pslewis

Thanks for the conern and generous offer Neil - one of the better moderator decisions, leaving things be until/if it gets silly, Cheers.

I HAVE actually got a very unhappy wife and Daughter, we were due to have a trip into the New Forest - dont really want to risk that now It REALLY has ruined the Bank Holiday for us!!

I am not sure that this would leave scoobynet open to legal action?? as it HAS happened, its been seen by an independant engineer - and I certainly didnt damage the Drain Tap.

I will not lose my cool, everyone ***** up now and again, what could I expect in way of compensation? what is fair? I will have to take time off work, use petrol. If I take a courtesy car would I have to sign the £250 Excess form? as it is a REPLACEMENT car - they should pick up the tab for the Insurance waiver?

I will report back on how it was solved - as Neil says I would like some comments (careful what you say though!!) - sue their 4rses will just get the thread locked and thrown off!!

I should demand a new radiator and NOT a repair would everyone agree? it should be re-instated to its before '****-up' condition? As a repair may fail 3 years down the line, yes?

Pete

Oh, yes, the Subaru Assistance mechanic has given me a statement as to what he found ................. still amazed that he wouldnt touch it?????? The reason I called them was that I didnt want to touch it either!! one twist to attempt to tighten may snap it all off!! then who will be liable??

[Edited by pslewis - 5/4/2002 10:19:11 PM]

pslewis

Great isnt it? £400+ service at Mill Lane, Basingstoke, last Tuesday - not used the car much at all since.

Spot a damp patch on the drive on Wednesday morning, seems to be Coolant, must be the remnants of the change-over at the service - nothing to worry about, surely?

Lunchtime today I decide that the patch appears to be getting bigger, it is!! NO bl00dy coolant visible under the cap - 3 litres to top it up!! still dripping out!! look at the radiator and its evident that the water is coming from the Drain tap. The drain tap is at a funny angle - cross threaded?? I am certainly NOT touching it!! So, I ring Mill Lane Engineering, Service Manager is busy with someone he will ring you back as soon as he has finished I am reliably told. 40 minutes later I decide to ring - he has gone home!!!!! not even a call, all smiles when he was taking £400 off me for a **** job on Tuesday - cant be 4rsed now!! Mill Lane tell me to ring Subaru Assistance!!

So, I ring Subaru Assistance - they send out a mechanic, not a Subaru mechanic, he takes one look and says that it looks like the Drain Tap has been butchered!! He wont touch it in case it makes it worse then the dealer could say he messed it up!! Bl00dy Great eh?? He reckons Mill Lane have cocked it up - they should attempt to fix it, it could snap if he tried to sort it - so he wont BYE!!!

Now I am effectively knackered until Tuesday when I can talk to Mill Lane - and, hopefully, get some satisfaction.

So, last Monday I have a perfectly functioning Subaru Impreza, Tuesday I pay Mill Lane, Basingstoke, £400 to get some monkey to sh4g my lovely car up, THEN they cannot be 4rsed to ring me back because its time to go home. NOT HAPPY MILL LANE!!!

Why wont a machanic sent by Subaru Assistance not touch the car because, as he says, he is NOT covered if it goes wrong!!!???

What the hell is going on?

Pete



[Edited by pslewis - 5/4/2002 6:25:07 PM]

Andy W

[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

logiclee

This partialy why the Impreza has dropped from 1st to 52nd in the JD power survey.

Had my Mondeo V6 serviced before I bought the Alfa.
Checked the oil level the following weekend as I always do an the level is only just on the bottom of the dipstick, way below minimum.
Another local Ford dealer checked it, they had only put 4 litres in which is all the 4 cylinder cars have, the V6 has 5.5 litres.

I will check all I can when I pick the Alfa up from its first service, Alfa dealers are not known for there sparkling service either.

Lee

pslewis

Surely you should expect SUPERB service for over £400??

The Subaru Assistance mechanic said that the person who serviced the car would have been ABSOLUTELY aware that he had messed up!! Why didnt he come clean and sort it?? I could have been going down the motorway and destroyed my engine??!!

Doesnt £400 mean that you are sorted out properly?? Why dont I just take it to the local Cars'R'us for a service? it could just be a better job!!?? shock horror!!

Really p1ssed off!!!

