Avoid taking your golf to the dealer for warranty work.

[mgrobins]

When you get this dealt with update your sig with "working a/c" given that it's optional according to VW!

As an aside I have recently been in contact with the dealership I mentioned and they identified they are a pilot dealership for a company wide program to alter the culture and manner of customer interactions. Basis being a recognition that customer expectation of transparency, honesty and direct answers rather than BS sales etc is now mainstream. Social media can destroy dealerships who can't get their **** together and VW identified that it's practices were sub-optimal. I can only hope that the Service side reflects this program as they often over-book, over-charge and have a lack of attention to detail. Good staff (mechanics) can only do so much in a given time and high pressure work is not sustainable. That's assuming good mechanics.... I will see how I go with them but have already made it clear that I rank them as on par with banks and Telstra for trustworthiness and value.

[ozmale]

Thanks heaps for all your input Mgrobins, so well stated and written and I will be using some of your points tomorrow when the car goes to the dealer to have the "non" leak fully investigated.

I never understood why dealers have this planned "piss off the customer" attitude. It cost no more to be transparent and honest. The local mechanic I deal with has always been transparent. You are always allowed in the workshop to see how your car is progressing. He tells me banning a customer for safety reasons (used by most) is actually BS. Says the insurance covers everything and has never has a problem.

[Ozsko]

All dealerships have an inbuilt communication problem and it is not until you work in the environment that you can even begin to understand why it happens. First off they are operating the same way as they have operated since at least the 1950's and a lot has changed since then. My son who works in a very big dealer has been trying to change the way the service department is structured with no success. When I was working as a manager if a problem occurred and clearly needed resolving or a technician had stuffed up the tech was introduced to the customer and asked to explain. Doing that lifted their game but that was only one problem of many.

Scenario 1:

The customer relates the problem to a mostly untrained service advisor, he is paid to smile and take your money. The customer may or may not be able to explain the problem fully so an untrained person is then going to try and write that down on the Repair Order (RO) and then hopefully a technician is going to try and fix what two people have been unable to explain to each other. The technician then gets the RO looks at the car and wonders what the hell he is supposed to do about it, he asks the service advisor who can give no other explanation so maybe the tech gets lucky and finds the problem and maybe he doesn't. If the problem does not get fixed then is the owner entitled to get stuck into the the service advisor? I say he is because what should have happened is a tech should have spoken to the customer when he or she and the service advisor could not work out the problem in terms that would hopefully fix it.

That is only one scenario of a thousand I can think of. The breakdown happens daily in every dealership, the SA writes down what he thinks went wrong or what he thinks the customer needs and the technician either does not have the correct information or in some cases does not fix it because he can't and then sometimes causes more issues due to his stupidity. Poor skill levels at every level, advisor, manager and tech are rampant in the industry and independent technicians are no better and in some cases far worse. I make that emphatic statement having owned my own workshop and becoming sick and tired of justifying poor work practises to owners. Finding competent reliable technicians is a very hard thing to do so I got out. The single advantage a small workshop has is that generally the person who works on the car is the person who speaks to the owner of the car so he gets the story directly and in a lot of cases he knows what questions to ask which is a huge advantage.

Then another issue is when the car gets picked up, the customer starts asking questions, it is often after work shop knock off time and all the techs have gone home so the SA has no one to ask and cannot answer those questions so the customer feels like he is being fobbed off when it is a case of no one to help the SA answer the customer's queries. The whole thing comes down to inefficient management stuck in the dark ages and the manufacturers not forcing change within the industry.

This post could be ten pages long but I think you might have some idea of the problems the lack of good clear communication creates. The problems also goes the other way, the tech explains something or writes it down for the service advisor to tell the customer and for whatever reason that message does not get through and so it goes on and on.

[ozmale]

All dealerships have an inbuilt communication problem and it is not until you work in the environment that you can even begin to understand why it happens. First off they are operating the same way as they have operated since at least the 1950's and a lot has changed since then. My son who works in a very big dealer has been trying to change the way the service department is structured with no success. When I was working as a manager if a problem occurred and clearly needed resolving or a technician had stuffed up the tech was introduced to the customer and asked to explain. Doing that lifted their game but that was only one problem of many.

Scenario 1:

The customer relates the problem to a mostly untrained service advisor, he is paid to smile and take your money. The customer may or may not be able to explain the problem fully so an untrained person is then going to try and write that down on the Repair Order (RO) and then hopefully a technician is going to try and fix what two people have been unable to explain to each other. The technician then gets the RO looks at the car and wonders what the hell he is supposed to do about it, he asks the service advisor who can give no other explanation so maybe the tech gets lucky and finds the problem and maybe he doesn't. If the problem does not get fixed then is the owner entitled to get stuck into the the service advisor? I say he is because what should have happened is a tech should have spoken to the customer when he or she and the service advisor could not work out the problem in terms that would hopefully fix it.

That is only one scenario of a thousand I can think of. The breakdown happens daily in every dealership, the SA writes down what he thinks went wrong or what he thinks the customer needs and the technician either does not have the correct information or in some cases does not fix it because he can't and then sometimes causes more issues due to his stupidity. Poor skill levels at every level, advisor, manager and tech are rampant in the industry and independent technicians are no better and in some cases far worse. I make that emphatic statement having owned my own workshop and becoming sick and tired of justifying poor work practises to owners. Finding competent reliable technicians is a very hard thing to do so I got out. The single advantage a small workshop has is that generally the person who works on the car is the person who speaks to the owner of the car so he gets the story directly and in a lot of cases he knows what questions to ask which is a huge advantage.

Then another issue is when the car gets picked up, the customer starts asking questions, it is often after work shop knock off time and all the techs have gone home so the SA has no one to ask and cannot answer those questions so the customer feels like he is being fobbed off when it is a case of no one to help the SA answer the customer's queries. The whole thing comes down to inefficient management stuck in the dark ages and the manufacturers not forcing change within the industry.

This post could be ten pages long but I think you might have some idea of the problems the lack of good clear communication creates. The problems also goes the other way, the tech explains something or writes it down for the service advisor to tell the customer and for whatever reason that message does not get through and so it goes on and on.

"The single advantage a small workshop has is that generally the person who works on the car is the person who speaks to the owner of the car so he gets the story directly and in a lot of cases he knows what questions to ask which is a huge advantage."

Probably the truest and best set of words written in this whole thread.

The girl I left the car with today had been briefed a bit but was all of 12 years old. She ran off to the manager but he didn't want to speak to me. i am assuming i will get my car back with the A/C leak found and fixed but no wheels on the car.

[Tuan]

This has been a good read ... to be continued

[willsy01]

i am assuming i will get my car back with the A/C leak found and fixed but no wheels on the car.

If you do, just drive it around for a few days and see if they come back.

[gregozedobe]

[B]but no wheels on the car.

That's OK, they'll just tell you that they couldn't find any problem so there isn't one ......

[Tuan]

If you do, just drive it around for a few days and see if they come back.

Come on ... he can hardly leave the dealership without wheels ...

[ozmale]

That's OK, they'll just tell you that they couldn't find any problem so there isn't one ......

Well i got the car back and my refund is in the post. And, yes that is exactly what they said. "We cant find any problem, so there isn't one.

I couldn't resist so i asked again. "Where did all the gas go?" and again got no answer.

you know if you do any customer service course the first thing they teach you is to listen to the customer. They never do that at car dealers.

[Ozsko]

Listening is one thing but as I pointed out above it is amazing the number of customers who cause the initial problem by being unable to clearly explain the problem so all is not what it might seem. What is normally done in cases like this AC issue is if the leak is not apparent the system is recharged, a dye added and the customer asked to drive the car and report back if the problem occurs again. There is never any discussion beyond that because there has been no definite fix. You jest of course when you describe the girl as 12 years of age.