Main Dealers

[Rocket88]

Thought so..........sometimes the " I''m an expert" brigade have a habit of making you doubt what you know must be true.

[fiatdaft]

lol at keyboard warriors.

[ruffgeezer]

Albert; far from being "cast offs" our cars are all around 3 years old but under 40k miles, the majority are ex-motability, but that is beside the point, the manufacturer's schedule is a pile of shit for.mot allowing for proper servicing. It has been said before on here, unless all wheels coke off and the brakes are stripped and cleaned, it ain't a service.

 

As for Fiatdaft, is your 22 years all as a salesman?

[The Reverend Bluejeans]

 

As for Fiatdaft, is your 22 years all as a salesman?

 

Man and Boy I reckon. He can't have been a mechanic..................?

[retrogeezer]

On the subject of brakes and main dealers, when we had our ZX Volcane serviced many moons ago to keep the warranty we were charged for a full fluid change. When I looked at the receipt the 'miscellaneous consumables' section had a few quid for 50ml of brake fluid. I questioned how they had managed to do a full fluid change with just 50ml of brake fluid......needless to say the charges were refunded.

[garbaldy]

some main dealers are a bunch of cunts fact,

2 years ago a salesman at Peter vardy Edinburgh told me twice the car i wanted was a certain bhp but I couldn't see it as it wasn't in yet,

two weeks later sales manager called me to tell me it had just came in so i went up to view it and for a test drive,

it felt a bit dull and manager said after it had its service it would be fine, i wasn't so sure so he went to check paper work and he confirmed the bhp,

I popped a deposit on it and handed all paperwork over for plate change,

a week later after being told it was ready for collection I had to sit for 3 hours waiting, when it came round some of the agreed items had not been done and the tank was empty, more time wasted while they went to fill it up

3 weeks past and my shiney new v5 dropped on the mat with the lower bhp clearly stated

when i went in to complain they offered me another car and 2k less to trade in my miss sold one fookers

 

 

The car i have just bought from another main dealer down in Blackburn came all the way up here only to find out the washers didn't work and when it warms up smells of cigar or pipe, the second service hasn't been stamped in the book either so i called them up, they emailed me the bill for the service and agreed to stick it in my local garage to sort out the few issues.

garage who fixed washers reconed the pollen filter has not been changed so we investigated further and the air filter was full of leaves seeds and was black as fook, hmm full service 190 miles ago i don't think so, muppets

[Albert Ross]

Ex Motability motors are cast-offs if outside the Dealer network. They normally stay with the supplying dealer as a first stage, and are assessed on site. Irrespective of where they are deposited. If after the first MOT, (That Motability pay for) the results of the VCD are not favourable, i.e. body damage, excessive staining, interior damage, bad (piss)smells, Mobility aid conversion etc, then they are rejected by the Dealer and end up listed with a Specialist Clearing Department, where they are auctioned off. They stay at the Dealership where thay came off lease., we get all sorts of crap in. Mostly Renaults..... people think they're going to be better off with a Vauxhall. The photographs on the websites are taken by people like me at the time of MOT, and that's why the quality varies. Some monkeys can't hold a camera. We as a supplying dealer, know where they all are when off lease, so can call them back (First refusal) as we know the history. We can then keep the good ones for our customers.

I agree that the Manufacturer's schedules are wank. 60,000 mile service does not require wheels to be removed on some models at all, just the bolts loosened and torqued up again. I hate servicing and New Car Pdis. Two wastes of time, Give me a Test to do instead. I'll do a dozen a day if they turn up on time. Or suspension work. I love that stuff!

[Rocket88]

lol at keyboard warriors.

 

 

I'm not going to turn this into a running battle, but this is typical of "We're a main dealer, so we must be right, all you lot are amateurs" crap that has given franchised motor industry such a bad name. All the gear, and no idea............

[garethj]

As we stroll down tangent boulevard

 

Don't pick on Fiatdaft, he's a good chap and I for one would be interested in knowing about the equipment he's talking about. The floor is yours, dude

[Albert Ross]

See wot I rote above. I work in the Main Dealer network. I friggin' hate it, but it pays the bills. I'd rather restore Classic Land Rovers, but there's not much call for that kind of work, the independents all want you to service Freelanders.

[ruffgeezer]

Ex Motability motors are cast-offs if outside the Dealer network. They normally stay with the supplying dealer as a first stage, and are assessed on site. Irrespective of where they are deposited. If after the first MOT, (That Motability pay for) the results of the VCD are not favourable, i.e. body damage, excessive staining, interior damage, bad (piss)smells, Mobility aid conversion etc, then they are rejected by the Dealer and end up listed with a Specialist Clearing Department, where they are auctioned off. They stay at the Dealership where thay came off lease., we get all sorts of crap in. Mostly Renaults..... people think they're going to be better off with a Vauxhall. The photographs on the websites are taken by people like me at the time of MOT, and that's why the quality varies. Some monkeys can't hold a camera. We as a supplying dealer, know where they all are when off lease, so can call them back (First refusal) as we know the history. We can then keep the good ones for our customers.

I agree that the Manufacturer's schedules are wank. 60,000 mile service does not require wheels to be removed on some models at all, just the bolts loosened and torqued up again. I hate servicing and New Car Pdis. Two wastes of time, Give me a Test to do instead. I'll do a dozen a day if they turn up on time. Or suspension work. I love that stuff!

