B.S. Dealership Stories

[VX-300]

Thought it might be fun to share stories about the biggest load of B.S. you have been fed from a dealership. No need to mention names.

Here's one of mine.

I used to have 4 new RWD Rodeo work utes. 2 twin cab with power steering and 2 single cab without. All 4 chewed away the outside 1/2 of the front tyres by 10,000 km. All 4 got wheel alignments and tyre rotation at 10k,20k,30k, some new front tyres at 25k, again at 40,000.

Finally had a meeting with the Service Dept and Workshop Supervisor about the 4 utes and tyre traumas. Was told that the problems were caused by the vehicles losing their wheel alignment through driver abuse. When asked how exactly , was told by the Workshop Supervisor " The front tyres are spinning on the rims during hard braking".

Dumbfounded I asked " But aren't they tubeless tyres, valve stems are all still intact, no tyre deflation, and it's only happening on the front axle ??? And how exactly do you lose alignment if a tyre does spin on the rim, maybe you might lose balance ??? "
***Blank Stare***

Walked out of there....traded in all 4 utes with the opposition and bought 5 of their new ones.

[AnthonyP]

not a bad story as tyres can spin on the rims...
but yeah balance would be the main outcome of this.

[Fridgy]

That was quality.
Cant stand the rubbish that flows from the faces of people providing this service. Honesty is always the best way to go. Thats how our business is run, sure we have to cop it sweet occasionally, but we actually gain business because of the fact we're honest. Word gets around.

This is gunna be a great thread. :bravo:
Bring em on!

Cheers Fridgy

[Dover]

When my ute was having welsh plug probs, For the 3rd time it arived at surf city holden on a tray, I want to the service counter telling them that it would be real nice if they would please just fix my ute and the mechanic attempting to fix it was uesless. He happened to be near the bloke i was talking to and blew up and then i did. He swore it was fixed right and i kept saying are you sure.. This went on for 3-4min, so i said look out the window at the truck with my ute with the same problem where would you like it?? I got the same blank stare.
Then was told i was lucky to get it fixed as it cost holden over 8g for the final fix???????? It was 20k old at this stage.
Ben
Sorry bout the spelling

[spuddamonaro]

when the oldies were buying the VT back in 98, my mum, brother and myself were told by the salesman that the rims would 'flex', increasing fuel economy. Go figure?!?!? Blank and angry stares all round, even mum knew this guy was talkin b.s. :rolleyes:

[nang3]

i think my fave was when i was trading in my 350Z and the salesman was trying to get on side by saying how great the Z's were and how over 60kph they had zero wind resistance/drag coefficient becuase they were so well designed by nissan engineers hehe..

[nudenut]

Mine's a short one, you might have heard it before -

"Can't find anything wrong with it, it's all within factory specifications. They all do that."

[ACT_Cross8]

"Can't find anything wrong with it, it's all within factory specifications. They all do that."

I think that is Chapter 1 of the Holden Service Department training manual :hmmm:

[Souljah]

When i brought my car i noticed a small crack in the rear bar of my ute. I informed the salesman and he assured me that it would be fixed before i picked it up. Fine, i puts down the deposit and leave. 4 days later i return to pick up the car. It was getting late and during all the hastle of signing papers and staring at the attractive girl who was doing all the paperwork for me i forgot to check the rear bar before i left.

About a month later while washing it, i discoverd the crack was still there. Next day off i drive down to the service department and tell them the bar is cracked and i've still got a few months of new car warrenty remaing. Bloke in a suit comes out and tells me that somethings hit the car and they wont replace it. And proceeds to tell me that i must have hit something because it was a ute. (WTF?!?!) I tell him about what the salesman said when i brought it. His reply to that was "did you buy this second hand?" I said "yes" He then says "Sorry, new car warrenty doesn't cover you"

Well that did it. I went nucking futs at this bloke before we went and seen the guy who sold me the car. After a long chat they came to the party and sent a man to my house who removed, repaired and re-fitted the bar over 2 days.

