I left my 2001 S80 at this dealership to have them check why the driver's seat will move before I start the car but won't move after I've inserted the key and kicked over the engine. I also asked them to perform the fix for the faulty AM radio antenna design. At mid-morning the guy on the write-up desk called me and told me it would cost me $387.00 to have them correct Volvo's unfortunate antenna design! I was dumbfounded. True, the warranty had expired, but this was clearly a flaw that needed correction. I had expected it to be handled on a no-charge basis - or at the very least on a time and material basis (which I'm certain wouldn't exceed 2 hours labor and perhaps $10.00 in materials). But they decided to seize the opportunity to maximize their profitability.
But that wasn't the worst.
The worst came when he told me I needed a new controller for the driver's seat and that would cost me another $743.00!
Hmmmm. Lemme see, $743.00 plus $387.00 equals $1,130.00. Damn! That's a lot of money, dude. On the other end of the phone line he said "So, can we start on your repairs?"
NO! I said.
"What? Well, we've got the car right here and can start on it right away" he said.
No you can't, I said.
"Well, I've got to tell you then that if you won't let us perform these repairs I'm going to charge you $100.00 for diagnosis" he said.
DIAGNOSIS? Hell, you knew what the problem was when I dropped off the car, I said.
"Yeah, well, we gotta make a buck" he said.
Okay, pal. Enjoy your hundred dollars, but understand this...it's the last nickel you'll ever get out of me or my family, sez I.
So I went and picked up my car - unrepaired - and gave them their C-note.
Be advised - this dealership has underperformed for me since I bought the car new in '01. I regret ever having dealt with these clowns from the get-go. Particularly so, when compared to the great service a competing dealership (other brand) has done over the years with my other car.
No more Volvos for me, and I hope none of you is dumb enough to do business with these scum.
You should have been given a diagnostic estimate when you signed the repair order, in this case, $100. If you weren't, they are in violation of the laws enforced (vigorously, I might add) of the Bureau of Automotive Repair.
So, the diagnostic charge "shouldn't" have been a surprise.
Do you know what the parts cost? e.g. I got a Bosch price for an new alternator $1800AUS (but an electrician fixed it for $180). They might indeed be shonky but it's often a long way from something doesn't work to what's wrong with it, and what do you normally charge for your time? I have no reason to defend but I have to make a living in my own business - you've only told half the story.
Hmmm. I wonder if the service writer gave you the standard line about the survey you'll receive from Volvo, and how they (OC Volvo) find nothing less than "10s" acceptable, and want you to tell them where they fell short.
I confess to having spent many hundreds of dollars there for maintenance and repair, but have not so far felt "ripped off"--just a "victim" of high Volvo repair prices. I will say the OC Volvo people have been consistently courteous.
More than with any other car I've owned, our relationship with our Volvo is a love/hate thing. Very solid, substantial car, that's never stranded us so far. But for the money they cost, I don't understand why they can't achieve quality and reliability at least equal to Honda and Toyota. In some ways they seem surprisingly fragile. For example, why should front strut tower caps need replacement twice in 10K miles? I've NEVER had that happen, even once, on any other car. Why should an engine mount rubber bushing fall apart after about 50K miles? Again, never before happened in my experience. And the power driver's seat problem you had just shouldn't happen. (Incidentally, if you want to see something scary, just look at the stuff packed in under that seat sometime.)
Even more amazing is the tendency of the faithful to make excuses for EVERY Volvo fault. And with straight faces! The argument generally comes down to this: "Japanese cars are made of thin sheet metal, and break down like any other car. You have a Volvo, and it may save your life." End of discussion.
It's been an interesting ownership experience. We're not ready to dump our '01 S60 yet, but I'm not sure there will be a second Volvo in our car history, even given a generally good dealership experience. (If you want to know how it can be, just walk across the street to the VW dealership, where my son has had poor experiences with his car bought there, and the one time I walked in to look, in the market to buy, I was ignored.)
contact the ca dept of automotive affairs, get the paper work for an appeal, and notify the dealer...tell them you want a FULL refund of ALL the $ you spent, or you will file an appeal...also, cc volvo of north americs outlining your beef and demmand...kick back a week or two and i would put $ on it you get your $ back...you can mung the dealers service dept record (ot threten to do so) and they will do anything to stop it...of course, i wouldn't take my car back to them///there are pleanty of good ind volvo shops in so cali...look around, talk to friends, join the local chapter of the volvo club of n america and find a honest shop...good luck !!
I've signed a lot of repair orders over the years and they all had some sort of "estimate" amount at the bottom of the sheet - this one included - and in fact is WAS a round $100.00.
So I leave, thinking that the seat and the antenna repairs which I have clearly delineated to the guy and he has no further need to "diagnose" because he and I both already KNOW what needs to be done - are going to cost me around $100.00 plus or minus.
So, when he later calls and says $387.00 for the antenna and $743.00 for the seat, I was surprised and disappointed.
Then after I declined his offer to repair them for the above price, and he said he'd have to charge me $100.00 anyway I guess I was a little taken aback. I asked him straight out - "So let me get this straight, Mike, are you telling me you're charging me $100.00 to tell me you want to overcharge me to fix these items?"
