheers

Good stuff!

Long Onion

Just thought I'd update you.

Got a call from the head man in the warranty dept in Mitsubishi Ireland, he apologised to me and stated that it was not indacative of the way that they traet their customers. He told me that he had been speaking to the DP and that I could expect to hear very soon from the Dealership principal.

Yesterday evening, the DP called and again apologised to me, stated that the service received was not good enough and that there were no excuses, stated that the matter had been brought to the attention of the staff member. He is taking the car off me on Tuesday to have the warranty work done and is giving it a free service by way of a goodwill gesture.

Whilst i'm annoyed that it happened in the first place, the guy seemed genuinely nice. Dealership was Motorpark in Galway for all those interested. After speaking with the DP, I bear them no ill will.

Zube

Long Onion wrote: »

Yesterday evening, the DP called and again apologised to me, stated that the service received was not good enough and that there were no excuses

Result!

Unregistered.

Long Onion wrote: »

Just thought I'd update you.

Got a call from the head man in the warranty dept in Mitsubishi Ireland, he apologised to me and stated that it was not indacative of the way that they traet their customers. He told me that he had been speaking to the DP and that I could expect to hear very soon from the Dealership principal.

Yesterday evening, the DP called and again apologised to me, stated that the service received was not good enough and that there were no excuses, stated that the matter had been brought to the attention of the staff member. He is taking the car off me on Tuesday to have the warranty work done and is giving it a free service by way of a goodwill gesture.

Whilst i'm annoyed that it happened in the first place, the guy seemed genuinely nice. Dealership was Motorpark in Galway for all those interested. After speaking with the DP, I bear them no ill will.

Well done.

-Chris-

Zube wrote: »

Result!

Unregistered. wrote: »

Well done.

Leitrim Lad, I'm sure you're dying to chime in with similar "all's well that ends well sentiment" or maybe even an "I told you it was all a misunderstanding, I knew it would all work out in the end".

:P:P:D


OP, thanks for updating us and thanks for not "naming and shaming" until all information was available.


I don't accept that this is anything but shoddy customer service, but I've always believed that it's not as much about what goes wrong, but how it gets fixed afterwards.

Hellrazer

Just wanted to say fair play Chris for this post.Just as well they didnt "name and shame"

-Chris- wrote: »

OK, hypothetical:

The OP names the garage.


The OP then gets through to the DP in the garage who says "oh dear, that's not on at all...".
The DP offers all apologies, gets the car collected & delivered, gets the issue fixed asap, delivers the car back clean & with a bunch of flowers.

It turns out the customer service in this garage is excellent, but this particular service advisor was having a bad day.

Meanwhile, the OP goes back to their busy life and forgets to give a complete update. Next time someone googles for this garage they'll find this (incomplete) account of the dealer's service levels.



I'm not saying any of this will happen, but I'm sure you can see why I'd rather only see naming & shaming where all the information has been gathered and everyone has had an opportunity to fix the situation.

omega man

OldmanMondeo wrote: »

I had an issue last week with the Wifes car. The engine management light came on. I rang the dealer at 8:45 and had the car in straight away and the part was replaced next day. Not all dealers are the same.

OP I would speak to the service manager and try get hte car in eariler, failing that, turn up on Saturday and make a scene in front of customers to get it resolved.

+1. My wifes car had a serious enough fault that was fixed under warranty with no hassle but showed its ugly head again outside of its warranty. The small used car dealer took the car and sent it to a main dealer for repair and even gave her a replacement car for a couple of days at zero cost to us. Top service which will be repayed back when we decide to change the car.

Bluefoam

omega man wrote: »

+1. My wifes car had a serious enough fault that was fixed under warranty with no hassle but showed its ugly head again outside of its warranty. The small used car dealer took the car and sent it to a main dealer for repair and even gave her a replacement car for a couple of days at zero cost to us. Top service which will be repayed back when we decide to change the car.

Thats becuase under the sale of goods act 1980, all repairs must be permanent & the dealer was required to make the second repair... not saying that he didn't treat you well, just stating that you were entitled to the repair...

omega man

Bluefoam wrote: »

Thats becuase under the sale of goods act 1980, all repairs must be permanent & the dealer was required to make the second repair... not saying that he didn't treat you well, just stating that you were entitled to the repair...

Agreed but there were other issues too. The dealer never even tried to get out of it. No messing around and just took the car. Im sure it cost them more than they made on the car in the first place. Anyway, in my book its good business.

JHMEG

-Chris- wrote: »

It turns out the customer service in this garage is excellent, but this particular service advisor was having a bad day.

If staff are prone to bad days then excellent customer service is not possible.

There is no excuse. Bad service is bad service no matter what the reason.

Zube

JHMEG wrote: »

There is no excuse. Bad service is bad service no matter what the reason.

