kaedo

Hi guys, not posted for ages as been busy with a new job, new flat and new area. Thought I should post the correspondence I have had with Lincoln VW so that other potential customers can assess if they want to use them or not. I'm not telling you if you shoulf or shouldn't use them - you decide.

I'd also like a sense check - perhaps I'm being unreasonable?


Hello Debbie,



Firstly apologies for being slightly short with you on the phone earlier today, hopefully having now reviewed the history of the car you will understand my frustrations. I didn’t mean to cut across you, but things were coming back to me as we were talking and I didn’t want to forget to mention them. As I mentioned on the phone I’m afraid that I would not consider a refund of the fuel costs to be adequate compensation for the amount of problems I have, and still am experiencing with the car. I made the decision to purchase the vehicle from a VW dealership as I felt this would give me piece of mind and I would know that I had a good and safe car (safety is of particular importance to me as I now have an 8 month old that travels in the car with me regularly). My experience with the car has not been what I expected as it would seem as time went on I found more and more issues. Clearly I should have pointed these out and had them sorted before parting with any money – but as I said, I perhaps naively thought the car would be practically as good as new as it was VW approved.



The list of issues I have had is as follows.



Broken rear air vent

Broken side skirt (car returned with silicon on the roof and driver door)

Broken under tray

Broken headlight mount

Broken bonnet catch

Broken front grill

Heavy overspray on the inside of the drivers door shut (I steadily improve this each time I give it a wash and polish using T Cut)

Bent drive shaft

Car covered in light scratches following preparation (I have since improved the condition of the paint by paying to have the car machine polished (at a cost of £250))

Missing bottle opener

Silicon on the drivers A pillar where a new screen has been fitted



Most of these issues have now been resolved over many visits to VW Lincoln (plus another two to VW Portsmouth). Still outstanding:



Loose and poor fitting grill VW badge (this is a new issue since the new grill was fitted)

Rattle somewhere in the centre console (sounds like a screw which rolls back or forth during acceleration and braking)

An occasional clonk from the underside of the car during pull off (usually with a certain amount of lock and when the car is cold)





Because of all these issues I have begun to doubt the soundness of the car. The screen being replaced, broken headlight mount, broken under tray, broken side skirt, overspray in driver door shut, bent drive shaft (and maybe the clonk?) all make me wonder if the car has been involved in an accident. I have asked this question but VW Lincoln assures me it hasn’t. I would like the car to be independently inspected at VW’s cost to give me the peace of mind that the car is indeed as genuine as VW claim it to be and that it is perfectly safe to carry me and my family.



I may, of course, have been terribly unlucky. I may be a little over sensitive to some of these issues as it’s the first car I have owned for over 4 years (due to company cars - all with higher mileage and no issues), and is certainly the biggest purchase I have ever made with the exception of my house. Unfortunately I certainly haven’t experienced that great VW reliability. The biggest issue I have had though is that time and time again I have been let down with poor customer service. Even the Brand Manager neglected to call me when he said he would.



I hope that you will take all I have written into consideration and will find yourself in the position to offer me something in form of compensation. So that you understand my expectations I would anticipate a minimum of £1000 compensation. However as you mentioned that money may be difficult I would consider a free service and Bluetooth phone kit installed into the car in addition to a refund for my fuel costs of £140.





I look forward to your prompt reply and thank you once again for taking the time to try and resolve the situation. Please let me know if there is anything else you require to proceed. I would appreciate an initial acknowledgement of this email and an estimation in to time scale for this process.







Regards,

  kaedo

Dear Ben



As I said in my last e-mail, thank you for taking the time to outline the issues you have had. I have had a look into the situation and have put a letter in the post today to you.



Regards

  kaedo

Thanks Debbie, are you able to indicate what the letter states?



Regards,

  kaedo

No problem, I will attach a copy although it will look strange as I’ve printed off onto headed paper.









Thank you for taking the time to outline the issues you have had with your vehicle.

As you will appreciate, we have dealt with the concerns raised and had the work done under warranty at no cost to yourself. On your recent visit we replaced the front grill. This part had been on back order with the factory for some 3 months, and I understand from Vikki who dealt with your vehicle handover, that this was arranged to fit in with your visit back to Lincoln, and was arranged and confirmed with your wife.

