Turning into a debacle.

[t5_monkey]

Coffee and tits, thats one way to influence the prospective male buyer.

That's all well and good but there's no Talent in My local dealer

I was told mine had 'just been serviced and MOT'd' when i bought it - looked in the logbook was serviced 6 months prior.

They also tried to charge me for a gearbox oil 'upgrade' (1st felt like a bag of nails had been thrown in) because an 'upgrade' is not covered under a full warranty! I pointed out I wanted to upgrade from a non working car to a working one, they paid up after a letter to the MD.

[thebadger]

That's all well and good but there's no Talent in My local dealer

I was told mine had 'just been serviced and MOT'd' when i bought it - looked in the logbook was serviced 6 months prior.

They also tried to charge me for a gearbox oil 'upgrade' (1st felt like a bag of nails had been thrown in) because an 'upgrade' is not covered under a full warranty! I pointed out I wanted to upgrade from a non working car to a working one, they paid up after a letter to the MD.

Taggarts I'd bet?

Wonky service I got from them when the cleaned the ETM & left the top IC pipe detatched from the IC hose. I called them from the roadside after my car died (less than 200 yrds from the garage) & they tried to guess the fault & get me to fix the issue.

Not what I'd call customer service.

Dealers have a limited time for what's said outside the forecourt.

Oh and their coffee is always pish!

[t5_monkey]

Taggarts I'd bet?

Wonky service I got from them when the cleaned the ETM & left the top IC pipe detatched from the IC hose. I called them from the roadside after my car died (less than 200 yrds from the garage) & they tried to guess the fault & get me to fix the issue.

Not what I'd call customer service.

Dealers have a limited time for what's said outside the forecourt.

Oh and their coffee is always pish!

Yup Tagtarts! they're ok as far as main dealers go but not great...

[thebadger]

I hear better wordson the one in Motherwell, my spanners use them for parts & advice!

Speaks volumes if indys even have bad words about their service!

[v70torslanda]

Does that make main dealer technicians MARINEs?

Muscles Always Required Intelligence Not Essential

[thebadger]

They are in fact plebs, Plausible Liabilities Enabling Business Shortfalls.

[Arnie T5]

I had to have a new ETM and O2 sensor last month, since then its been down on power and then last week it started losing boost pressure and running poorly under load, think it might be the TCV playing up or damaged vacuum hoses( found a split in one yesterday) Anyway took it back to them on Tues and they had a look and said that there was nothing wrong...LOL possible missfire. Well I changed the plugs yesterday and when I took the charge pipe off, the end that goes into the turbo had collapsed and folded in where the clamp does up causing a leak, why did the not notice it??? muppets

My question is, should the pipe have a netal insert in BOTH ends to stop the pipe from deforming from the clamp? as I noticed an insert in the intercooler end.

[Will_1223]

Lol im soo glad i work for volvo truck and bus (completely different company to volvo cars), i am a mechanic for them and have been since i was 17 (6 years ago), the technology inside the trucks is often reflected in some cars, i mean a volvo 850 has some parts off a version 1 FH12 (around same age) and the phase 2's have some parts off a version 2 FH12 (around same age), I must say even when i was an apprentice i was smarter than some of the mechanics at our local volvo car dealership, my dad had a phase 2 which he bought almost new from our what was local dealership and they were complete numpty's, i mean we went in to get a bulb changed as they said they would do it under warrenty or something only to be landed with a £75 yes thats £75 quid bill for changing a headlamp bulb, yes they are a bit of a pain in the arse with all the stuff round them but no more than a 5 minute job so either the bulb or the labour was a ridiulas price, No it wasnt an hid one either, needless to say we didnt pay for it lol. I think thats the only experience we had with main dealer tbh, i took over servicing the car and used geniune volvo parts and oil to keep in warrenty and stamped the book using the volvo truck and bus stamp and we never ever had a problem with the car lol. Anyway enough of my story.

[p fandango]

i don't get the cars serviced so that never a problem, but have had issues ordering parts from Main stealers (Tollabr & TMS, only speak to Oliver lol)

in there defence tho i did talk Tollbar into fitting my S60R manifold, 19t & Ferrita downpipe onto BT & they did a very good job & about the same price as a independant

[Loadsamiles]

The dealer I used to work for was boarded up 12 months ago. . .

Traditionally the service staff ignored the customers while the Neanderthals hit things in the workshop with hammers (or each other if they're bored).

Salesmen wandered about deluding themselves/management or anyone that listened about how much profit/commission they made on the last deal.

Parts staff considered everyone to be a total knob and fought each other not to have to serve on the '****in' counter!'

I went back to Euro Car Parts. It's the only place you can get away with using 'Sir' and 'you knob!' in the same sentence!

J

By the sounds of that you must have worked for Stratstone. . .


Having worked the length and bredth of the UK I can say that Volvo dealers level of service varies massively.

Stratstone were probably the worse dealer to walk this earth, and sound exactly as you describe.

Having said that I've had some pretty good service from some.