[German Statesman]

I worked for a small independent workshop that installed the genuine GMH gas option and a good customer of ours with a then brand new VS Exec went into one of Brisbane's largest service depts with a fuel gauge reading problem on LPG.

The trainee girl behind the counter said it was most likely a sender problem and they would have to send it up to us - we would then remove the gas cylinder, cut the end of it, remove and replace the gas sender float assembly and weld the end of the tank back on again.

That sat us on our arses and we cried laughing for hours. The trainee has gone on to be a 2IC in a Mazda dealership and I threaten her with it every now and then when she gets narky about her trainees. :lol:

[blackjacknz]

i have a VX S...standatd apart from the mods to the engine....anyway...under slight breaking and turning right i would get a grinding noise....couldnt figure out where it was comming from...took it to the dealer i brought the car off....and they had it for a full day to find the noise.....when i returned to pick it up......they informed me the problem was the mudflap were scaping on the ground because it was lowered. After explaining it wasnt lowered and had the standard FE2 suspension...the guy told me they get the same issue all the time...and i would need to remove my mudflaps to stop the grinding....


turns out it was the headers scraping on the chassis rails.....

[VYBerlinaV8]

My favourite was from 18 months ago when starting to look for a new little car for the wife. We trotted into the local Toyota dealer and came across this older sales guy. I thought "ok, he's probably been around for a while, should know his product". He spotted that we had driven up in my then fairly new Berlina. He immediately starts telling me how I should be trading it in on a new Avalon (we definitely said "no trade in and we want a small car"), because they are much better towing vehicles?!?! I suggested that I didn't believe a front wheel drive with a small v6 to be as good a towing vehicle as a rear wheel drive with a v8. He looked at me with this incredulous look and asked if I knew anything about physics at all. My response was "well, only what they covered in my Bachelor of Engineering and Masters of Science degrees" (which is true), and he proceeded to tell me how they had promotional videos showing Commodores and Falcons "all out of shape" while towing. I politely suggested he take his comments up with Kenworth. And I didn't buy a Toyota.

What pissed me off was that a year later he turned up working for my regular Holden dealer.'..

[Toddler78]

I had broken off the plug of the O2 sensor on my VX whilst changing the clutch. car drove fine for about 5000kms until the next service was due. went in to get it serviced told the dealer what I had done and asked for them to fix it. They did and they charged me $120 from memory. 2 days later the car dies and gets towed to the dealer to look at. They look at it and proceed to tell me that the engine has died cause someone has done a bodge job on rewiring the O2 and that is the problem and I should take it back to them as they need to replace the whole wiring loom and it is going to cost a fortune. I tell them that they are the ones that did it. The service manager tells me that they would not have done that or could not have done that. I tell them to go and check their records from 2 days ago and it is written on my service invoice. reply Oh and a blank look. fix the problem in 2 hours and then had the ordasity to say my brake pads were worn and did I want them replaced whilst it was there for $350 all round. I declined, and did the pads and new rotors myself the next week. The rears were 3/4 gone but the fronts were locky to have 2mm wear on them compared to the front. NEadless to say that was the last time that dealer serviced my car.:flamin:

[Y2kGoofball]

reading all these begs the question, why even bother with dealer servicing which I shouldnt be saying because thats where I work, but on the same token Holden will never get my VX in there for any reason.

ive mentioned this one before, the antenna on the SV6 was not going all the way down when the car/radio was switched off. When it went in for the initial 5000K "kick the tyres" service we asked them to look at it. When we picked it up the service advisor had the antenna in his hand and told us that its not covered by warranty as someone had snapped it off, warranty only covers a faulty part and in this case its not the parts fault as a 3rd party (us)has broken it clean from the car and that its $135 + fitting which they could magically do that afternoon.