Should you wish to have the car independently examined then of course this is your right, but the cost of this would be down to you.

We recognise on certain occasions car issues arise, but the warranty you have in place, which is available until June 2009, should give you the piece of mind that these will be corrected accordingly.

With regards to your rattle, you will appreciate that on a Saturday we only work until 12.00 and so do not have the time available to fully investigate this to our satisfaction. However, this should be covered under warranty and can be looked at further by your local Volkswagen Retailer.

As a goodwill gesture we would like to offer you £200 of any vouchers of your choice or towards the cost of any Volkswagen accessories. Please confirm your choice and we will forward these on to you.

Should you be coming back to Lincoln again for the day and would like us to re-look at the car, then we would be pleased to do this.

  kaedo

Thanks Debbie,



As I’m sure you won’t be surprised to hear I am extremely dissatisfied with this offer and will not accept it. Not only has VW chosen not to acknowledge the sheer number of issues I have had (remember this is supposed to be a VW approved car) but it has also ignored the fact that on returning the car to Lincoln VW, at the request of VW Lincoln, a substandard job has been carried out on it to rectify the damage to the grill. I now have an ill fitting badge to add to the list of niggling issues. Yet again I will have to book the car in under warranty to get this issue resolved, a further inconvenience to me.



Interestingly I have read VW’s website and it further confuses me as to how I have found myself in this position. Please take the time to read the following link if you are unsure what I mean.



Multipoint inspection : Volkswagen UK



Had I known I was going to experience such poor customer service, the sheer number of issues and the stress of having to try and sort all of this out I would have returned the car within the 30 day period. Unfortunately I naively thought that VW Lincoln would rectify the couple of minor problems quickly and I could go on to enjoy trouble free motoring.



I would like to offer you the opportunity to reassess what VW Lincoln sees as reasonable compensation for

my time (remember I had to drive 462 miles, about 10 hours of my weekend to bring the car to Lincoln)
the poor customer service I have experienced
the hassle of having to arrange for cars to be dropped off, picked up, swapped round (not just this time but all of the other times too)
the piece of mind that I’m driving a safe car


In response to your statement about the warranty “We recognise on certain occasions car issues arise, but the warranty you have in place, which is available until June 2009, should give you the piece of mind that these will be corrected accordingly”, I have a couple of points to make. Firstly, I don’t think any reasonable person would think that the number of issues I have had would be ‘occasional’. Secondly, I don’t understand why VW think that having a warranty in place is a cover all for anything that was not picked up during the ‘thorough inspection by our skilled technicians’ or by any subsequent substandard work carried out during the warranty period.



I would like to resolve this issue amicably as I would rather recommend VW to family and friends, but don’t yet feel I can given my experience thus far. I am also an active contributor on several of the VW forums (where I have tried to get help in finding a grill etc) and would much rather report on the good service I have received eventually than just what I have received so far. If VW Lincoln chooses not to revise the offer then I will seek legal advice as to how to further my grievance.



Finally, I would rather conduct further correspondence by email, not only is it cheaper but I hope it will speed up the already lengthy process of reaching an amicable agreement.





With regards,

  kaedo

Ben



Thank you for your response and would like you to know that we are not taking this matter lightly and both the Service Manager and myself have pulled all the relevant job cards.



We have reassessed the points you have raised and we recognize that you have had some inconvenience with various issues.



I am sorry that you feel that you have been “hassled” with arranging the car to be dropped off and picked up, however, I understand from Vikki that we have tried to eliminate this as much as possible by collecting your car and returning it to you, to suit your needs.



I sincerely apologise that you feel our customer service has been poor.



As a goodwill gesture to recognise the inconvenience that you feel you have been caused, our Service Manager has agreed to carry out your next service free of charge here at Lincoln Volkswagen at your convenience when you are next in our area. In addition to this, the offer of £200 vouchers is still available to you.



As to the outstanding issues that you mentioned, I would recommend that you book it in at your earliest convenience at your local Volkswagen Retailer. Although we would be happy to do this here, when we investigate a rattle sometimes it takes more than a day and we would not want to inconvenience you further.