He said "Yes".
But let's not kid each other. There was no "diagnosis" involved. He knew full well when I left the dealership after agreeing to the $100.00 that he wasn't going to fix my car for $100.00. And he certainly didn't take the time to explain to me that the $100.00 was NOT the repair cost, but only an agreement on my part to pay him to call me later and let him tell me the REAL repair cost was going to be more than 11 times the cost on the estimate sheet. No - he didn't define it that way!
So yes - I was and continue to be miffed.
And I have no further patience for this dealer, who has more than once attempted to use predatory pricing policies on me, and, frankly - not always been entirely honest with me either (desite whether or not they were "courteous").
For example: On one of my first trips in for normal servicing a couple of years ago when the car was still pretty new, I got a phone call about mid-morning from the service writer who stated "Mr Durkin our service technician has reported to me that your right front tire has a nail in the sidewall and we recommend you change that tire right now to avoid unnecessary risk to yourself and others. Do you want us to change the tire for you?" I asked how much. "$390.00" he replied.
$390.00? I said. Are you kidding me? No. Absolutely not. Fill it with air and I'll be careful getting it home and I'll go buy a tire on my own.
"We don't recommend that you do that sir. You may have a blowout on the way home."
I'll worry about that, thank you very much.
Fortunately I have a friend in the tire biz and I called him immediately and told him I needed a 225/50R17 Michelin MXM4, and did he have one in stock? He didn't but told me he'd have one for me in the morning, so the next morning I dropped the car by his shop and watched while his guys jacked my car up, removed the wheel and tire, broke the tire off the wheel and mounted the brand new tire. In the meantime, after the "old" tire came off, we looked at it closely and the nail was NOT in the sidewall at all, but rather on the flat part of the tread carcass and could have been repaired if need be --- but lo and behold --- it didn't even go through! It could have been pulled out and no air would have leaked! I now have that unmounted tire with 85% of its original tread left in my storage shed at home. It could have safely been remounted and re-used, but I didn't want to "stick" my friend with a single oddball tire to stick in his inventory because of this unexpected outcome. A testimony to a service tech who wanted a commission for selling a tire.
And BOY! What a MARKUP Volvo of Orange County had in that $390.00 price! I admit, I am pretty friendly with the dealer who sold me the replacement, but he showed me his invoice from the tire warehouse he got it from and I just paid him what he paid. I saved $185.00. I'm sure Volvo of OC could buy the tire from the same wholesaler that my friend did, and I'm sure they'd get the same price he got, and they marked it up 90%!
Geez. Everybody's got to make money. There's nothing wrong with that. I do it myself and I'm not ashamed of a modest margin. But NINETY PERCENT!? On a tire that didn't need replacing in the FIRST place?
Uh, maybe not.
But Volvo of OC probably gets by with that kind of thing with most of its customers. In this particular situation I happened to have resources and discovered what they were doing. I wound up spending $205.00 that I didn't need to spend - but at least I had the satisfaction of knowing none of it went into their pocket.
So why did I go back on this antenna thing?
Well, because I knew it was a common problem and that Volvo Corporate issued a Service Bulletin to its dealers quite a while ago outlining the simple cure for the problem --- essentially an admission by Volvo that it had a problematic design. I naively assumed that since it was such a simple fix that shouldn't take more than a couple of hours - tops - that even if it wasn't paid for under warranty or on a policy basis, at least I could get it done inexpensively. $387.00? That's predatory.
$743.00 for the seat controller? That's predatory.
the volvo dealers are always trying to cover their high overhead....i used to, but now i hardly ever go to a dealer for anything....except to test drive the latest "R" mdl of course....they have to pay for the shop somehow.....but...find a good independent...i used to live is so cali and i thought there were some good shops around costa mesa.....anyway...good luck !!!...shop the net for volvo parts and the dealers will someday get the mssg.......as their parts sales drop off.....
I don't think so. If that were true, it would have happened long ago.
I'm being careful not to include ALL Volvo dealers in a blanket condemnation. I'm sure there are some that are awful but I'm equally sure there are some that do a better overall job with farer pricing policies than Volvo of OC. I just think V of OC has had its business model in place long enough to know what they can get away with the majority of the time, and they are quite prepared to accept the loss of a few more descriminating service customers, as long as they can continue to get away with hosing the majority of them.
And all the while, they are "courteous".
But let's not confuse that with being honest.
Pat
PS - Just so that none of the dyed-in-the-wool Volvo loyalists feel the need to defend the marque - don't. I'm not attacking Volvo. My S80 is adequate. It's not a terrible car even if I AM bit disappointed in certain things now that I've had it three years.
ps/ps --- I also own a '98 Mercedes C230 sedan that we bought new at Calibre Motors --- up the 55 Freeway a few miles from Volvo of OC. In the 8 years I've owned that car I have had a few mostly small problems too - nothing's perfect - but my satisfaction levelwith THAT dealer is 100% higher overall than it is with Volvo of OC. Hell, among other things, Calibre Motors will even WASH MY CAR EVERYDAY FOR FREE! No questions asked.
MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.