Anonymous

Terrible experience

Well a one star is being very kind to be fair. Ok so, after being with Vauxhall for over 17 Years. I advised them my car was having issues, my 63’ plate car that is! They advised that they will run a diagnostic for me. And this will cost £96 and if the issue is covered by the lifetime warranty then that would be fine and the charge would be waived. But if not then I would have to pay. I took the vehicle in 9:00am and they advised they would run this check. The report came back via video feed stating I had two leaking pipes including the turbo pipe and the coolant split and water pump leaking and an oil leak. So four leaks in total. Which in itself was strange as they (now Vauxhall’s Heathrow) only serviced this vehicle last November ?! The water pump is under warranty but however they were going to charge me just over £900 for the rest of the work. Now I’m not sure exactly how I could have damaged the pipes and caused them to leak but somehow they were not covered in the lifetime warranty. I suggested they repair the work covered by warranty and I would take the car to be checked by my friend who has a private independent garage to get a second opinion. They said that’s fine at 3pm. But yet by 3:30pm they called offering to deduct £130 off for them to do the repairs all there. This I found strange that they offered a discount half an hour later to do it there ? Suspicious. Anyhow I declined and I took it to my friends garage. At 6:15pm they called saying they won’t be doing any work at all and to take the vehicle back to my friends garage first and then they would repair the warranty work. This seemed extremely unprofessional and also slightly incompetent of them to then decide they cannot carry out any work on the vehicle and let me know more than 5 hours after I left the vehicle there. Costing me money in having to take taxis and disrupting my day. So I picked up my car. Then they demanded I pay the £96 diagnostic test fee. Which I was not happy with. They were almost holding my vehicle ransom before I pay. They would not allow me to even go to my car until I paid. I did pay anyhow. I took it to the garage. My friend checked it all. And he came back to me firstly stating how could Vauxhall’s engineers allow me to travel with this vehicle with zero water in the coolant box. They left it bone dry. Which could have severely damaged the vehicle and is in fact careless and dangerous. That is serious negligence on their behalf. It would have been common courtesy to either put some water in there or let me know it was totally empty before driving. How disgusting! My friend also advised that it’s only the coolant box that has split and the oil leak was due to a small plastic cylinder which was loose. Which should not have even happened if that was properly checked during the service. So in fact there were two issues with the vehicle and not four as they stated. He was actually so angry that they misdiagnosed the inspection and especially after asking me and demanding I pay the £96 for the diagnostic test! He demanded to see the Service manager. He seemed to have no answers so he took him to the workshop to speak to the actual technician who performed the inspection. After a few words being exchanged the technician actually threatened my mechanic friend to which the manager didn’t seem to say much. Plus they admitted they do not fully check all parts but yet then how can they categorically state that I had four leaks in different pipes if they could not even see it. So they simply presumed and then wanted to charge me over £900 for their guess work. Charming !! So Basically they misdiagnosed my car and then wanted to charge me over £900 for work that was not needed. Head office wanted nothing to do with it when I complained. So they bully their customers into getting work that may not ever be needed and plus actually needed due to their own incompetence and negligence as they are the only people who service my vehicle. I will never use NowVauxhall again. And I definitely understand why many people do not use them. Unfair service and treatment. Will not be sticking with Vauxhall.