Pete

DrEvil

Look on the bright side - at least they didn't refurb your wheels in gold while they were at it!

DominicA

Alex you muppet!!

logiclee

I know a friend of a friend who used to work in a main **** dealers.

The mechanics were paid on a price per job basis, clutch change was £XX.XX etc. They could make good money on major work.

Services were basic rate however so no extra money could be made, therefor all the trainees and new starters used to get pushed onto the services. Friend of a friend said the main mechanics were supposed to check the cars over when the trainees had finished, not supprisingly this didn't happen often.

Lee

Luke

Good old British service for you......
Now if this was in America. Things would be different...

But is this thread not a danger to "Scoobynet" (Thought no one is allowed to say bad things about dealers etc!!

Pete ,you dont seem the type to let it go...!!! Give them hell

yoza

Sue the cowboy ****3rs,[img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]
Dont take no ****,leave them the car take a courtesy car and when its done,ask for your money back,or you will make inroads into sueing them!
Tell them you had plans for the bank holiday weekend and because of thier incompitence,you did nothing!

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

Pete,

Try some pte pipe tape around it to see if it will stop it as a temp solution until you can get to see them. Wrap it round and it might stop the leak, but make sure your check it full heated. The tape will come off later.

Perhaps the monkey only wanted to work on gold wheeled motors !!

Dave

Neil Smalley

Pete,

Take photos of the broken bit, and if possible call the breakdown guy and get him to write down his findings.

You'll then have more evidence to show the garage.

All companies screw up from time to time, so before you go off into one, try and resolve it good naturedly.

You can always go elsewhere for your servicing and custom.

After getting advice from people here, I would not publise the ongoing saga as
a. it may well affect any legal action you choose to take.
b. Leave you open to legal action
c. Leave Scoobynet open to legal action.

It's much better to post a finished result than have 11000 people winding you up about things on a daily basis.

This ought to be in dealer and third parties, but i'll leave it in here for a few hours so that you can get some constructive advice.

Neil Smalley

Pete

Cheers m8.

I seem to remember someone going through something like this a while back. I think a dealer/supplier dropped a spanner in their intercooler and bent loads of fins. Since the intercooler was 2 years old they offered to replace it with a 2 year old one, or go halves on the cost of a new one. Not saying it was right, but that's what they got offered after a lot of haggling and arguing.
As the dealer/supplier's argument was that they were only entitled to a like for like replacement. I.e Not a new one.

It's good you got a report from the subaru assistance guy, but please take photo's of it, preferably with a copy of todays newspaper in shot.

I'm sure that the garage in question will sort it, after all you will spend more with them if they do fix it than they will if they fob you off. A line i've used in the past(not with subaru dealers) is that the cost to them with me NOT taking my service there is a lot more than the cost of them sorting it out.

In the end, it's the customer who holds all the aces. He can go elsewhere, the supplier cannot

Things like this mostly seem to happen over a bank holiday

pslewis

I am sure it will get all sorted out - the dealer in question is not renowned for being a bad dealer, I have all my services done there and spent £1000's.

What rattled my bars was the fact that the Service Manager didnt ring me back when his colleague said he would - the fact that they messed up on the job can be sorted ................ not ringing a customer who is in need will take much more to settle my mind!

Neil, I know I am not popular with some Moderators, for what its worth I think you are straight and level and thats all anyone ever wants, even me!!

Pete

SL2

pete,

I'm looking at selling my "dagenham dustbin" and maybe buying a WRX. Mill Lane are just down the road from me. Have they been good to deal with before this problem?.

MisterToad

My experience of Mill Lane is that friendly service manager has spent his time mopping up, shall we say, inaccuracies, told to me when buying a car. This sounds like I'm on his side in this, it's not meant to, only reckon he sometimes has a lot to sort out!!!

