Bought a lemon!

[forddeliveryboy]

My MoT man says Seats are trouble, unlike Skodas and some other VW stuff. Small modern Audis bad too. Sell yer Seat and get a Golf - my TDi cost £270 40,000 miles ago and has needed just £16 spending on it (strut top mounts) beyond the usual tyre stuff and a set of front pads. Fitting a pair of front susp arms for the next test, they're £40.

 

Surely the engines are built in the same factory somewhere? Can't imagine the Seat factory is much more than an assembly plant.

 

Probably isn't (but common knowledge in the auto fraternity that VW want rid of Seat) - but assembly to a poorer standard can easily make a machine less good. The Ford Sierras built on Belgium or Germany used to be much better than those built in the UK - I know, I distributed them for a living. And the VW gearboxes made under licence by ARG had much higher warranty claims on them. Skoda is possibly the exception when it comes to the quality of assembling other people's components?

 

same engine/floorpans/drivetrain/parts/switchgear etc etc....MOT bloke is talking out of his arse..

 

No, he's talking from experience. Sure one MoT garage isn't a large enough representitive sample for accurate stats, though - so of course his experience may be the opposite of the truth. In which case you wouldn't be talking out of the proverbial.

[Mr Lobster]

As I say, my Toledo has been without a doubt the most reliable car I have ever owned. I used to run a lot of SEATs on a rental fleet and can honestly say I never really had any issues. The odd minor problem but nothing like the numerous electrical faults a Passat could give you (noteably, airbag warning lights, seatbelt pretensioners failing repeatedly and a lot of relatively minor but annoying electrical faults.

 

Having experienced many, many hundreds of new cars when I working in rental I'd say Seats are no worse than most and probably better than some in terms of failures.

 

In terms of VW wanting rid of Seat, that was down to profitability, nothing else. The head man of VW had said they would look at disposal / closure only if Seat didn't start making money as over the last few years with a range of assorted people carrier shaped cars they hadn't made any profit which was understandable enough.

[Pete-M]

We've got Seat Alhambras in work (the last of the old Galaxy shape jobs) and they've been pretty good. Far more reliable than the identical VW Sharans we had for a while alongside. The VW badged ones seemed to suffer from clutch and turbo faults which we've not had from the SEATs - even though the SEATs are higher power jobs.

 

Having said that, VW's after sales service was pretty good. SEAT's after sales has been an textbook lesson in how not to get repeat sales. On one of the Alhambras the rear pads had worn low after six or seven months and about 15,000 miles. SEAT replaced the discs, pads and wanted nearly £400 for doing it. When we pointed out that A: The car was still under warranty, and B: That the old discs were fine, they threw a mega-wobbly which has resulted in them losing a lot of business from us. We were about to order 30 EXEOs and a few more Alhambras. We now get the ones we've got serviced by the local Skoda dealership, who have been utterly brilliant all along and who we've bought about 50 Superbs from since the brake disc incident. We only now use SEAT for warranty work they can't dispute, and we're flogging the Alhambras shortly. Won't be going back.

 

Skoda would never have attempted to get us to pay for a set of discs that weren't needed. Which is why we still use them.

[Pillock]

Did you tell them why you no longer buy/use their dealership? A letter to Seat UK detailing how much they've lost in sales would be an interesting read for management, hopefully would get fed back.

It's one thing taking business away but chances are they've not even noticed.

[red5]

Shame isn't it? no need for that kind of short sightedness with anyone, never mind a large/decent customer.

 

FWIW - if they never contacted you to authorise replacement, or there was no agreement made prior to inspection, then you aren't obliged to pay for anything fitted without consent.

rear pads at 15k is about right these days, especially for stop/start/heavy load lugging, so Warranty wouldn't cover wear alone. Discs would have been fine unless they really were metal to metal - at that point a courtesey call to confirm 'yes pads are gone, but could do with discs' yadda yadda avoids any unpleasantness/misunderstandings.

 

Odd about the Alhambra thing - all made on same line.