Newbie - help and advice needed

[jpm993]

Hello All,

My wife has had a Polo GTI for just over 3 years now, 62 plate bought new with 34K miles and serviced by the same dealer. At 3 years and 2 days she gets a warning light on the dashboard and calls the local dealer to have it booked in. The dealer takes it and performs the work, twice stating (when delivering it to the dealer and when discussing the work with my wife) that it would be done under warranty unless we'd damaged something physically.

It turns out the warning was for cylinders 2 & 4, 2 was only a plug and rectified with no issues, 4 was an injector issue and needed to be replaced. So, they completed the work and called me to collect. Off I trot to pick up the car and am handed an £1100 bill. The dealer states that they contacted VW who said it was out of warranty and wouldn't make a contribution. The dealer was decent enough and helped out so the final bill was £500.

I know that I should have taken out an extended warranty, but this pees me off a little.

1. I wish that the dealer had stated earlier on that it was chargeable, at least then I could have shopped around.
2. How do I know that the job was in fact carried out, seeing as I wasn't given the chance to get a second opinion.
3. Why didn't VW make a contribution directly.

Anyway, I complained to VW directly and today I've been contacted by someone from the MD office. He was a complete knob and basically said it was tough and that it was down to me to take out the extended warranty. I stated items 1 & 2 above and he said that I could have taken to an independent earlier and this was again my problem. At this point I might have mentioned something about the car being rigged to have a problem outside the warranty which he took offence to and said that VW would never do anything like that - Right, VW and rigging things - That would never happen!

Customer care is pretty crap at VW!

So, I'm looking for any help or guidance. Any thoughts?

[Ricmondo]

So essentially a fault developed on your car which was out of warrenty.

You asked your dealer to fix it but didn't first ask VW whether they would contribute.

You didn't get a second diagnosis but trusted the dealer without question.

You then approached VW and in the course of the discussion accused them of dishonest practice probably alienating their representative who, had you established a rapport may have been able to make an ex gratia payment.

Not the best way to get them on your side after a sequence of mistakes and assumptions.

I can't really think there could have been any other outcome, be grateful the dealer helped out.

A lesson learnt for the next time perhaps but having said that the timing of the fault was pure Sod's law and I would have been equally pissed off had it been me.

[jpm993]

Not quite right.

The dealer twice said that it would be under warranty, so I never had cause or a chance to get a second opinion. I was only informed it wouldn't be done under warranty when they presented me with a bill for £1100.

The VW customer services (ahem - a very loose term) representative had already made their mind up before even speaking to me, and didn't want to listen to the fact that I wasn't given the chance to have the issue diagnosed elsewhere and to quote him "it's tough luck". Nice.

Anyway, last VW I'll ever own - I personally think that the 1.4TSI in the GTI is being pushed too far in terms of performance and this will have a negative impact on reliability. The drive for increased performance and economy is coming at a cost. Other brands have a better level of customer service, and I'm disappointed by VW on this occasion as previously they had been excellent.

Lesson learnt.

[alexperkins]

Our local VW dealership will never do chargeable work on the car without confirming it first - im surprised they didnt call you after diagnosis to state what needed to be done and that it wasnt under warranty...

[Ricmondo]

Sorry if I over simplified. It's one of those situations where the law is clear but following through is fraught with difficulty and frustration.

By telling you that the repairs would be carried out under warranty he was effectively entering into a contract unless he qualified it "subject to VW approval". I bet he didn't put it in writing though. If you could prove that was what you were told you would be entitled to drive away without paying anything. I have no doubt that the dealer would try to prevent you leaving, unlikely that the police would assist as it is essentially a civil matter so you are really between a rock and a hard place.

I've never had to deal directly with VW but I found Fiat willing to pay for repairs when my car was 18 months out of warranty. I wrote to Fiat first saying what a great car it was and all my family were thinking of buying Fiats. I was contacted by a Fiat representative and turned on the charm. Resisted the Fix it again tomorrow joke.

I can fully understand your feelings however having paid for the five year warranty I would not be over joyed if VW were giving the same cover free to other customers although when it's a matter of three days I think they could make an exception.

I've little doubt that with the benefit of hindsight you would approach it differently if the same thing happened again, that doesn't help you but it may alert others and help them to avoid being screwed.

I fully understand your bitterness and sympathise, best of luck with your next purchase.

[RUM4MO]

Was this one of these infamous twin charger engines? Lots of lots of stuff about their known by VAG problems on Seat and Skoda forums, maybe that engine's problems could have been resolved out of warranty by VW if they were typical of the issue that have been turning up on these engines!

Maybe your VW dealer was less than fully clued up on this, or maybe that was why they initially said that it would have been covered FOC - except that VW resisted this time, can't blame you if what I've written is very close to what has happened - what was the engine code of that car?

It should be CAVE or CTHE - the CAVE one especially was well known for being an expensive dog of an engine to keep going.