Problem was the antenna was on the car when it went in, and it went up and down, just it got jammed on the way down which is something we couldve lived with had we known they were going to break it off for us. Spoke to the service manager as you do, but like any service manager hes good at his job - read the job card, line 2 says "attend to broken antenna". His response "Now you tell me where it says on that job card that the antenna is getting jammed on the way down" Us - "its right there, attend to broken antenna". Him "Thats what we did, your antenna is broken because someones ripped it off the car and the solution is to replace it, due to the fact it wasnt the part at fault as someone has ripped it off we cannot cover it by warranty"

My theory, and I could be wrong, but my theory is because its registered to a company ie its a company car there was the thought on holdens behalf that the company would just pay the $135 + retail price for the antenna. In the real world they said to f off and we got stuck for 10 000Ks with an SV6 with extremely poor radio reception.

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HBD (Holden By Design) sunroofs arent acctually covered by standard Holden warranty? I was told on the Adventra theres 2 types of sunroofs. Factory and aftermarket. In Holdens case factory means its already in the bodyshell at the factory and aftermarket is everything else including HBD. The reason we payed extra for HBD opposed to getting the same Holliander sunroof installed by a sunroof mob is for the peace of mind that its covered by Holden should it malfunction, or as it does, rattle but apparently not, yet at the same token they couldnt tell us how we follow up HBD to fix the rattle. 3 dealers have had a shot at fixing it, 2 of which have charged an hours labour at full retail price, and its still there. Ive located it myself, it sits somewhere in the roof lining in the center just above the rear seat. Gives me the shites that much that I'm tempted to just take the lining off myself and lube all the clips or whatever sits around that area.

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And on that topic rattles arent covered by warranty after the 5 000 K "service". when the first dealer couldnt fix it on the 5000K service it went back to them 2 days later, they still couldnt fix it so it went to another dealer 3 days later who told me that because its gone past its 5000K service without being noted its not covered by warranty. We got stuck into it over it because it had been noted but they failed after 2 attempts at rectifying it. As it was I ended up paying them an hours labour if it meant fixing the damn thing without voiding warranty (well for whatever else might acctually be covered) and the best they did was "yep theres a rattle there but we cant find where"

so many stories from such an excellent service network :flip3:

[OneManEmpire]

A previous girlfriend had her 300ZX in for a oil change and wiper blades, they did the usual inspection of brakes and discovered that the front pads were 85% worn, they quoted her $258 for pads with machining the rotors on top of that.
Luckily she rang to tell me this, and I said WTF? You have to be F*(&*&^ joking right... So before making a quick call to a local autoparts store that I use all the time, i said I could get them for $50 worst case.
So I rang me old mate Mark and he said he can do em for $52.. I called her back to tell her, and while I was talking to Mark, she mentioned to the service guy that her boyfriend could get them for $50. She says to me that they will fit them for $48, no worries...

Complete and utter bollocks. :flip3: :flip2:

[billycart]

got one,

told that p/s pump noise was road noise from tyres!
apparently engine speed and road speed are one in the same:confused:


bc

[hsv1413]

Had my exhaust changed over just after purchasing a new ute.
The exhaust started to rub on the driveshaft, which made an awful noise.
Went to the dealer who i bought from, they drove, padded and prodded the car and after finding that it was not actually their fault, wanted to charge me $499 for labour???? WWW TTT FFFF???????

Labour?? to do nothing but identify a scrape noise???

Anyways, after speaking to several managers higher than the last one i spoke to, they decide that they will not bill me at all.

I took the car to the exhaust joint, all fixed, no problems.

Back to the original dealer to pick up my replacement taillight and tonneau cover that was promised by the selling rep. "Sorry mate, no record of that, your gunna have to pay for that!" Once again WTF??
I pull out my copy of the agreement, there it is in black writing!!
Guy says, "oh sorry, i must have pulled out the wrong invoice for your rego!"
What? there are more than just my invoice for the rego of the car i just bought?? do you sell my car a few times each day??

Needless to say, didnt go back again! still no taillight, no tonneau cover.
Mongrels. :booty: :hmmm: