My VW Passat Alltrack

[Marakai]

On a positive note I think I've finally got the hand of driving with the auto start/stop.

I still think that the start/stop MUST be used with the auto hold though.

Come to a set of red light or traffic that's not going anywhere soon that place the foot on the brake and keep it there until it's time to move off.

When you want to stop for a brief moment, e.g stop sign or crawling traffic. Bring the car to a complete stop and then take the foot off the brake (I know this sounds weird). The auto hold keeps the brakes on but by taking the foot off the brake the engine keeps running.

I've also noticed an improvement with the speed of which the engine fires up again in those cases when the engine shuts off as your just about ready to start moving.

I had a chance to drive a car with S/S during a trip to Germany in 2011 and it took a day to get used to it, but after that I really appreciated it.

[drad81]

My advice is to get all this in emails if not done so yet just incase there are problems later.

Just remember absence makes the heart grow fonder...

[Marakai]

Well after calling the leasing company and the dealer I seem to have somewhat managed to set the fox among the chooks. All was aflutter with uhms and ahs and covering of behinds and excuses of "sales guy in charge is out after surgery" and "will get back to you Monday" and what not.

Turns out that by now I should definitely have had a production date for a while and almost certainly also a VIN. So someone somewhere dropped the ball - and if that means the order wasn't actually put into the system there will be hell to pay. In fact, due to the European market slowdown, deliveries have normally been weeks ahead of schedule. So said the guy at VW Essendon - who also could not find any records of my order.

They better make ready to have heads roll if they screwed this up...

[Riker]

Hmmmm, memories come flooding back....

I had a similar situation with a well known 3rd party facilitator & dealership. The crux was that after 9 weeks of misleading me into believing the order had been placed & I would receive particulars soon re build date & arrival they infact had not done anything but sit on the order. I missed a production slot that I would have otherwise easily had. Story cut short, I pulled the plug with much vigor & got every cent back I had exchanged. Fortunately I found a Passat at another dealer the next day that had almost identical spec options to my original order (diff colour). It was a cancelled order that had arrived at the dealer off the dock two days previous & wasn't on the sales floor yet...... Lucky lucky....

You really do need to stay on top of everything yourself.

Well after calling the leasing company and the dealer I seem to have somewhat managed to set the fox among the chooks. All was aflutter with uhms and ahs and covering of behinds and excuses of "sales guy in charge is out after surgery" and "will get back to you Monday" and what not.

Turns out that by now I should definitely have had a production date for a while and almost certainly also a VIN. So someone somewhere dropped the ball - and if that means the order wasn't actually put into the system there will be hell to pay. In fact, due to the European market slowdown, deliveries have normally been weeks ahead of schedule. So said the guy at VW Essendon - who also could not find any records of my order.

They better make ready to have heads roll if they screwed this up...

[Marakai]

I had a similar situation with a well known 3rd party facilitator & dealership. The crux was that after 9 weeks of misleading me into believing the order had been placed & I would receive particulars soon re build date & arrival they infact had not done anything but sit on the order.

Did you ever ask *why* they hell they would not have ordered the car? Slowdown due to excessive accumulation of wealth or something?!

Going to call them again late today if I don't hear from them first (which I fully expect because customer service seems to either be an extinct species or a 4-letter word in Australia )

[Riker]

Well, the old saleman retoric used by some (not all) questionable sales people was employed & in large amounts. The dealer always came back to saying one of a few things, 'why are you asking us this', 'where is your proof we haven't placed the order' & '*********eet haven't passed funds to us yet'... Surprising that last comment considering I had received a receipt for payment of the large deposit from the dealership weeks earlier... Even to this last point they continued to spin & mislead just like what is coming from our Fed Govt..... The real dis-heartening thing was you coud tell the dealer really didn't care like they should have & *********eet didn't do any chasing up at all with weeks going by without contact with me.

Enough BS was enough & as soon as I mentioned further action the whole discussion changed to can we refund your credit card today. As I mentioned earlier, you really do have to stay on top of it all yourself......

Did you ever ask *why* they hell they would not have ordered the car? Slowdown due to excessive accumulation of wealth or something?!

Going to call them again late today if I don't hear from them first (which I fully expect because customer service seems to either be an extinct species or a 4-letter word in Australia )

[Marakai]

The real dis-heartening thing was you coud tell the dealer really didn't care like they should have & *********eet didn't do any chasing up at all with weeks going by without contact with me.

Enough BS was enough & as soon as I mentioned further action the whole discussion changed to can we refund your credit card today. As I mentioned earlier, you really do have to stay on top of it all yourself......

Just bizarre, as if they didn't want to make a sale?!

Well, I got a call from the dealer today and was told vehicle is entering production KW9. I.e. next week. To then expect 3 months or so until I take delivery. So way late.

Called up the leasing company and was told they have not been informed of any change to delivery date and if the dealer does change it they must provide good reason. Gave them the task to light a fire under the mongrels. Together with an early raising of the "I want a loaner for every day that you miss the delivery date until the car arrives". Not that I have the slightest hope that they'd agree to that. Gotta try though.

[drad81]

Marakai costs nothing to try.

I agree with your comment about customer service being non-existent.

I must say I've been disappointed with the service received from my VW dealership apart from my experienced in collecting the car. I spoke to a sales guy not long after collecting the car to thank them for helping me surprise my wife. I also mentioned that my father-in-law is very interested in also purchasing a Passat and gave him the specs that he was after.

Now, my in-laws currently have a 2004 320 2 door BMW and are finding it increasingly difficult to get in and out of the car and squeeze their 70yo+ friends in the back. They're extremely keen to change over so a sale could be quite easily made. It's now been 3 weeks since that call and I haven't heard a thing. On top of this at the time of purchasing the Alltrack I told them that my dad was looking at the Amarok to replace his Rodeo and that my brother has a Jetta that he was considering in taking to them for servicing. I also mentioned that I was a member to a number of Aust. VW and Audi forums hoping they would look after me (knowing that I could advertise the dealership) but it seems to have had an adverse effect. I guess business is going that well they don't wan to make any more sale???

I'm really hoping that I have some positive experience come time for servicing otherwise I may forfeit the additional 3yrs of warranty and take the car elsewhere.


In addition to this, I finally got my welcome pack (I think) A small handout with my login details for YouVW. It's quite comical. Not even personalised. Where the car model was supposed to be "mail merged" into the document, it read Model Name.

I think I'll have to send an email to VWAust with some feedback. When you're spending $50k+ on their vehicles you just expect to feel like they respect you, not like they don't care anymore because they have taken your money and run. I get better service from Mercedes even with my 9year old C180


Luckily VW's products on the most part are great. My wife and I both love driving the Alltrack

[booba]

you guys must have really **** dealers.. the one i have in brisbane is excellent - not austral.

[Marakai]

I have to say the service from Leaseplan has been exemplary. They've called the dealership on my behalf, kept me informed and so far I have nothing to complain about. I'm hoping that stays that way once I have the vehicle, in which case I no longer care about the dealership. Leaseplan has a full range service all the way, including loaner cars when ours is in service. I call them, tell them I have a repair or service to be done, they tell to drop the car off, loaner will be waiting - and if the dealership/service centre does a crappy job they deal with them.

And booba, things actually started out very well with the dealer. VW Essendon was supposed to have a pretty good rep. As so often it goes a bit pearshaped when some of the good people leave and the others either aren't quite up to par or at least not quite up to speed in learning the ropes. Once I put the hard word on them they sure changed their behaviour quickly and at no time did I have the impression that they just didn't care or ignored me.