Ridgeway VW Newbury - my experience

[benny1703]

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[blower]

Sounds about right for a dealership dealing with a modded car.
You broke the golden rule when dropping your car off to a dealership - you must put stickynotes in places telling them what to do or not to do.
No point telling the service adviser as they rarely pass any useful info to the mechanics. I've learnt this from experience....don't want them to wash the car? - stick a big note on the steering wheel and on back window saying DO NOT WASH......same for your fog lights - DO NOT TURN ON, MAY CAUSE FIRE lol.

And yes, if anything is non genuine VW part, they will blame that for the problems......DSG gearbox juddering in 2nd? - that would be the non genuine wheel bolts.

[Roy_01]

That part of your foglights wasn't very smart of you but for the other stuff what a bunch of noobs over there.
Im glad im out of warranty and only go to vag skilled people for major services.
Did you also had non vw genuine wiper fluid?

[benny1703]

Oh yeah I know the fog lights wasn't smart but I had no idea they would have tried to turn them on when driving 10 meters into the garage from the car park. If I knew beforehand I would have let them know.

Shh don't tell anyone about the washer fluid. Let alone the non vw air in my tyres!

[xjay1337]

I had very similar levels of quality customer service from same VW dealer. Firstly when I went to take my old mK5 GTI in for warranty work on the front arches (rust). I also had the same on my old 1.9 and they were shit-cunts then too.

So after loads of stress fighting over what was basically 300 quid that is covered by their warranty ANYWAY they agreed, I was also getting bonnet and bumper painted while it was there.

However as I was thinking of selling the car at the time I didn't want to pay £480 to have a bonnet and bumper painted so told them not to bother. Then Shaun/Sean/Twatface (who is/was an estimator there) came out and said they wouldn't be doing the wings under warranty. So basically I was blackmailed. Anyway I was just like fuck it, do it so they did it and to be fair overall the job was OK but there was a run on one of the newley painted wings and it wasn't aligned properly.

I took it back to Ridgeway VW's paintshop and was perfectly polite and just said the job was fine overall but could these little things be looked at. I was told

"It's not a rolls royce"
"you are expecting too much"

i said with respect i was building the car to be one of the best of it's type with sorted paintwork etc and he said "well how can it be a show car with rust on the sills?"
(cos maybe i'd owned the car 2 months and was getting everything sorted in chunks?)

Apparently every panel on my GTI had been painted when it had not, the paint was all even, I had measured it with our paint measuring tool when I was working at a detailers, and also with VW's own paint depth gauge. Every panel was factory and the car had received no paintwork prior to this.

I was told that he (Shaun/Sean/Twatface) "didn't want me in [our] (VW's) car (courtesy car), and he was rude throughout.

I documented this on one of the VW forums where we have a long standing joke about PTLB - Poop through letter box - where you deposit a goopy substance through the letterbox of someone who deserves it. Completely joking of course.
Anyway someone said I should Poo through their letterbox and a few hours later I received a phone call from someone (I think it was an area manager?) pretty much demanding a "meeting" where we discuss the "serious threat to their building". I was fed up with them so basically told them to shove it.
I ended up re-aligning the wing myself (all just bolts on anyway) and living with the small paint run as it was quite low on the wing anyway so not very noticeable).

When I took my GTI in for a coil pack recall also, I came to collect the car to find out they'd done a "courtesy vehicle inspection" (I didn't want them to?) and a list of things which were "wrong" including a "rusty spring" (it's a spring, they get surface rust), cambelt not being done, it had, about 3 months prior, and a few other bits.

"That'll be £1650 for that work sir, WHEN would you like to book it in?"

Never. I will never deal with Ridgeway VW for anything other than parts, their service and paintwork department are awful and their customer service , from the members of staff I've dealt with at least , is awful.

The funniest thing was when a mate started working at Ridgeway VW paint system, apparently I was marked on their system as a "difficult customer" or something? hahahhahaha

[wigit]

Never been impressed by them in Newbury, dealer never gave me the time of day

Body repair centre is ludicrously expensive and their PDI down there ended up with them paying the wife £650 in compensation on the wife's R

That said Wantage and the new South Oxford have always been great and modification friendly but I always make a point of getting friendly with the service manager, that said i think the amount of business they have had helps unfortunately

On a plus side contact through VW side has secured me a M2 via their Bournemouth BMW dealer

[Lewis Miller]

Shame that it happened, guess it depends on the dealer as my sister has had problems with Letchworth VW where as I've had a great experience with VW Bedford (so far).

[Cuprabob]

One thing to remember is that everything your car goes into a dealer they do a "health check" no matter what work it's in for, so they check basic things like tyre tread depth and that there are no external bulbs out. It's really just touting for business but you have to be aware.

[benny1703]

Yeah I figured that out afterwards haha, I know from now on though. But never once did they tell me this even when I dropped it off that morning. Or when I got the brakes and air con services october/november time.

On the plus side my sunroof works again now (i didn't take it back to them, they haven't called me since that day which they say the would, to rebook it in)

[MrBarry123]

Hmm...

For balance, I've used (and continue to use) Ridgeway VW Newbury numerous times and they have been excellent every single time (my car's also modified).

If I had been the dealer, the moment the car started smoking as a result of a [potentially] dangerous modification you had made, I'd of insisted you remove the car from the premises. Without wanting to sound argumentative - as I'm sure you're a good guy, never meant any harm and, to be fair to you, you had tried to counter any potential damage - in the state that your car was in, it wasn't fit to be on the road.

Your example makes it very obvious why dealers don't like to work on modified cars. As soon as we start tinkering with our cars and change them from the manufacturer's specification, we have to expect some level of push-back from dealers as they're simply not equipped to deal with the scope of potential modifications the VAG scene puts out - to think anything else is naive. What we can't do is start moaning about said dealers when they do push-back.

To clarify, I do think owners of modified cars often get an overly harsh reception from dealers however we have to accept that's a risk we take when we decide the manufacturer's setup isn't quite as we like it.

Out of interest, did the sunroof just start working again or was a fix needed? If so, what was the fix?

ETA: You're local to me so do give me a flash if you see me. Mine's matte grey with a Cup spoiler.

[benny1703]

Oh yeah you've got to expect some form of hesitation from dealers as soon as you change the car. i'll use them for parts still although they've messed ordering parts up before haha but that's neither here nor there.

I also fully understand their reactions and give them credit for that, but there are ways of talking to and treating someone in a professional manner, this was not the case, which was the most frustrating part of it for me.

I would like to say I fixed it but it just started working again haha. maybe a stuck relay or something, no idea!

Awesome, i've seen you about before! was on foot though but your car was looking awesome

[MrBarry123]

Oh yeah you've got to expect some form of hesitation from dealers as soon as you change the car. i'll use them for parts still although they've messed ordering parts up before haha but that's neither here nor there.

I also fully understand their reactions and give them credit for that, but there are ways of talking to and treating someone in a professional manner, this was not the case, which was the most frustrating part of it for me.

I would like to say I fixed it but it just started working again haha. maybe a stuck relay or something, no idea!

Awesome, i've seen you about before! was on foot though but your car was looking awesome

I would agree with your point there. Regardless of what happened with your car whilst it was there, their responsibility to provide a good level of customer service wasn't diminished so it's disappointing to hear that they didn't treat you well.