 

The Motability cars we get are pretty decent condition wise, the only issue is the lack of proper maintenance, on the agent's website the car's full history is available down to the last cable tie, we pick and chose carefully, steering around the ones that have had 3 clutches in 30k!

[andrew e]

I will echo what Albert said about motab outside the dealer network - I've had a few, (I like petrol automatiques) and the ex adapted control ones normally escape to auction. However those are leased by genuine claimants who use the car as intended ergo tend to look after them rather than career benefit liggers, who see them as a perk...

 

The dealer I got her GV from however was a proper dying breed - you were allowed to buy a nearly new car without the old how much a month bollocks, and just debit card it. A hand shake and collect your Suzuki the following week. When I wanted a new key, I was offered it at full fat trade price because I was a customer.

[Lankytim]

I used to pick up Motability cars at the end of their term from the customer and drive them straight to auction. 99% of them were fooked, damaged and badly abused.

[Doctormop]

Leave fiatdaft alone, he does 730 services a month (phact) in his forty quid boilersuit.

Yours truly,

A.K Warrior

[AeroNautiCal]

This mystical brake bleeding/fluid replacing machine that doesn't need to open bleed nipples reminds me of that dreadful Knight Rider episode where KITT is chasing after a mini bus and the hero presses a button on KITT's dashboard marked as 'Micro Lock', and just like that, the next clip shows the brake pedal on the mini bus lowering... on it's own!

 

Has anyone ever seen fiatdaft and Hasselhoff in the same room?

[Rocket88]

Having carefully read all about the Bosche machine espoused by Fiatdaft, it just seems to be a very expensive pressure bleeder..........circa £3.5k!

[Pillock]

I've just had my car serviced at a main dealer and I can't fault it. Same price as the local garage, it got washed and hoovered, and sadly cars with main dealer stamps are still worth more at resale. Can't comment on whether they did everything they should, but it's a massive chain so if anything causes problems that shouldn't, I'll just leave curse words all over their facebook page until they sort it.

[Parky]

I use an independent specialist for stuff I can't do because they are happy to travel to my house and let me watch them do their stuff.

 

One local Seat dealer is excellent, the other appaling. My personal fave was the Kia dealer who chucked 5 litres of oil in my Picanto (capacity 2.8 lits) and refused to drain the excess off as the engine would be fine with a little extra. I said I was ok with that provided the chief mechanic and managing director gave me a signed guarantee they would clean the oil off my driveway when the seals let go. Oddly enough the chief mechanic then decided to drain the excess off but still Insisted i had to pay for it as they couldn't use it now.

 

I said no quite eloquently......

[Albert Ross]

This is a line from our service worksheet, that we work from, and all are individually produced at time of booking, relevenat to VIN number, age, and mileage, also service type required. It doesn't state that we have to REMOVE the wheels, rather just loosen and retorque wheel nuts..... Obviously we do remove the wheels, but if we didn't, there's the reason why, and the proof that it's to Vauxhall standard!

 

[bub2006]

It annoys me when you got to a tyre fitters and the young Muppet with windy gun tightens nuts up then puts torque wrench on. Yea of course its going to click mate,you just about pulled threads out with how tight they are! Don't think they realise they are actually meant to tighten them up with the torque wrench alone

[Bobthebeard]

It annoys me when you got to a tyre fitters and the young Muppet with windy gun tightens nuts up then puts torque wrench on. Yea of course its going to click mate,you just about pulled threads out with how tight they are! Don't think they realise they are actually meant to tighten them up with the torque wrench alone

 

This has made me realise that this happened to me when I had the wheels balanced on my 944. Watched the lad do it as well! Didn't pay much attention, but will next time!

Going to try* to loosen the wheel nuts and re tighten them properly now.

[bub2006]

Everywhere i have taken a car they have done it like this,except a local one man band who didn't like my wheel nuts on the robin so asked me to tighten them with the brace. I hate seeing people tightening them too much and then thinking torque is correct by using the wrench. Nightmare to undo too i can imagine

[Bobthebeard]

It annoys me when you got to a tyre fitters and the young Muppet with windy gun tightens nuts up then puts torque wrench on. Yea of course its going to click mate,you just about pulled threads out with how tight they are! Don't think they realise they are actually meant to tighten them up with the torque wrench alone

 

This has made me realise that this happened to me when I had the wheels balanced on my 944. Watched the lad do it as well! Didn't pay much attention, but will next time!

Going to try* to loosen the wheel nuts and re tighten them properly now.

 

Update. Can't undo the wheel nuts! Even with an extension on the wheel brace. Grrr. Plus the wheels aren't balanced properly. Am taking it back on Monday.

[bub2006]

And that mr beard proves my point. Not sure if any damage can be done but i would imagine it could. Sorry to hear about that. Could been worse though,if i hadn't mentioned it you could be on the hard shoulder on a motorway in the dark and pissing rain with a puncture

[Bobthebeard]

And that mr beard proves my point. Not sure if any damage can be done but i would imagine it could. Sorry to hear about that. Could been worse though,if i hadn't mentioned it you could be on the hard shoulder on a motorway in the dark and pissing rain with a puncture

 

True words! Will pay more attention next time, rather than just trusting the buggers!

Nothing is ever straightforward eh?

Ta!

[bub2006]

Nothing in this life my friend!