[Edited by MisterToad - 5/5/2002 10:08:46 AM]

SCOSaltire

maybe the person forgot to pass on the message
maybe he forgot to look at his messages
maybe he was in a meeting, and the people in the meeting moved on

lots of innocent reasons why he didnt phone back.

good luck

MARK MORRIS

before having a scoob i had opel mantas, i always serviced them myself, since having a scoob with a warranty means dealer servicing i cringe when i leave it there, they charge the earth, you fetch the car, its dirtier than when you leave it, ie oily hand prints on the bonnet, oily finger prints on the door panel, charged for screenwash you topped up yourself
need i say more
mark

pslewis

Mill Lane have been, generally, good. They have a habit of saying they will do things for you (With every intention of doing so) then fail to

I take the point about him not getting the message and I would have assumed that to have been the case HOWEVER when I rang back and got the Saturday Girl (thats what she called herself NOT my interpretation) - her first words were, 'Are you the one with the trouble? they were talking about you, I have been told to tell you to ring Subaru Assistance - I have their number here' - so sadly, its a blatant case of ........ its my home time, sod the customer who pays my wages, I'm off!!

Now, putting myself in the Service Managers shoes - I may not have wanted to sit around while a not-very-happy customer came back with his car and wanted me to stay for another 30minutes doing what my Monkey should have done - But I WOULD have had the decency to ring the customer, say that there is no mechanic around to solve it .... sorry, bring it in Tuesday morning and we will sort it and arrange for some compensation. In the meantime get Subaru Assistance out.

Mill Lane, also, when I had trouble on my underseal coming off at 11 months said that it wasnt a warranty item so they wouldnt do it. Simpsons of Swindon (God I wish they were nearer me!) said bring it in and we will replace it all at our risk - and they did!! Its true that Simpsons supplied me the car new, so maybe it was down to them - BUT, Mill Lane has had all my very lucrative after sales business since - so, maybe they could have done it to help?? Open to debate that one.

The car was lovely and clean when I picked it up and all the other work seems to have been carried out as per the schedule. As I said, sorting out a cocked-up item is easy ......... repairing the bad taste when a customer is denied the courtesy of a telephone call is much, much harder to fix - sadly.

The option is Lancaster, Pangbourne - but they take your money, shirt, arms and legs off you!!

Pete

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

I can sympathise

Thats one main problem with garages..you don't know if they've done the job properly - dealer or back street. They **** up - they fob you off.

My scoob had to have an new short engine at the local dealers (dreaded MY97 piston slap) after 30000miles. After which I find they did'nt replace the cambelt (which was due for replacment on next service). Cambelts are only intended to fitted once (not taken off and re-fitted). They risked my valvegear and heads for a sodding belt (which I would be happy to pay). And ended up with a £100+ labour bill to have a new one fitted.

To cap it off, they broke my dump valve during the engine swap and superglued it - it lasted a month. They denied any knowledge.

consequently I service the car myself, I do the job properly as its in my own interest and if I knacker it - its my own fault.

Pooder

Pete
See my thread on dealers about Lancasster in Sevenoaks, it seems that the Subaru dealerships have rested on thier laurals and are now going down the toilet. IM wake up
Steve

pslewis

Thanks all - I will report back tomorrow.

It seems to have stopped leaking, but I am old enough and wise enough to know that water isnt as good at finding cracks as Anti-Freeze (and all that has gone and peed away!!) ALL 7 litres of it!!!

A bodge job better not be done or they will be facing more than just a dicked off customer!!

Thanks Neil for letting it run, hope I have acted properly - will keep everyone updated how the dealer sorts me out as I am sure it will be perfectly ok

Pete

Shark

Pete

Subaru Assistance should tow the car to the dealer and will supply a loan car if you ask for it.

David

pslewis

Thanks david - When Subaru Assistance came to me on Saturday the mechanic wouldnt touch it!! Yes, they will tow it there - but its about 15 miles so I will just run it there (as I said, its not leaking now!!) But WILL when the coolant is refilled.

Pete

pslewis

UPDATE

Mill Lane Engineering took my car back today, looked at it straight away - couldnt see anything wrong (of course!) - but refilled the coolant and re-engaged the drain plug.

Came to an agreement as to compensation too - jam tomorrow - but, it is something!

So, until/if it starts leaking again we have a happy ending - sorted with a smile too!!

Pete

HGV1 Driver

Pete, Sorry to hear about your problems, hope you get them sorted, i have had my scooby 2 years now and have it serviced and m.o.t. with Derek Havers of Tadley, he is independant but he use to work for subaru, he knows EVERYTHING you need to know, got a number if you want it ???.

Jon

pslewis

Jon - yes please mate, I couldnt use him until another year (warranty and all!) but would like his number and address maybe?? e-mail me off thread?

Cheers

Pete