Dealer muppets

Hi all,

I'm beginning to get a little fed up with some of the dealers' comments on car faults. You know, the "they all do that" type stuff which comes up when the dealer can't be bothered to work something out and just wants to get the customer out the door.

Robert's post about the dealer telling him that the 300Tdi will never warm up properly in UK climate as it's designed for desert use is a fine example.

So, I'm going to set up a "name and embarrass" web page for this sort of thing. It will NOT be a place to slag off dealers, make biased accusations, etc. It will simply be a place where you can see what lame comments dealers have come up with. The object being to cause them light embarrassment which should hopefully start to make them think twice before coming up with dumbass comments. I'll happily balance this with comments from the dealers if they want me to.

Any contributors? I'd like dealer name, + the comment they made, paraphrased if necessary. Please note, all submissions will be attributed to the originator, to cover my ass. So don't be libellous. I will edit out anything I think could cause problems.

Thanks. David

I was thinking LR specific, to keep it on topic, but I'm open to offers.

Brave man indeed! You should know where this can lead. Such a foolhardy and irresponsible act will end up with tears, let me assure you of that, oh yes yes yes...

Bugrit - may as well start you off then... ;-)

Hallamshire Landrover - Sheffield (Now Guy Salmon)

"All Discovery 200 Tdis use 1L of engine oil per 1,000 miles"

This was after they'd replaced the timing gear, chain, pump, water pump and other assorted engine bits. Problem resolved by Gordon Lamb Landrover in Chesterfield for 50 quid. Now not losing oil at all...

Martyn

David,

You may be aware with all the problem I had with Hartwell (and hence the stickers I now sell.... "Caution - No Franchised Dealer Serviceable Parts Inside"). Famous things they've said?

Hartwell Land Rover - Northampton

"The '97 3.9Efi cannot be queried by Test Book" - this information from the Dealer Principle.

"We'll clean it up, and put a new blanking cover on, and youll never know we damaged it" - Service Manager trying to justify the damage to my plenum chamber.

"I'm sure it's fine idling at 2000rpm, just drive it back to us and we'll have a look at it" - service staff when queried that Piglet was ticking over at between 2000 and 2500 rpm in drive.

There are more, much more, but these will do for starters :) Oh and even some for the Freelander too.....

"There is nothing wrong with the viscous coupling, you have a flat tyre, but we haven't changed it." - I changed tyre (was same PSI as all other tyres....and STILL is), same problem. Still outstanding.

Neil

Thanks Mother. Web page kicked off at

David.

Andy,

That would be funny if it wasn't so tragic ;-p

Neil

I'm actually trying to avoid passing judgement, just giving the dealers enough rope to hang themselves. But that's a good idea. Who's my starter for ten?

Duckworth's - Market Rasen Oh, never known a Td6 Vogue have air suspension problems before.(Don't even go there) Oh, never known a Td6 Vogue have to have its gearbox ECU reset before (three times on mine) Oh, never known a Td6 Vogue have electric steering wheel adjust faults (replaced twice on mine) Oh, never known a Td6 Vogue have drivers electric window problems (would not clsoe once open - day i bought it as with fault with steering)

Shall i go on???? hence raeson car is now on forcourt at Ron Stratton in Knutsford and i have a brand new VW V10 Tdi Touareg ;0), which so far is the Mutz Nutz in build quality and reliabilty (only don 300 miles as yet tho - but power............................WOW .

Dave

Hartwell - Northampton

The coffee machine works, and the coffee isn't too bad.

Neil

I'm actually trying to avoid passing judgement, just giving the dealers enough rope to hang themselves. But that's a good idea. Who's my starter for ten?

David> Hi all, I'm beginning to get a little fed up with some of David> the dealers' comments on car faults. You know, the "they David> all do that" type stuff which comes up when the dealer David> can't be bothered to work something out and just wants to David> get the customer out the door.

How about balancing it with a "good report" page as well?

