Garage woes - I have been royally screwed over

BionicRasher

Looking for advice on a garage and to have a moan in general – I have been royally screwed over (I think anyway)

Story goes like this (apologies for it being long winded)

Have a 2004 Renault Laguna – good nick overall and all working fine but was due NCT recently (Late Feb)

Reverse lights started to give trouble (lights not engaging and reverse sensors not fully functional) just prior to my NCT date so I booked the car in for a service at my local main Renault dealer. Now I have had the car serviced here before and on one occasion it gave issues with the rear wheel making a scraping noise after they serviced the car. On that occasion the car was brought back to them 3 times and after they initially said ‘ah nothing wrong here’ they found that something or other had not been fitted correctly when the wheel was put back on so they fixed it free of charge

So the last service I asked them to look at the reverse lights/sensor issue but when I called back to the garage that afternoon they said they didn’t have time and they thought there was some kind of short circuit but I would need to book in again to investigate. So off I went to get my NCT and it failed on the fact that reverse lights were not working all the time (flicking on and off etc)

Anyways – brought it back to the garage to get them to fix the ‘short circuit’ and lo and behold when they called me to tell me the issue they said car needed a new reverse switch as it was broken. I said go ahead (€270 worth) and thought all would be well.

Went back to pick up the car that afternoon and this is where they really started to get on my goat. They told me that the engine pulley was about to fall off and the front left ‘ties’ were unsafe and they think that it was unsafe to drive – they quoted a total of €690 to get it all fixed. I asked them how come the NCT didn’t pick up on this and also how come my last service hadn’t seen this and they said ‘ah well the garage you got it serviced in last might not be up to much’ – ha it was their place I got it serviced in only 2 weeks previously (he was stumped at this) He also said that maybe I had hit a pothole over the past 2 weeks that would have affected the ‘ties’ and pulley. Now that would be one hell of a pot hole and would probably have broken my teeth when I fell in to it (by the way I didn’t hit any ‘big’ pothole and was only using the car to get in and out of work on main national roads)

So I decided not to take the garage recommendations to fix all the suddenly broken stuff and I drove off down the road after I had a good look at the car and tested the reverse lights and sensors.

30 mins later when I arrived home and reversed in to the house the reverse lights worked fine but the sensors gave a continuous beeeeeeeppppp. So I rang the garage and told them I wanted it checked out again – we arranged to drop the car in a few days later.

Dropped the car off (not a happy bunny at this stage) and they rang me a few hours later to say ‘the reverse sensors need to be replaced’ €300 minimum. I said no thanks mate and said I would call for the car later that day. Got to the garage later and they had the cheek to try to charge me €79 for the ‘work’ they had done.

Thus ensued a massive argument and I refused to pay the €79 – they eventually let me out and offered a free car wash as a gesture of good will.

My point and question really is this

Is work carried out under a guarantee or similar? Should I expect to have gotten the car back in a similar state to what I handed it over in? Should I pursue this any further?
Does anyone think this is crap service and the garage was just trying to make a quick buck (I am clueless about cars) I have also noticed that they didn’t fit the sensor back in to the bumper correctly and that there is now a weird noise when I turn on the ignition so really not a happy bunny

I don’t want to name the garage but I will not be recommending it to anyone I know – in fact the opposite (I will tell people these people are gangsters) and that they are just trying to make back money to pay for their big glass monstrosity that they built in the Celtic Tiger era

If this is in the wrong forum – please move

Atlantic Dawn

I'd write a complaint to the service manager of the garage in question outlining your problem, if the response is not satisfactory contact Renault Ireland about it, these things should not be happening at a main dealer, they should know each model inside out.

antodeco

I had an issue with a man Nissan dealer (Near a shopping centre) before. Every single time I brought it in, within 2 weeks something majorly went wrong. This happened 6 times. I only kept going back as the car had its manufacturer guarantee still on it. I contacted Nissan Ireland over it and their customer care manager called me himself to try get it sorted. Eventually all was (albeit 98%). Got my car serviced by a local mechanic since then with the exception of about 2 months ago. Listed a load of issues with the car, and was nearly €1800 to fix. I told them to leave it, and since getting my car back it's been acting up. My advice: Contact Renault Ireland by email (proof of attempted resolution). Get it fixed and NEVER go back to that dealer again.

Limbo123

antodeco wrote: »

I had an issue with a man Nissan dealer (Near a shopping centre) before. Every single time I brought it in, within 2 weeks something majorly went wrong.

Had same problem with same dealer. Car was on a tow truck every second or third week. At one point, Car was on a tow truck twice in one week! Wouldn't mind but the car wasn't cheap (€18.5k) Handed car back a few weeks before warranty expired

BionicRasher

Thanks all - I am composing a letter for the Main Dealer now and will post back here on any replies I get