I went to London to get suit fitted for my friends up coming wedding and drove all the way from Toronto (2 hour trip)
My car ran fine until I went from my parents house to the suit fitting, my car started to overheat! Oh well, stuff happens right? So since it was saturday and I had to work Monday, I decided to take it to the dealership since they know what they are doing and I would just work from home Monday while it gets fixed.
So Monday I take my car in (and its a slow overheat not a complete boil over) and I explain my problem hand over the keys and go back home.
2 hours later I get a phone call saying my car is ready. Wow, great. $211 for the fan switch sensor. kind of pricy but its a VW and its at a place where they know their stuff (or so it seems)
I go pick up my car, pay the dealership and drive off.by the time I got to the highway, now my car is shooting up to 130*C. I was pissed! didnt they test drive it?
I called them back up and made it there just before 5 PM. they tell me they have to investigate it in the morning. Well, not much I can do at this point. Called my boss, work another day from home. no biggie.
The next morning I get a call, asking what has been done to it. so thermostat, housing and waterpump. They said ok, hung up and 2 hours later I get a call.
They told me that "We elimnated everything else, and we think its your thermostat"
Great, I said change it.
then I get the "well your bill will come to $408"
WTF? for a thermostat? ok, I know shop fee at $92/hour but that is insane. so I drove down to speak with their manager.
After looking at the bill (and after talking to another dealership) they tried to charge me for the time they talked to a VW tech outside the city.
I explained to him the situation, and said I dont really care what the bill is, I just want a garentee that this will fix the problem. At least he was nice enough to go and look into it and said "we cannot garentee this unless we change the part"
fine, might as well get them to do it.
so 4 hours pass, and I dont even get called that its done. I got a ride down the the dealership and my car is outside, so I go in and ask if its done. He didnt even look up, just said "ya"
So I look right at the guy and ask these questions:
Q: "Does the car overheat? "
A: "No"
Q: "Did they take it for a long enough test drive? "
A: "Yes"
"ok" I said, but since its a lot of money to me, I told them I would like to test drive it myself. They almost didnt let me, but they gave me the keys anyways.
I took it for a 40 min test drive, and as soon as I pulled into the dealership. The car starts to over heat.
Lucky for me, I walked in and said "car still over heats" and they actually said "well we have to investigate more"
no no no, you eliminated EVERYTHING else, I am not going to let you change everything in my car at 100% markup until you figure it out. I gave them the bill back and told them I'm taking my car elsewhere.
lucky for me, they agreed since I asked for a garentee.
So whats my rant? So I finally got it fixed. ended up being the waterpump and my friend and I did the work when we both had a spare weekend. He's what got me pissed: Parts were missing under the hood, bolts were stripped on the housing and screws werent even tighten and a few hoses werent even connected. Not only did they get the $211 from me that did NOTHING, they also took my parts! And I know they were there since the time I worked on my car before I took it to Dalmar.
I will never, ever take my car to a dealership again. And I have also heard other bad stories from other VW owners who took it to the same dealership.
(Still waiting for the call from VW of Canada about how my service was)
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