AndyC

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+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Andy Cunningham aka AndyC the WB | andy -at- cunningham.me.uk | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | - Everything you wanted to know || about the P38A Range Rover but were afraid to ask. |+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+"And everything we want to get/We download from the InternetAll we hear is/Internet Ga-Ga/Cyberspace Goo-goo" -- from "Radio Ga Ga"/"We will rock you"

Ripon Land Rover

Had my 3 years and 3 months old, 80,000 mile Freelander (1.8 XEi) in for a head gasket, they phoned me up the following afternoon - "we've asked Land Rover to consider replacing the engine, the LR assessor has been and they have agreed, we will be fitting a new engine tomorrow as a warranty replacement if that's OK. If you want, we'll put a new clutch in it at the same time for the cost of the parts"

I had a rumbling sound from the rear at around 20,000 miles. The service manager identified the cause as uneven wear on the rear tyres. I confess, I was sceptical and said so. They changed the wheels front to back and sent me out on a test run. The vibro massage through the steering wheel convinced me they were correct after all. Some time after this LR released a tech note to this effect.

They have a parts department that is open 7 days a week and on weekday evenings which has been a real life saver at times.

cheers

Dave W.

Gordon Lamb Landrover - Chesterfield

Upon hearing that all 200Tdis use 1L of engine oil per 1,000 miles:

"Hallamshire are talking bollocks. We'll fix it, should take an hour"

It too 45 minutes.

They gave Charlotte a new Freelander for the day, though.

Martyn

Thanks Dave, see

David

David, no 'e' in my surname! Dave

There is now!

(sorted, sorry)

in article bpksn7$1pcfam$ snipped-for-privacy@ID-160280.news.uni-berlin.de, David French at snipped-for-privacy@virgin.net wrote on 21/11/03 11:25:

Bickleigh's 4x4, Yeovil. Laughed like billio when I turned up with the gearstick , nout else just the gearstick, in my hand,but dropped some other jobs to recover me to the workshop and then charged a small(ish) amount to reatatch it to the gearbox, and you get quite a good mug of coffee.

Foxhunter> Oops, forgot. Not too mention the two and a half weeks Foxhunter> it took to find I had a faulty wastegate on my Td5 Foxhunter> defender? testbook could not diagnose that one. Or Foxhunter> they couldn't!

Well since there is no electronic control of the turbo, you wouldn't expect Testbook to be of any help. All testbook can do is to report faults detected by ECUs in the car, reset those fault codes, and recalibrate various bits of electronics (like EAS height sensors).

Having said that, I'm not defending the dealer's inadequacy for one minute! They should be able to diagnose and fix that kind of thing.

Through the Range Rover Register I have been able to attend a number of 1 day training courses at Land Rover's Technical Academy in Gaydon. One of the courses last year was attended by a surgeon who made some interesting comments. He compared the process of fixing cars to that of fixing humans - doctors have to learn anatomy (how it all goes together), physiology (how it's supposed to work), and pathology (what things go wrong). Without a thorough knowledge of all three aspects, you stand no chance of fixing the cause of the problem.

The problem with the car industry (and the IT industry as well!) is that most people don't take the time to learn about stuff. They either assume there will be some magic bullet (testbook) which will tell you what part number to replace, or guess based on experience - which usually means "last time I saw this we replaced that, so we'll try the same again this time and see if it works".

Many of these problems can be solved if a knowledgeable technician has the time to sit down with the patience to work through the manuals. But can you imagine the service manager's reaction if the average tech. was to be sat in the corner reading a manual? Independents can be even worse - often they'll happily spend five grand or more on Rovacom, but balk at spending tens of pounds on the workshop manuals.

Almost as an aside, One of the challenges for dealerships (and even more so for independents) is to start to understand the whole new class of faults on newer cars. The L322 (Series III Range Rover, if you like) has 30 separate ECUs communicating via 5 separate data networks around the car. Never mind switching an earth path to tell the computer you'd like the volume turned up on the stereo. The steering switch ECU encodes a "volume up request" into a serial data packet on one of the data links!

Learning to fix problems is a skill all in itself, and is in very short supply in an increasingly technical world.

--

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Andy Cunningham aka AndyC the WB | andy -at- cunningham.me.uk | +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | - Everything you wanted to know || about the P38A Range Rover but were afraid to ask. |+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+"And everything we want to get/We download from the InternetAll we hear is/Internet Ga-Ga/Cyberspace Goo-goo" -- from "Radio Ga Ga"/"We will rock you"