That's just what the dealer principal said to the OP.

-Chris-

JHMEG wrote: »

If staff are prone to bad days then excellent customer service is not possible.

Based on that logic, excellent service relies on perfect consistency and cannot accomodate human error, and therefore will never be achievable.

But excellent is probably more of a relative than absolute measure, so someone who is measurably better than everyone else could realistically be considered excellent despite the odd "dropped ball" every now and again.

JHMEG

-Chris- wrote: »

Based on that logic, excellent service relies on perfect consistency and cannot accomodate human error, and therefore will never be achievable.

No, that's not what I said. There's a difference between a mistake and someone having a bad hair day. Companies with excellent customer service don't tend to have staff who are prone to bad hair days, or if they do they don't tend to keep them on.

niceirishfella

Well done Op on your result.
Re; Naming - don't see the reason why not to in the first instance as they (the dealer) treated you shoddily. All the do gooders here can go all PC all they like, but at the end of the day, the OP had mondo hassles getting this sorted when at the end of the day he should'nt have had to.
He may have won the war, but it was quite a battle.

245

-Chris- wrote: »

But excellent is probably more of a relative than absolute measure, so someone who is measurably better than everyone else could realistically be considered excellent despite the odd "dropped ball" every now and again.

It depends how low the ball drops. Surely usual excellence wouldn't result in such a fall? I've worked for good companies and bad companies (for companies substitute management) and in my experience, a good company would have good standards that would permeate to all levels. Similarly, bad companies have bad standards that permeate in a similar manner. If the proper controls and standards are in place, they should limit the impact of one employee with low standards and these controls should have caught the employee earlier.

This happens time and time again and its hard to believe that there isn't a casual attitude (in some cases progressing to contempt) towards the customer among many in the motor trade.

I've experienced excellence in terms of the service that I've received from some people in the trade. I've also been treated like an idiot and with contempt by quite a few sales and service people within franchised dealerships. I wish it was unusual but its not. Anecdotally, the experience of females is much, much worse.

In my experience, average to poor service is common, good service is less than common and excellent service is rare but is out there.

Scouserfan

leitrim lad wrote: »

i hope all the car dealers of the country go bust ,it would be the stuff for them ,the crooked shower of bull****ting wasters ,withv their clocking and they reckon they have an industry,

i would be annoyed too my friend , and i would burst my way into that office trough man woman or child and pin the owner to the wall and threaten every type of explosion and assualt possible on him especially when your child is going to be in the car every day, a small problem could turn into a big problem very handy,

put the foot down your entitled to it, i know a fair bit about warranty myself and fair enough the dealer only has so many warranty hours per car , but there is nothing stopping them doing the job for a valued customer like yourself, and putting it in next weeks book as warranty work,

under the consumer act you are entitled to full 3 year warranty or else you money back full amount including interest or bank charges if you financed it, i know because i took a dealer to court for selling me a dud jeep , and i also spend a 7 figure sum of money on plant and machinery and lorries and cars ,jeeps every year, so i have a fair idea what your talking about, also you could get that woman removed from her position dealing with the general public, as she was intimidating towards you, and refused to carry out a service to you that is compulsary under law, which can also be classed as a form of bullying.

so if i were you i wouldnt stand down from what your entitled to

My understanding is that she didn't refuse to do the work-she was putting you off because the manufacturer pays a reduced rate for warranty work and doesn't pay the dealer for the time they may spend finding the fault, they are only paid for the time (and parts if necessary) it takes to repair the car once the cause has been found

ninty9er

245 wrote: »

It depends how low the ball drops. Surely usual excellence wouldn't result in such a fall? I've worked for good companies and bad companies (for companies substitute management) and in my experience, a good company would have good standards that would permeate to all levels. Similarly, bad companies have bad standards that permeate in a similar manner. If the proper controls and standards are in place, they should limit the impact of one employee with low standards and these controls should have caught the employee earlier.

This happens time and time again and its hard to believe that there isn't a casual attitude (in some cases progressing to contempt) towards the customer among many in the motor trade.

I've experienced excellence in terms of the service that I've received from some people in the trade. I've also been treated like an idiot and with contempt by quite a few sales and service people within franchised dealerships. I wish it was unusual but its not. Anecdotally, the experience of females is much, much worse.

In my experience, average to poor service is common, good service is less than common and excellent service is rare but is out there.

You've obviously never worked in retail. You've obviously never encountered situations where you've spent an hour dealing with a moaning customer that you could have sorted in 5 minutes if they only shut the fuck up, or been marooned with a situation beyond your authority while every manager in the store has disappeared into thin air.

It very difficult to move to the next customer in a good mood when the last one was a nightmare. This doesn't even take into account the variations in staffing.