Overdue Rant

[Nemesis]

Here's a clicky link thing to a vid I posted on Facetube and Uface.... I just got round to finding the video, and I'm a grumpy old git so thought I'd share it..... In short my friends, I wouldn'd buy a sponge from Evans Halshaw Stourbridge, this is the Sage's Picanto having the paint modified by the subcontract valet company during a service wash.

 

Nem......

 

  

 

[Blatman]

Have you spoken with them?

[Nemesis]

12 hours ago, Blatman said:

Have you spoken with them?

 

Yes at length, here's the words that go with the YouTube Video, they put my attitude into context.

 

"There is a bit of history here that needs to be read.

 

Every word is utterly true so there is no libel case pending.

 

A year prior to this video at the first service I had reason to complain.

 

When I booked the car in I had asked for 2 damaged tires to be replaced, my good lady damaged them on a couple of driving lessons, the tread was almost as new with the car having covered less than 10 thousand miles, however the side walls were a different story, both tires were missing lumps of sidewall and one of them had a split that was starting to bulge.

 

On collection I was presented with the inspection checklist with lots of ticks in all the green boxes, when I asked what I owed for the tires I was looked at with a blank expression and was asked "what tires?"

 

Following my complaint the service manager told me that the mechanic had been dismissed for his failings, he and Evans Halshaw were very sorry and that I should give them another chance.

 

So onto the second service, I dropped the car off and and headed off to do some shopping.........

 

It has been strafed by the local pigeons and had a pretty good coating of pigeon poo over most of the bonnet add to that the unfortunate timing of the 3 day summer it had cooked on pretty well.

 

When I collected the car I gave it the once over and was stunned to see multiple clusters of scratches right where the bird poo had been, and a lovely scratch on the headlight too.

 

When I asked why, how, when? I was fobbed off with "can you call in on Monday and ask the service manager?"

 

So I did, he said he asked the valet people, they knew not a thing about the damage, apart from that they were not the cause.

 

Now the grumpy man from the Valet company left the engine running the whole time the car was in the bay, about 30 minutes (I say grumpy because I listened to the audio in the other 1 minute clips I have and he calls the Picanto some really rude names, you can also hear the pressure washing lance scraping the paint work in this clip) if he has been polite enough to not waste my petrol I'd never have the video.

 

Anyway, I showed the Dealer Principle and the same service manger this clip and a couple of other clips (one of them explained how the headlight got scratched..... the hoover crevice tool used as a bird poo scraper..... priceless ).

 

Needless to say they put the car right, paint to the bonnet & grille plus a new headlight unit, they returned the car with a couple of bottles of wine as an apology.

 

To be honest I would have left it there,  but at year three and the first MOT the car failed due to a headlight miss-alignment...... have a guess witch one was out?? 

 

So Evans Halshaw Stourbridge, up yours, you failed to get it right when it really mattered."

 

Hope that puts some context to my grumpyness !

[Blatman]

That's pretty poor. Yes I heard them use the lance as a scraper. I was open mouthed when I saw/heard it. I'm not surprised you boiled over, especially as they don't seem to have done anything right so far. What a bunch of muppets.

 

[Lyonspride]

EH are well known for being a bunch of "see you next tuesdays", it's the management, they treat the staff like poo, don't give them enough time to complete their jobs, blame them when stuff either goes wrong or isn't done quickly enough, sack them one way or another (because apparently sacking people encourages others to work harder) get new staff and the problems continue, rinse/repeat and decades later nothing has changed.

To be fair though, it's pretty much the same with most car dealerships. I simply have some inside knowledge that may or may not be from a Stourbridge EH employee, past or present.

It angers me really, because managers should be held to account for their failures and not be allowed to pass the buck onto people who are just trying to earn a living.
 

[pistonbroke]

Not what you would expect from a top line dealer , but not surprised one iota .

I wouldn't deal with any garage that wont allow customer contact with the workshop staff , just a few words will tell you if they are happy bunnies or not and what kind of service you can expect . If they look at you as if you just got off planet Zog , walk away . A good workshop is a happy one and its easy enough to tell what kind of service to expect if all the mechanics look as if they would rather be doing something else . As for the front desk customer service managers & staff they are usually all border line morons afaics   

[Steve (sdh2903)]

Had a similar experience with the dealer that has the same first name as mr Schwarzenegger.

 

Focus diesel went in as was down on power and up on juice consumption. They diagnosed as a deteriorated turbo gasket. That was replaced. On the way home car felt and sounded much worse and then the engine lt came on. Engine cover off. 2 of the 4 nuts holding the ex manifold were missing. Other 2 weren't tight. 

 

Their answer "we didnt touch that area" so how did the gasket get replaced? "we haven't replaced the gasket!" 

 

So now the gasket was changed again (or for 1st time), nuts replaced, new engine cover where it had melted. The proud service department bloke said the car was now as good as new as he lead me over to the car.

 

What about the big dent on the bonnet? (Size of half a tennis ball). They didnt even argue or attempt to worm out of it so they knew full well they had done it and were trying to see If they could get away it.

 

So all in a simple gasket swap ended up with 3 trips and 8 days in the dealers and a repainted bonnet. That would have taken 20 mins to do myself.

