Vauxhall service PHOTO's

Couldn't agree more.

Peter

You can also see what look to be traces of fresh Hylomar.

This is a myth worth exploding.

When you take your car to a garage plastered with the word "Vauxhall", you are not going to Vauxhall. You are going to a garage who sell Vauxhall cars on behalf of the vehicle manufacturer. The cars themselves are designed and made by an entirely different set of engineers, mechanics, etc.

It may be that a given Vauxhall dealer has staff who have been "trained by Vauxhall," etc, but it doesn't follow that they know all about the car(s) or how to maintain them properly. Nor does it mean they learned anything while being trained.

The problem is supply and demand. The dealer will get punters coming to his workshop almost regardless of what he charges or how badly the job is done, so he has no pressing motivation to employ the best mechanics, do the job cheaply, while a workshop that has not got Vauxhall backing gets people coming back when his mechanics do a good job and not when they mess up / cost a lot / etc. So, the workshop which needs the best mechanics will pay for them and the dealer won't compete.

I'm not saying all dealers are rubbish and all non-franchise engineers are the best, but I am saying it's not the other way round...

What's more amazing is how you think the garage's behaviour is perfectly acceptable.

You also seem to be something.

Read the answers he's already given you ffs, it's perfectly clear to anyone of even mild intelligence.

He has every right to, having read the thread.

And I'd like to be there to see you carried away in the ambulance.

And you seem to be an apologist for con-artists, shoddy workers and liars.

Yes, you're bringing out the best of British customer service, here. Someone wants a fair deal, and you start throwing insults regarding their disability permit. Very good - are you twelve?

How about an acknowledgement of all work that was done, so that it may be subject to a guarantee?

Oh yes he has. You just haven't read it yet. This could be because the reply contains words with more than one syllable however.

Yes, apparently several times. Read all the posts.

What, like being a d*****ad on netnews?

HTH, HAND

totally agree with fatsod - take it all the way to the top, typical of Vauxhall licking your arse to buy a car from them and then fobbing you off with bullshit whilst insulting your intelligence at the same time. another point to put across is, if they were responsible for dropping a bollock and the car was out of use shouldn't they have been responsible to have provided a curtesey car?

I can't say I am really surprised, especially having worked in a similar environment in the domestic electronics industry.

The very large company that I worked for used to design and manufacture their own test and alignment equipment for their products, and even boasted their own national engineers training school.

However in the unlikely event that a required piece of test equipment was available in our workshop, there was a 5 to1 chance against actually finding someone capable of using it correctly.

Therefore a lot of stuff was just 'tweaked' (usually for optimum smoke!) with customers blissfully unaware of the shortened life, or inferior working of their pride and joy, due to things such as incorrectly set up power supplies, bad alignment etc.

Diver ( snipped-for-privacy@virgin.net) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Erm, what's this got to do with Vauxhall?

It's between the OP and the dealer.

Wrong! Its the GM engine.

Anthony Remove eight from email to reply.

That's another thing that gets me. I don't know what the interval for you cambelt is, but let's say it's 40k miles (I think you said that actually). In which case why isn't it guaranteed for 40,000 miles? If it goes at 35k after changing it last you've done nothing wrong, yet the work is out of guarantee (in fact I thought general workmanship guarantees lasted a year) and there's sweet FA recompense you're entitled to.

Peter

Here - my gift to you because you're special. Decorative enamel handled scissors:

The Eco4 unit - as used in the Corsa, Astra, Cavalier and Vectra - is most definetely an Isuzu engine. Both in TD form, and later in revised DTi spec.

And one of the other posters has also brought up the very important aspect of a valet. The OP's car is covered in oil, which I can't imagine will be overly easy to remove. I'd expect the garage to take the flack for removing that at the very least.

I believe there is a small blob of blue hylomar just below right of the bolt.

I didnt drive all over Ireland with my filler cap off.... honest! :)

Thank you for the support, in fact I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for contributing, yes and I include all the dipsticks with their misguide views on what is an acceptable customer service within the British motor trade.

At this moment, I feel it would be totally unfair to name the dealer concerned without firstly allowing them to comment on what I feel has been an unacceptable level of customer service.

Rest assured I will keep everyone posted as to the outcome.

- Fatsod

.. .. at 30,000 miles between service intervals ??? Really ??

You obviously haven't seen the price of a 30k mile service, then.

Long service intervals are all well and good, but all they mean is that you pay for all the stuff that wears over 30k miles in one hit, rather than spread over 3 10k mile services..... also bear in mind that fleet users will take their cars to a franchise dealer for stuff like tyres, exhausts and brakes. At £50 - £100 / hour labour, it's easy to see where dealers make their money.

Hi FatSod - I hope you're much encouraged by the nearly unanimous support here, so chase the garage for satisfaction and the warranty - in the cool, calm, collected and factual way you've said you will.

But I cannot think of a single reason - legal, moral or pragmatic - why you should not name the garage on here right now. Assuming you'll eventually post the outcome, it hurts no-one - and gives them the chance to demonstrate to the wider community that they can put things right.

And I'd be very surprised if Vaux themselves don't monitor this site, and it would be most unfair to deprive them of the chance to help their franchised dealers provide "even" better service.

-- Martin