Someone with a heap of problems

[gavs]

as people have said... its one side of the story you hear... to be banned from 3 dealerships indicates to me that they have no diplomacy when it comes to getting things fixed... banning happens if you are abusive to staff etc.. not because they dont wanna fix your car.

I was going to stay out of this but based my own experiences and the fact that none of you that have been through similar circumstances are slagging this poor person off, I think it is time i weighed in.

I have had my own share of VGA bulltish recently, to the point of non-returned calls and emails being the least of it. I sympathise with this person deeply because i have had an almost identical experience with VGA.

Another member on here who luckily due to one individual at VGA by the name of Andrew F. reorganised their vehicle order because they were banned form a dealership after asking as to why their vehicle order had been cancelled. This is after a) it was originally ordered incorrectly to begin with, b) was then magically deleted out of their order system c) once reinstated into the order system, the dealership then refused to give said customer an updated timing etc. Coincidently, just as the car was given it's build dates etc, the dealership then went about cancelling the contract and banning the customer seemingly out of spite.

i will name names here, Penninsula Volkswagen. Ask prcurrie about his experiences with this dealership also, hence why he now has to travel 60+kms to get to Burwin VW so his car is actually looked at. The guy is on his 3rd set of clutches, AFTER this ssame dealership said there was nothing wrong to begin with, its "a characteristic of the car".

You guys need to lay off because think of it this way, what would you do and or say if you were in exactly the same situation.....

Could also be a boy racer over stressing things.

Or, the manufacturer just shouldn't release a "performance vehicle" if it's so damn sensitive that if it's driven slightly as it's meant to be it breaks down. If VGA start pulling that stance, then why did they lanch the Polo GTI at Philip Island race track, not in inner city Sydney....?

[AC74]

I was going to stay out of this but based my own experiences and the fact that none of you that have been through similar circumstances are slagging this poor person off...

< snip >

Coincidently, just as the car was given it's build dates etc, the dealership then went about cancelling the contract and banning the customer seemingly out of spite.

< snip >

You guys need to lay off because think of it this way, what would you do and or say if you were in exactly the same situation.

Precisely why I bit my tongue on this on, despite the initial urge to agree with the prevailing sentiment.

But seriously, unless a customer has been abusive in their language or threatening in their demeanour, what business BANS a customer?? I can't imagine that is the type of representation Volkswagen wants for their brand in this country. In my industry, if we banned every customer who complained and persisted in demanding we fix a problem (and construction industry types can be VERY abusive in their language and occasionally intimidating in their demeanour) we wouldn't have many customers left!!

I'm not sure the dealership staff get particularly effective training in negotiation and conflict resolution which I would've thought would be second only to product knowledge in importance. Come to that, product knowledge was pretty ordinary too in my experience...

[gavs]

Exactly. It's just a "sweep it under the carpet" type business approach.

[Dutch77]

Two sides to every story of course.. getting banned from one spot might be spite or other things as suggested, but three? That would suggest some kind of attitude issue surely.

Unless more on this comes to light I suspect we will never really know.

[BTJ]

Reading the post from the link where the person outlines the problems it reads as though written at high emotion. Skipping words like "and" or "the" or "of" is a common trait when people are writing under emotional duress because the brain is too busy thinking about all the big stuff and you jump ahead of yourself. That's why it seems a bit disjointed and he doesn't exactly explain the problems. (I knew that linguistics minor would pay off one day)


We all love VWs but it doesn't mean they aren't without problems in their product or the distribution of them. I'm just glad I've got a clutch pedal I can put my foot on because these threads make me cringe!

[AC74]

Two sides to every story of course.. getting banned from one spot might be spite or other things as suggested, but three? That would suggest some kind of attitude issue surely.

Unless more on this comes to light I suspect we will never really know.

Haha! I'm tipping by the time you walked into the third one it would be pretty hard to muster a smile and a cheery hello!

I reckon getting banned from the first one is the top of a rather slippery slide...

[Guest001]

Could also be a boy racer over stressing things.


Or, the manufacturer just shouldn't release a "performance vehicle" if it's so damn sensitive that if it's driven slightly as it's meant to be it breaks down. If VGA start pulling that stance, then why did they launch the Polo GTI at Philip Island race track, not in inner city Sydney....?

The reason I posted that comment was after reading posts about how to enable launch control in POLOS.

Is a 7spd DSG supposed to be treated like that and is it considered normal.

His comment was that the dealer said "Its the way that you drive it"

Maybe more to it than meets the eye

A GTI is a different animal to a standard Polo and he didnt say he has a GTI or in fact much about anything other than hes been banned but not exactly what for.

Car doesnt sound flash but would think there are reasons why dealers have done what they have done.

[kam]

Or, the manufacturer just shouldn't release a "performance vehicle" if it's so damn sensitive that if it's driven slightly as it's meant to be it breaks down.

saw similar instances on the holden forums, guys SS clutch went, dealership said he was driving like a hoon and that it wasnt meant for that type of driving

why else would you buy, and how else would you drive with a 6 liter V8 ???

[Melon Head]

Really, it is irrelevant if the guy acted like a numpty.
If the car is under warranty and there is a problem with the car then VW are obliged to fix it, otherwise what is the point of a warranty in the first place.
I think VW would be pretty bloody embarrased if these stories made it to tv or even Radio like 3aw, 2ue, etc.
It is just a matter of time

[prcurrie]

People can get emotional, agreed, but from my experiences with VW (be it the dealer or VGA) I've now learnt not to trust what they say.

I try to email them (so it's documented) or record all phone conversations as you have to have evidence.

With all the troubles I had with Peninsula VW I sent about a 6-7 page letter into VGA detailing all that went wrong with them and the response I got back was 'thanks for letting us know'. Didn't even care. When a dealership has been through 4 Dealer Principals within 12 months, you know something is NQR there.

The best way I've learnt to deal with them is to be educated and know your facts. When I started to have clutch problems, looking at erWin (and speaking to gavs! ) really gave me the base info. When I spoke to VGA about it her first response was 'you shouldn't trust everything you read on the forums' and then when I said 'so you're telling me that erWin service bulletins are incorrect', she was very quick to shut up.

So without hearing both sides of the story and getting the run around from a few dealers, I can completely understand!!!!