 

My lad had a bump in his fiesta and his insurance insisted on using them for the repair. They fitted a new front wing and fitted the side skirt trim and then painted AROUND the trim. Leaving a thin black line when the masking was removed and the trim moved a smidge. 

 

Large chain main dealers are awful. Full stop.

[Nemesis]

22 hours ago, Blatman said:

That's pretty poor. Yes I heard them use the lance as a scraper. I was open mouthed when I saw/heard it. I'm not surprised you boiled over, especially as they don't seem to have done anything right so far. What a bunch of muppets.

 

Some of my more choice comments at the meeting with the Dealer Principle & Service Manager were met with stunned silence, I had told the DP in the presence of the SM about the tires the year before..... so following the video presentation the DP said "Well I don't know what to say", My reply was "you could start by telling me why he....(pointing one of my stubby fingers at the SM) has still got a job....." Stunned silence..... no useful reply at all, then I said to both of them "there's a simple fact here that can't be disputed, you either do this to the majority of your customers or you just hate me, it has to be one or the other because no one on this planet can be this unlucky" once again not a single audible reply. 

 

I asked if the guy who did the damage had been sacked, there was a stammered reply of "no", followed by mutterings under the breath of "he's not our employee to sack"

 

So that pretty much confirms the level of muppetry that they have attained, I don't know how much a new headlight and a paint job is and I'll bet the numpty with the pressure washer doesn't either.

 

Nem.......  

[jeff oakley]

Pretty shocking stuff there Nem. I would be escalating this to the manufacturer as well. Their customer service manager will hate this and a suitable comment about passing the video on to the Daily Mail ( you might have to practice the obligatory sad face and mention how much your house is worth) will have them falling over to help you and compensate.

 

I would be contacting the group MD as well his details are on Linkedin or just google as well to give him a chance to get involved, hard not to with video evidence.

 

The valet staff (hard to believe that is what they are) will be either self employed or they have contracted out the cleaning to a cheap company hence they cannot sack them. It might even be a national contract 

 

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

Happy New Year to all WSCC members. 

Time to remind members of M.O.T.C.O.'s Law of Universal Incompetence:

Quote

Motco's Law of Universal Incompetence:

"Always assume that the professional person, service operative, tradesperson, artisan, or other individual with whom you are dealing is incompetent unless, and until, they demonstrate to the contrary"

Follow this rule and you will rarely be disappointed. It applies to all walks of life from brain surgeons to garbage sorters, and lawyers to checkout operators. Members of this forum excepted, obviously.
 

 

[corsechris]

15 hours ago, Man On The Clapham Omnibus said:

Happy New Year to all WSCC members. 

Time to remind members of M.O.T.C.O.'s Law of Universal Incompetence:

 

 

Don't forget, they may in fact be perfectly competent, but just not give a ****.

[Man On The Clapham Omnibus]

True CC, but that doesn't invalidate The Law, but shows that it may have sub-clauses as yet defined. Mostly, though, it's true in my experience. Sod's and Murphy's Laws are fellow travellers. "If it can be done wrongly, it will be" and "...even if it was fitted correctly (as applicable) it will be faulty". DIY is the only answer.

[Lyonspride]

On 01/01/2020 at 19:52, jeff oakley said:

Pretty shocking stuff there Nem. I would be escalating this to the manufacturer as well. Their customer service manager will hate this and a suitable comment about passing the video on to the Daily Mail ( you might have to practice the obligatory sad face and mention how much your house is worth) will have them falling over to help you and compensate.

 

I would be contacting the group MD as well his details are on Linkedin or just google as well to give him a chance to get involved, hard not to with video evidence.

 

The valet staff (hard to believe that is what they are) will be either self employed or they have contracted out the cleaning to a cheap company hence they cannot sack them. It might even be a national contract 

 

Soon garages are going to start demanding that customers remove their dashcams OR they'll drop it into the small print that they can disable them on site for reasons of either "health and safety" or "data protection".

At a former workplace, when I recorded a manager trying to coax me into committing a gross misconduct (to get me fired), the company quickly banned recording devices in it's company policy.
 

[clansman]

EH and " good service" are never used in the same sentence, sadly had a bad experience with the Edinburgh dealership a few years back. Thankfully I got a full refund when I returned the car to them. I' wouldn't buy a coffee from any of their locations.  

[Blatman]

2 hours ago, Lyonspride said:

At a former workplace, when I recorded a manager trying to coax me into committing a gross misconduct (to get me fired), the company quickly banned recording devices in it's company policy.

 

Going against company policy can lead to disciplinary action for sure. But I learned recently that secretly recording or filming anyone anywhere is not an offence in Law (there is a distinction between Law and company policy) and this covertly gathered information IS admissible as evidence.

 

The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 regulates covert recordings made by public bodies such as the police and public authorities. However, there is no law which prohibits a member of the public from covertly recording a conversation or a meeting of which they are a part.

And further reading suggests the Law does not differentiate between video or audio recordings. It just says "recordings..." 

There are of course rules regarding obtaining the recording fairly, IE don't break the law or create situations of "entrapment" or where the recording violates privacy rights but substantially we can record anything we want. 

Company Policy may not want employees recording anything but that's a work place dispute not a legal one. The recording still might be allowed as evidence.