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Nightmare dealership experience documented at TTAC - 2019 Sportwagen

ReadTheBook

Autocross Newbie
Location
Bay Area Smoke Hell
Car(s)
DVP Spektrm, MK4 R32
Sounds like my repeated trips for the defective windshield I had in my 2016 Golf. The bastards damaged several areas of the car when they finally replaced the windshield during the 4th trip into the dealer. It was unreal. Thankfully I documented everything in writing, contemporaneously, and VWOA was aghast when I sent them 7 pages of notes about the 6 weeks of nonsense and verifiable lies I endured.

They also loved the demonstrably false info the dealer put into my service paperwork/record. Service advisor lost his job over my situation. Not my intent, but they fucked around and lost. I feel for the author of that article.

if these weren’t so much fun to drive I wouldn’t deal with them.

if I left the brand right now, I have no idea what I’d buy either.
 
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KevinC

Autocross Champion
Location
The land of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday
Car(s)
'19 Golf R, '21 M2c
They also loved the demonstrably false info the dealer put into my service paperwork/record. Service advisor lost his job over my situation. Not my intent, but they fucked around and lost. I feel for the author of that article.

I've been driving GTIs/Golfs since the Mk1 arrived, and have had more than my share of outrageous dealership experiences. Ironically, a new one opened 5 miles from home a few years ago, so I gave them a try - and they're OUTSTANDING in every way. So what happens next? We decide to leave metro Phoenix and move to the sticks, 3 hours to the south. Now I'm 75 miles from the nearest dealer in Tucson. Crap.

The "good" dealership had super-low competitive prices for everything, and even had a big board in the service lobby showing their pricing for various services, compared to other local (named) shops that were more expensive, showing their price as well. I could make a 9:30am appointment and wait for the car - and it would be worked on immediately and done in 60-90 minutes. They provide loaners. Service writers don't blow smoke up your ass.

I did have one huge problem there but they responded properly and rectified the situation. At my 30k service on my first R, the Haldex diff wasn't refilled - and ate itself shortly afterwards, stranding me. Had it towed to Tucson, who called to tell me there was no lube in it but no sign of leaking - making it pretty clear it hadn't been refilled. The offending dealership stepped up and provided the parts and paid for the labor for dealer #2 to fix it, as well as covering my rental for 3 weeks while it was down - and with almost zero hassle or pushback.

The TTAC story is awful on so many levels. I hope it causes a shitstorm for that dealership, heads deserve to roll.
 

vbrad26

Autocross Champion
Location
St. Petersburg FL
Car(s)
'15 CSG GTI 2DR M/T
Having worked in the parts/service department of a dealership while in college, I have seen too much.
I steer clear of dealerships as much as possible.
Some are definitely better than others but at the end of they day, they are a business looking to make money usually run by people who couldn't give less of a shit.
 

RichardCranium

Ready to race!
Location
Arizona
Sounds like my experience with Ford with my last car. Own enough cars and you'll run into it. Luckily, it seems like it was mostly the dealer's fault and not VW's.
 

The Fed

Old Guys Rule
Location
Florida
Some dealers are just better than others. I left my favorite one and used an indie until he retired. I stopped back after that, and noticed almost all of the advisors were gone, as well as most of the techs. It of course depends on the employees, but I also can fault the owners. I told the story about when I lived up north and personally observed an advisor targeting customers, especially older customers, women, and professionals he figured didn't know anything about cars, to upsell them for services and parts they didn't need. The sad thing about the story is, the advisor was in the showroom about 20 feet from the owner's office. There's no way the owner didn't know about it. The one day I didn't take my car on my day off and wait for my car, and used their shuttle to take me back to my base, he tried it on me. I figure he noticed I was dressed for an office and the address I gave him for the shuttle gave away I worked for the Government. He didn't know I already set up the visit with the foreman, who was a friend.
 

The Fed

Old Guys Rule
Location
Florida
I almost need to believe the tech couldn't tell the headliner was bad and looked for everything else that could be causing the problem. I can also believe it was not a "Class A" tech working on the car. Some dealers still use Class B and C's to do the "grunt" work.
 

RichardCranium

Ready to race!
Location
Arizona
I told the story about when I lived up north and personally observed an advisor targeting customers, especially older customers, women, and professionals he figured didn't know anything about cars, to upsell them for services and parts they didn't need. The sad thing about the story is, the advisor was in the showroom about 20 feet from the owner's office. There's no way the owner didn't know about it.

That's the local Toyota dealership where I bought my other car, a 4Runner. My wife took it in for warranty work on the door locks and they advised her she needed new brakes and an alignment all for the bargain price of $900. I knew something was up as the brakes seemed fine as well as the alignment so I opted for the local indie place to do the work at a fraction of what the Toyota dealership wanted. They get the car, take a look at it, and sure enough, the car was fine and didn't need any work. Needless to say, we don't patronize that dealer any longer. All of this from what is supposedly the sixth largest Toyota dealership in the country.
 

jimlloyd40

Autocross Champion
Location
Phoenix
Car(s)
2018 SE DSG
That's the local Toyota dealership where I bought my other car, a 4Runner. My wife took it in for warranty work on the door locks and they advised her she needed new brakes and an alignment all for the bargain price of $900. I knew something was up as the brakes seemed fine as well as the alignment so I opted for the local indie place to do the work at a fraction of what the Toyota dealership wanted. They get the car, take a look at it, and sure enough, the car was fine and didn't need any work. Needless to say, we don't patronize that dealer any longer. All of this from what is supposedly the sixth largest Toyota dealership in the country.

Which dealership is it?
 

KevinC

Autocross Champion
Location
The land of Wyatt Earp & Doc Holliday
Car(s)
'19 Golf R, '21 M2c
My best buddy moved to Vegas last year and took his F82 M4 to the local stealership for service. They tried to tell him his brake pads were down to 2mm and that he needed pads/rotors all around, and the rotors in particular for that car are OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive. Said yeah, no thanks. Once settled in he found a good local indy to service his car. 7mm left on his pads. He took pictures and sent them to the GM of the dealership and politely informed him that because of the crooks in the service department, he wouldn't be back. This is outright attempted theft.
 

MonkeyMD

Autocross Champion
I just had the opposite experience. Took the SO's CX9 to dealership because they have been good to me. I went in and told them to change the rotors and pads (brakes were acting weird), oil change, flush transmission fluid (because why not, people on the mazda forum were doing it)

They sent me a video of the tech inspecting everything and strongly recommended, I don't change the brakes and showed me the pad measurements and rotors looked good. He said probably just need to bleed the system, which by then, I didn't have time for. Tech recommended not to do transmission flush unless I was noticing issues, as it's a sealed system. Basically my bill went from an estimated $460 to $60.

Go figure that they're downselling.
 
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