I hope you feel that we have tried to come to an amicable solution and find this offer acceptable. I look forward to receiving confirmation to this end.



Regards

  kaedo

Hi Debbie,



Firstly, please don’t misinterpret my email when I say “the hassle” as being me being hassled, I don’t think VW have hassled me. Hopefully you can appreciate that it isn’t always convenient to drop a car off, be in at a certain time, pick a car up etc – not to mention the inconvenience of moving child seats, ensuring nothing is left in the car that may be required or having to survive without sat nav. This is what I meant by the hassle. Sorry, I should have been more explicit.



Whilst I appreciate the offer of the service, you don’t seem to appreciate that it will cost me a further £140 in fuel and another 10 hours of my time to get the car to you at VW in Lincoln to have the service carried out. I now live in Selsey, on the South Coast of England. As this will be the third service for the vehicle, VW in Portsmouth have just quoted me £125 all in!



Surely there must be some form of compensation / gesture of goodwill that you could offer that is actually of some use to me?





Regards,

  kaedo

Ben



Further to your e-mail, hopefully in conclusion to our correspondence, I hope that you will accept that we will pay for your next service at VW in Portsmouth @ £125.00. When you have to book this, we will organize for a check to be raised for this amount. In addition to this, as already offered we will organize for £200 vouchers of your choice.



I hope that you will find this acceptable. We are unable to offer any other form of compensation so I hope that we can agree on this.



I look forward to hearing from you.



With regards

  kaedo

Hi Debbie,



I’m afraid that I don’t consider the offer you have made to be reasonable considering the issues I have had with the car, the time I have invested in getting it to you in Lincoln and the fact that I am still having issues. After careful consideration and after seeking further advice I have decided that I will escalate the issue higher up the chain within VW whilst seeking legal advice on how to go about making a claim via the small claims court. You will see that I have also copied in volkswagencustomercare@volkswagen.co.uk into this email in the hope that they can resolve this matter and avoid legal proceedings.





I am extremely disappointed that it has come to this and hope that I am in the minority of customers buying vehicles from VW Lincoln. So that you are aware I will be posting a copy of our correspondence to the Golf and R32 forums as I feel it only fair that I warn others of the disappointing service I have received.



Hopefully VW customer care will be in a better position to offer reasonable compensation for my time (in trying to get the car to the state it should have been when I bought it, the time it took to return the car for it’s grill to be replaced, the time taken to come to an amicable agreement, not to mention the cost of the fuel to travel the 462 miles to have the grill replaced despite asking for it to be redirected to Portsmouth VW and being told it wasn’t possible as it may get damaged in transit).





To the recipient at volkswagencustomercare@volkswagen.co.uk please could you confirm receipt of this email? If you wish to discuss the matter with me in person I am happy to do so over the phone or via email. I would prefer to communicate via email or phone if possible please. For your records my new home address is as follows;

Chichester
POXX XXX



My old address was;

Lincoln
LNX XXX





My phone numbers are 07890 xxx xxx or 01243 xxx xxx.





I look forward to your reply and hope that a satisfactory conclusion can be reached without the need to take court proceedings.



Kind regards,

  kaedo

Thanks to anyone that actually managed to read through all of that. Any advice - words of wisdom etc would be very welcome. I'll update if I get a response or will let you know how I get on at the small claims court.

  Silver

I'll say this much, i feel for you cause you shouldn't be having these problems. I find vw where i live useless as well (thats for another story) just hope you can get it sorted so your happy with the car

  The Womble

feel for you Kaedo... all i can say is when my dad ordered his car from.. Warington VW they were more than helpful and added extras, also the women who dealt with us was very nice.... very very nice... just hope your R gets sorted out and you enjoy driving it

Sam
Baker

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  Macdaddy

Wow,

I read all that and it seems alot of stuff that to me points to accident damage. Regardless of what VW say.
I'm going through this with Alfa following me finding out my 07 plate GT had been involved in an accident and poorly repaired/painted.

I'm picking up the 57 plate GT wednesday that they have offered me and its also got upgraded spec too.

