Dear Mr Managing Director, VW Dealership,
Today, I visited your dealership to collect my Golf GTI from your service department. I unfortunately returned home in the loan car.
My car is 2.5 months old, but has spent the last 3 weeks of that with your service team after suffering a major gearbox failure.
This on it's own is enough to be unhappy about, however I understand that problems like this are out of your control. In terms of the context of my overall happiness it is relevant.
Putting that aside, I was already pretty unhappy because of another cock up... The vehicle was delivered to me brand new in the middle of March 2014 year with a 63 registration letter date on the registration certificate!
This was masked by my private plate, but I checked the registration certificate on receipt. It was explained by your staff as a mistake by one of your admin people. The DVLA sent me copies of the original forms and the dates are clear to see as entered.
I've not complained to you about this, but I'm very surprised that this can happen by mistake, surely the date is the most important thing on the form, and your staff must fill in lots of them, especially around that time of year.
I was offered £500 off the price for the mistake, but I was buying a brand new car, so naturally wanted it to be a 14 plate.
I did not point this out at the time, but most of my friends who are anything to to with the auto business smelt a rat, and suggested that it was purposefully registered in the last registration period to massage the sales figures. I obviously have no proof of this, but it makes me uneasy that so many people suggested this might be the case.
Now, I was pretty excited this morning to be picking up my car again. Imagine my reaction (given the above context) when I discover that there is not 1, but 2 brand new scuffs on the rear bumper - one on each side!
No one had noticed apparently, so presumably someone was hoping that I wouldn't notice either.
Your service man said that you will need to take it to the body shop to repair the damage, and once again, I'm making repayments on a GTI whilst having to drive around in an asthmatic Bluemotion Scirocco. As you know - this is not a patch on the GTI I bought.
Before I continue my complaint, I want to nip something in the bud. Your man was quick to suggest that it was the RAC that must have done this when it was loaded onto the 'low loader'.
I know for a fact that this is not the case, firstly, it wasn't a low loader, it was towed, so nothing would have come into contact with the rear of the car unless he had backed it into something. If it had been bumped by him whilst manoeuvring, the damage would have been much more severe.
Secondly it was a man from VW Assist who collected the car (outsourced to RAC or not, it was a VW branded man with a VW Assist shirt on)...
Thirdly, being concerned about my baby, I actually inspected the car at your premises a few days later and the bodywork was faultless, so it definitely occurred whilst it was in your care.
So, to summarise... My brand new £28,000 car, just after having major heart surgery, has now got to go to a body shop for what I assume will be a respray job on the entire rear bumper.
We also have no doubt that the reason for this was carelessness from someone / some people in your team.
The 'mistake' with the reg year I have got over (just), the gearbox I'm still annoyed about, (these things can happen). Having the bumper resprayed because of simple carelessness I am utterly furious about. My new car doesn't feel so new any more and I'm nervous about leaving it in your care.
The car had better be perfect when it is presented to me. There must be no orange peel in the paint, the colour on the bumper must match perfectly, there will be no swirls from careless cleaning and it will be spotless.
If I'm not entirely satisfied that the car is in perfect condition when presented to me, I will be sending it back again and again until it is right.
A full 'back to showroom' valet from local independent auto detailer might be a sensible call given my concern about this.
I would like you to take an interest in this personally from now on, I would like you to call me (my mobile is below) to tell me what you are going to do in response to this email and I want your assurance that you will inspect my car personally before calling me to say it is ready for me to inspect.
I would also like some indication of how long it is going to take to restore my vehicle to the state it was in when it was delivered to you (or better).
I will wait to hear from you in due course.
