I don't know if its VW as a whole or dealer to dealer. My experience was great, they helped immensely.
who's to say Portsmouth BWM garage is any better?
And i don't want to jump to any conclusions as i've only glanced over the list, but are people up North getting better deals? As generally most of the customer service up here is very friendly and they really want to help you...
After my own extortion experience from the dealer who dealt with my failure I believe its more down to the dealer rather than
VW as a whole - reasoned with the vastly varying prices being quoted and charged to repair.
Some dealers insist on a partial strip down after diagnostics shows the error code - some don't. Those that do obviously then charge. Some dealers refer the error code to VW Germany and without any further confirmations right at the start have a new F.O.C. engine on the table ( paid for by VW Germany and not the dealer ).
The non chargeable F.O.C. replacement engine is then seemingly used as the carrot by the dealer to then charge for the labour time at what ever they feel they can get away with and with my experience they decide on a customers naivety.
Confirmed to me by VWCS after checking with the VW Germany the allotted labour time is 14 hours to take out and replace and engine. ( The car my garage was recovered to quoted 22 hours and wanted £2350 for labour. ) The exact same work was then quoted by another dealer ( Importantly owned by a different franchise parent company ) using the F.O.C engine at the correct
time charge on 14 hours for a sum of £1150.00.
Exactly the same work using the same free issue parts and a price difference saving of a massive £1200 !
All this using from Day 1 UK VWCS who despite all the overwhelming evidence and facts could not make the original dealer offer a correct price for the work involved - only after 2 weeks of aggro and with the lower quote and my decision to move
garages to repair did the price come down.
After the disgraceful episode was concluded I followed this up with the strongest letter possible to the franchise owner of the dealership - this resulted in the price then being reduced to a final repair bill of £470.00.
I fully believe the situation is being milked and some owners being completely ripped off by dealers seeing a golden opportunity as no direction given or offered by VW Germany....
