Trying to lose my business? (Part 2)

Posted by Mark | Filed under Life, Rants

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Perhaps I am old-fashioned but I feel when you say you are going to do something, then you should do it. Case in point, this morning I dropped the car off at the dealership to get that shifting problem fixed. I dropped it off at approximately 7:45 AM CST (-06:00 GMT). My appointment to have them look at my car was for 9:30 AM CST (-06:00 GMT). When I dropped the car off, they told me they would call me back when the car was done or if it would require parts/maintenance not covered by the warranty.

It is now after 4:00 PM CST (-06:00 GMT) and have I heard one peep out of them? Nope. Feeling more than a little indignant at this turn of events, I tried calling them. I got a hold of a receptionist who asked me a couple of questions; presumably to route my call to the correct portion of their service dept. Then I was put on hold…

For all of 60 seconds. *Grrrr* After which I got transferred to some nameless persons voicemail. *Grrrr^2*

I was polite and left a message simply asking them to call me back with an update. I even went so far as to give them both my work and home numbers again. And to tell them when I would be leaving work, so they would have a better chance of catching me. Not that I have seen any sign that they’ve tried calling, but I am still trying to be nice and give them the benefit of the doubt. Now, I’m waiting again for them to call me back.

Update: About 10 minutes after I called the dealership, they called me back to say the car was fixed. All the repairs fell under the warranty, so I didn’t have to pay a dime. For those curious as to what was wrong:

The brake light switch (what they call the sensor for the ASL) was bad.
Additionally when they checked the car with their diagnostic software; it reported there was a problem with one of the engine coolant temperature sensors. So they replaced that as well (again this was under warranty).

Am I pleased with the customer service I received? Not especially but now that we have the car back (and particularly since they didn’t charge us for any of the parts/labor); I’m not quite as upset about it as I had been. Would I buy another VW from this dealer? It’s a bit too early to say. Their sales and finance departments are great, but the so-so treatment from the service department makes me feel hesistant to say yes.

2 Comments

Player says:
July 14th, 2006 at 11:54 am
It’s pretty standard for mechanics not to call you if they are going to do the repairs for free. However, if you are taking your car to the dealer, they usually have a manager that does call you when the repair is done. But even at dealers, repairs take forever and it can sometimes be 4:30 before they are officially done. The fact that you did get a callback is either a sign that they did your repair later in the day when the parts came in, or that someone forgot to call you earlier. For the most part you got standard service, not excellent, not terribly bad, just standard.

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Mark says:
July 14th, 2006 at 12:05 pm
It might be the industry standard to do things that way, but it is still poor customer service.

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