Triangle Volvo, (London)
MRG Volvo (Bristol - Chippenham)
Johnsons Volvo (Redditch)
I've heard good things from FRF Volvo (Swansea) too

As an independent I found Braydon Motors (London) to be very able.

But just because a place is an independent doesn't mean you get good service.
I've been fleeced and had my bits nicked by one of them, Had my fuel tank wrecked and cylinder head trashed by another, and there is currently a court case in progress with yet another who trashed an engine (not mine this time) through shoddy workmanship.
All of these I mention were the most highly recommended of independents.

To be fair to the dealer in the OP, the brief was changed on them, and they "were" following the standard Volvo procedure.
If they just warranty changed an ETM (even under a 3rd party warranty) without any signs of failure they would be liable to legal action from the warranty company if it were found out that the correct procedure was not followed. As a Volvo main dealer they HAVE to follow correct procedure.

It is by no means certain to them that the ETM is even the issue. Simply "bad idling" is not a definite ETM failure. It could be MAF or an air leak post MAF.

I've had ETM failure and believe me it's not just a minor hiccup. It involves a complete system shutdown and plodding home at 20mph. My ETM also managed to do 250,000 miles before failure so it's not even certain that it will fail.

I do think this is a little unfair on the dealer in this case. They will have had the car booked into a "slot" and had a load of other vehicles queued in other slots, If it ended up in a 15:00 slot then that's normal. When the issue turned out to not exist, a report will have been generated and returned to the service manager. The next car will have then been commenced upon.

By turning the job from a "do it under a 3rd party warranty" to "just do it anyway" it in effect became another job for them.

It's worth remembering that other than the likes of Braydon Motors (with 14 bays) most independents are a few blokes with spanners, where the main dealers are more production line systems with stacks of cars going through.

[Loadsamiles]

Another thing worth pointing out is that should you choose to go with an independent and it all goes horribly wrong (I know of about 10 Volvo cases) then you're on your own.

The independent tends to say "F**k off now I've had your money" and you're sat there with the pieces. The course of action is limited. Either jump up and down and tell as many people as possible, or try a small claims court.

The legal route is fraught with difficulty as you really need to have followed proper procedure, and have some serious expert testimony to back up your claim.

Hopefully we are about to see one shoddy independent hit hard in the courts, but in general we see customers just walking away licking their wounds.

With a Volvo main dealer you do have VCUK who will (hopefully) adjuducate on such a ££££-up and main dealers do tend to "put things right" if they do go wrong. You also tend to not get people buckling oil pipes or fitting sub standard parts.

[t5_monkey]

When I go to mine in Southampton I always ask to speak to the mechanics direct as the idiots on the desk don't know what the hell your talking about. I ended up having an argument with one girl after she claimed that Volvo never did two phase's of the V70 even when I was pointing to my car in the car park which was sat next to a phase 1!!!!!

Idiots! The bigger the knot at the top of the tie the bigger the idiot!

I went into a main Volvo dealer who had never even heard of an S60R, didn't know it was 4 wheel drive and said he try to 'look it up on the computer'

hardly inspires confidence! Just cause you do something all the time doesn't automatically make you any good at it....

... I think they really do believe the customers are just stupid 'cattle' there to be milked to the max whenever they are unlucky enough to have to come in for some work to be done.

As Loadsasmiles says the only saving grace is you can complain to their boss if it all goes tits up...

[Wombatbomb]

When I go to mine in Southampton I always ask to speak to the mechanics direct as the idiots on the desk don't know what the hell your talking about. I ended up having an argument with one girl after she claimed that Volvo never did two phase's of the V70 even when I was pointing to my car in the car park which was sat next to a phase 1!!!!!

King's I guess? The technicians (I reserve the term mechanic for someone who can actually diagnose and repair things off their own backs, not just someone who can play the swap-a-part-because-the-computer-says-so-game) are ok, but the "front of house" staff are a liability.

[mikouk]

King's I guess?

Yep, thats right.

Although I must say Kings in Winchester are much better. The guys there seem to know their stuff a lot more and are more willing to give advice before taking your money. I think you just have to find a good one and stick to it. My favorite local mechanics now are 'Just Volvo' in Calmore near Southampton. Excellent guys.

[Loadsamiles]

Another point.


With an independent you almost always get to deal with the person on the tools, you can easily discuss matters at the point of contact.

With a main dealer you are simply dealing with a booking in person. You should not take the knowledge of the booking in person to be that of the dealership. It's always worth bearing this in mind and if you actually wish to talk technical don't even start talking to the booking person. Directly ask to speak to someone with technical knowledge.

This system is in place for a reason. it's to stop those annoying customers who want to natter for a half hour each time they want a spark plug changing. Years ago I worked in a small outfit where we had dozens of such customers and it would be a nightmare we couldn't get anything done. At least with a simple "receptionist" that issue is resolved in 90% of cases. If you think the fault is more complex, or really need to discuss some issue then there is the option of asking to talk to the right person.