Thats not bad i thought so for them to offer a meer service and vouchers is piss poor. I'd seriously look into if the cars had a bump tbh. May assist too if its an extra nail in the dealers coffin.

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  DWolfUK

i would agree. sounds like its been damaged and repaired badly. if its not insurance recorded then the dealer may not know but surely they should have picked this up on inspection. what year is the car and did it have any previous owners? im sure they could offer you something more usefull (what good is £200 in vouchers? unless of course you can use that to get the bluetooth kit you mentioned earlier?)

Im sure they can do better. They need to take the car back in (at your now local dealer) give you a courtesy car and get everything inspected & sorted properly.

My local dealer is pretty good but if you read around this forum or uk-mkivs for that matter you will find their are some REALLY bad ones. You did well to keep VWUK out of it for so long IMO.

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  StuOwen86

I always have problems with the Main dealers after any make of car (VW, Audi and Vauxhall) only good one was Fiat in Warrington lol and they're supposed to be rubbish.


So you from near warrington Bakes? I live in Widnes not far from you then if yo are.

Stu

  Silver

Cause i think vw is crap where i live as well, i reckon ppl should start posting good and bad experiences of there vw dealers. I'd prefer to travel to somewhere good than get messed around

  R32Dub

Kaedo - I feel your pain fella

I have had a war with my local dealership over their joke workmanship and even shoddier customer service.

I won't bore everyone on here with my list of problems but lets just say the work they were doing was falling apart a day later....

...I have had it out with the top boy at Bristol VW and they offered me £500 towards repairs as goodwill. As there were a number of parts broken when I bought the car (I did tell them 2 days later!) - I simply asked for these to be repaired. It has left me with the car needing at least £1500 to put it back to 'normal'

I took it to customer services but those guys are the biggest imbeciles of the lot - they say 'what do you want me todo about it?" - I simply said 'fix it'.

The problem is this - they are franchised garages and unless the wheels literally fall off and you wipe out someone's grannie, they do not want to know - and I am beeing serious - can't understand what the customer services are there for??

Anyway I am only ranting as I got my 'letter' last week and know how you feel. Saying that yours in in a worse state than mine and just don't give up...

..I wrote to Wolfsburg and awaiting response (none expected!) - I have one card up my sleeve - I work for a massive multinational whose fleet range are mainly VWs - if I am at that meeting with VW I am going to threaten cancelling their contract - which costs millions....

....only 50/50 but I will have my day with those plums and if you go to watchdog or anything similar then l;et me know and I am 100% behind you pal.:mad:

  sdmac27

Nightmare mate!

Unfortunately, as soon as you end up in the realms of franchised dealers it really is hit or miss. It might be worthwhile talking to the Citizens Advice Bureau (if you haven't already) to see if your goods are fit for the purpose of which they were sold. The best case scenario I suppose you could hope for is a replacement car like MacDaddy's - the least, getting all the issues sorted at your local garage.

Lincoln VW don't seem to be the most helpful, so I'd try and get all the issues fixed with the local dealer. Hopefully VAG customer services come good (and I've heard many stories where they have) and offer you some decent compensation for the hassle.

I really feel for you mate, I've had mine back in the garage 5 or 6 times for warranty repairs and it's been a total pain in the backside.

Hope you get it sorted

  Mike H

Really feel for you pal, but the letter to VW in my eyes is well constructed and reasonable considering what you have had to endure with what should be an enjoyable process. As said above though, if there is a large amount of overspray, I'm inclined to agree with the others and think of accident damage to the vehicle that's been poorly repaired. (p.s. use a Meguiars clay bar kit to get rid of the overspray)

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  kaedo

Thanks for the massive amount of support guys. I have had a response from VW customer care but to be honest it's no better than what I've had so far. See below;



Dear Mr,



Thank you for your recent email to Volkswagen UK.



I have contacted MD, Sales Manager and also DH, Quality Manager at Bramall & Jones Volkswagen (Lincoln) to further discuss your correspondence.



MD, informed me that a conversation took place to inform you the parts needed for your vehicle were on back order and although no time of delivery was available; you accepted this and was happy for the retailer to keep you informed of any progress.



