Service Experience Volkswagen Downtown March 13-22, - HB
Service Experience Volkswagen Downtown March 13-22, 2024
I am commenting on my worst VW service experience to date, after driving VWs for the past 46 years in Germany and Canada. I visited Volkswagen Downtown many times since I bought a VW Passat Stationwagen in 2007 with them and a VW Golf in the summer of 2023. I also bought a VW Golf Hatchback in the summer of 2024 (that one with a different VW dealership in the Westend). It is the latter car that had a clutch problem at an intersection which is why my daughter brought the car into VW Downtown on the evening of March 13 (Wednesday). The service experience was awful: from the beginning blame was shifted on me; the service was unfriendly and unreliable – all timelines given were wrong. There was clearly no understanding of building relationship with a customer who had used the dealership for as long as I did.
BLAME: The very first question the service person asked me was whether my daughter knew how to drive a manual. My daughter as well as my entire family has/have never driven anything but manual cars – this was also my car, not hers. I have driven manuals for 46 years, am a careful driver, and never in my life had a clutch problem. When my daughter was clearly not to blame, the previous owner was blamed (conveniently also a woman). The previous owner however seemed a reasonable person from what the other dealership told me about her, and it seemed all too convenient to push all blame away from VW. The car, by the way, was at that point just 4 years and 2 weeks old (and I had driven it for barely 10 months and 6000 km). I still do not understand this and do not trust the judgement of this VW dealership. Despite having a mechanical breakdown insurance, I had to pay over $1700 of the total of $2800. Here, I would have expected the dealership to show some responsibility/lenience/customer appreciation.
TIMING: I was given the impression that the mechanics would work on the car right away (but was aware that this was not a quick repair). I did not expect and was not told, however, that it took from Thursday morning until Monday lunch time for the mechanic to remove the clutch from the car for further inspection. On Wednesday, insurance issues had been clarified by the dealership, parts were there, and I was told the car should be ready by Thursday. On Thursday, the date was postponed until Friday morning/lunch time, and eventually the car was ready Friday evening just about when rush hour was at its worst – but not before the dealership had taken their time to check the car (which I never asked for) and come up with a bunch of suggested further repairs (filter, oil changes etc.) that totaled another $500 (plus tax). I did not let them do these as I was fed up and had lost all trust into the dealership. In fact, I feel that I cannot even trust that the repair was done properly and will bring my car for an early service appointment next week to another VW dealership (and have necessary repairs done there).
At no point was I offered a replacement car from the dealership although this is part of the mechanical breakdown insurance. I had bad experiences with this dealership before but not to that extent and did not comment about this on social media. The unfriendliness and non-responsiveness of service left me speechless this time. Overall, I will avoid this dealership at all cost in the future and readers of this can make up their own mind. Based on this experience, I will likely buy my next car with a different automobile firm that is more dedicated to customer care and accountability.
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