I understand your grille has now been delivered and fitted to your vehicle. M explained that an appointment was made three weeks prior to you visiting your family home in Lincoln to enable the work to be carried out at a convenient time and with as little impact to you and agreed with no mention of incurring additional mileage or time taken.



Bramell & Jones Volkswagen provided a courtesy car to enable you to go about your daily business while your vehicle was been worked on.



I apologise that there was some confusion as to the reason of moving the grille to a second retailer, I have been informed that this movement could have caused damage to the finish of the product and a decision was made by both you and M to carry out the work at Bramell & Jones Volkswagen (Lincoln).



The rattle highlighted; was looked at but due to time restraints was not fully diagnosed. With your vehicle still within manufacturers warranty, further diagnosis can be carried out by any approved Volkswagen retailer of your choice.



I have checked with Volkswagen UK Technical Support and they have confirmed that the badge will have slight movement and is a characteristic of the design. M has also checked a number of vehicles on site and has confirmed the same results of slight movement.



As with any complaint we are disappointed when a customer experiences problems. A number of goodwill gestures have been made including a free service to the value of £125.00 and also £200.00 worth of vouchers of your choice.



Goodwill gestures are not legally binding and are not a form of compensation. Any goodwill gestures offered are discussed with Volkswagen UK and the retailer to ensure all points have been addressed.



Bramall & Jones Volkswagen (Lincoln) are an independently owned business and we not in a position to overturn a decision that has been made. I understand MD and DH are keen to resolve your complaint and hope that this issue can be closed to a satisfactory outcome.



We have logged your complaint under reference number 237186 and thank you for contacting Volkswagen UK.



Regards
LC
Retailer Services Co-ordinator

  kaedo

and this from Lincoln VW


Ben



I acknowledge receipt of your most recent e-mail, I have been out of the Office yesterday so I will resume work on your case today. I am sorry that you feel the need to take this Volkswagen UK to make a claim via the small claims court. This case will now be taken into the hands of our legal department.



Regards



Debbie

  kaedo

I'm not prepared to accept what theyu've offered - why do I have to have vouchers? Why do they have to write me a cheque for another VW dealership? If it were cash I would be tempted but still feel it doesn't justify the problems I've had to deal with.



Just to confirm VW Portsmouth are amazing. If it hadn't been for the fantastic service I had had at this dealership I would have sold the car and never bought a VW again. The guys at Portsmouth have done such a good job it highlights just how dreadful a job Lincoln have done. The crazy thing is I gave VW Lincoln £22.5k of my hard earned and haven't paid a penny to VW Portsmouth!

I'm going to keep fighting to see what I can get - even if it just makes them reconsider how poorly they treat some of their customers. I shudder to think how I would be treated if I'd bought something cheap.

  R32Dub

Kaedo,

please do not accept this offer - mate, i was offered £500 (credit) and have had no where near as bad problems as you - £250 is an absolute insult. What is this voucher business about???

As for customer services (VW UK), I have had a dozen calls to one idiot there and he keeps saying 'what do you want me to do?' - he is literally the stupidest person I have ever spoken to. VW UK does not see customer service as every other company in the world (i.e. to listen to customers) and so you are hitting your head against a brick wall.

I am still considering what to do with mine and maybe write to a different branch of VW- ask the legal department to confirm in writing that this is acceptable so that you can make it public knowledge i.e. online /tabloid etc. They obviously will not do this and so ask them why anyone should accept it.

Sorry to go on about this but I have had so many bad experiences with them and my car has been to garage 13 times in last year....and still not resolved all the issues - imbeciles

Hope you get it sorted

  Silver

I can't believe this, i really think its about time we had a poll or a post for recommended vw garages. I won't go to my local vw dealership as they are useless. I'm even thinking of travelling 150 miles back to where my car was purchased for future services as finding the right dealership makes the difference between having problems and not. Knowone should have to experience problems like this, suprising they manage to get away with it. Really hope you get offered something decent for your troubles

  Rupo

We should DEFO have this, a name and shame section for all garages, with add to the qudos the website carries too. I love a good slag.

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