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Any advice on dealing with dealers





Hi All

Unfortunately, my car needs to go back to the local renault dealer in York as it has rattles from 3 places in the dash board, a rattling passenger window and the air conditioning sensor where the light is is making a strange hum.

Im going to get it done under warranty, is there anything I need to do to activate the warranty with renault? I bought the car as an import 5 months ago.

Also is there anything I should watch out for with the dealers?

Cheers

Paul
 

GR7

  Shiny red R32


Paul, my experience of having warranty work done on an imported 172, was that the dealer noted the registration number and after the work was carried out I had to sign a document to say that the work had been done.

I dont know about others, but I am sure that you will get other replies.
 
  Renault Laguna Coupe


I doubt youll have any problems. Renault UK pay their dealers for carrying out warranty work, so the dealer is unlikely to give you any hassle.
 


I just had to sign a form when the work was done, same as girlracer said.

Its great having stuff fixed and then leaving without paying a penny. :D
 


Cheers all! Im dreading picking the car up and discovering how little has been fixed and what other things have been broken after reading some of the posts on here about renault dealers!
 


Its renault so expect terrible customer service.

However generally they sort warranty work without any questions. But if its borderline theirfault/yourfault expect a fight.
 


Thats why (even though I do love my little machine) Im gonna chop it in for a CTR when I get the chance.

Hype - dont forget we had to pay enough money for the car in the first place. Really, they should guarantee any problems for as long as you keep the car. Mind you, then no one would buy a new car and then all dealers would go out of business, and then so would the manufacturers, and.....
 

GR7

  Shiny red R32


Think you will find Honda dealers to be exactly the same as Renault!

It is just a dealer thing :eek: (except BMW)
 

GR7

  Shiny red R32


But I have to say that my nearest dealer, Abercromby Renault in Edinburgh are very good - friendly, courteous and helpful - so far!
 
  Leon Cupra


Most dealers are fine mate its just Renault UK who are t**sers. My car was away for 5 weeks when it had a new engine and box Renault UK took 4 weeks of f**king about to come to the conclusion that it was actualy no fault on my part. They gave the dealer the go ahead to replace the engine/gearbox and i had it back a week later, in my eyes it was realy out of RenaultWolverhamptons hands and the reson it took so long was that Renault UK were trying to get out of it. So to RenaultWolverhampton nice one:) and to Renault UK f**k OFF!!!:mad:



Tim.
 


I just got this reply from Renault UK after complaining about Reg Vardy in Sheffield and Renault Leeds:

Thank you for your recent e-mail I would like to apologise for my delay in responding to you.

Further to receipt of your letter I have been in contact with Reg Vardy in Sheffield regarding your concerns. Further to a conversation with the Service Manager he has advised me that they were unable to isolate the concerns you have currently listed as outstanding. While they are willing to undertake a further inspection of your car they have said they cannot make any commitment regarding these issues with the previous inspection in mind.

Unfortunately I am unable to offer an alternative solution at this time other than that the vehicle be booked into the Renault dealer of your choice in an effort to bring this matter to a close. We would expect any one of our dealers to fulfil the warranty commitment made to the car however this does also mean they must be able to find a warrantable fault if they are to fix it.

As I am sure you can appreciate it is very difficult for us to offer an opinion on a vehicle that we have not inspected and as such we are dependent on our dealer network in cases such as this. I am very sorry that to date this matter has not been resolved to your satisfaction and I very much hope that this can be done in the very near future.

I am sorry I cannot offer you a more direct solution at this time however hope that you can appreciate our position in this matter.

mmm, Renault seem to be masters at bullsh*t.... I am yet to reply to these nutters, but rest assured it will be a good un! Next step: Reject the car.....:(
 


Hi James. I actually find the reply from renault that you quote to be quite encouraging, not bullsh*t at all.

what they appear to be saying is..

your local dealer cant find a fault... we dont have facilities to do that.. we have dealers.. but.. take the car to ANY dealer, and if they find a fault, we will sort it. (or ensure its sorted)

what exactly is your basis of a warranty (fault) claim.. ?

Joe.
 


When I took my car in cos it didnt sound right, my local dealer was v friendly and helpful, they did get my name wrong, but Ill 4give them 4 that. :D
 


Ill give you one example. There is a severe creak from the steering wheel when turned lock to lock. Reg Vardy in Sheffield tightened some screwes up behind the contact plates for the horn/airbag, this didnt fix it. I have since been to Renault Leeds twice - the first time they did the same as Vardys, the second they said they had replaced the copper strips for the contacts. So, three trips to the dealers and still no fix!

I know that the creak is coming from the centre of the wheel, it sounds like the airbag unit rubbing on the plastic cover, it is not the contact plates as the dealer suggests. So, either the airbag and plastic cover need replacing (it may come as one unit) or the whole wheel. Something which after three dealer visits has not yet been done.... Ball ache or what.

On another note, I thought I had a serious suspension problem the other day. I had asked Leeds to check this out on the last visit but they said there was no time to do this. I thought I would have a look myself to see if there was anything loose or something like that.... Well, when I took the centre cover off, the locking nut dropped out onto the floor.... Those gimps hadnt tightened the bloody thing up....

There are a load more problems, which I am listing for the final visit to the dealers, most of which seem to be cropping up on this forum. Ill post the full list when it is finished.....
 


Kitchens Renault at Burnley have been excellent.

went in for gearbox snicking into 3rd for 4-3 downshift.. they put a lighter visc oil in and asked me to try it.. I did, it dont help.. they are having it again Monday to assess gearbox change.

I think thats a fair way to do business !!. they try something easy first, then look at plan b (your GP does it all the time !)

Am I annoyed that they didnt fix it first time..... nope.. sensible approach..

it may take a few trips, and good old sensible coversation, but they get there in the end....

if you are having problems, then ring Kitchens Burnley.. ask for Dave Blackadder and tell him I,( Joe Hanley) (Captn Slarty) recommended him.

If you also have a considerate approach, you will be happy..

I must admit to getting a bit fed up with some of the other anti renault posts... I have always found them bleeding excellent. I could have argued the toss about the driving position of the 172, but thats my problem, not theirs.. :sick:

some things are just the way it is.. a design feature lol..

if something that should work doesnt work, then they wil fix it.



Sorry for you guys that have had a bad experience, but I really do not think it is the norm.. we are a fairly close nit group here.. we are NOT representative of the renault clio community as a whole (just the lunatic fringe).. so what we see posted here is a microcosm of the overall experience..

Renault expect some negative.. u cant please all the people all o the time etc... butyou do not see the positive.... overall, they are no better or worse than other dealers... they see faults from enthusiastic owners that the vast majority accept... they obviosly (IMHO) wont rush to fix it as it dont seem broke in a lot of peoples eyes..

its a phylosophy really...

Dont mean to sound to be in Sermon mode lol... just that customer service is designed, and taylored, to the needs of the masses in a shifting consumer base..

Cs.
 


I do alot of this QA stuff, and its given that ANYTHING mechanical will fail. QA and customer service is all about admitting there is a problem and fixing it, and ensuring it doesnt happen again.

The problem, highlighted by the number of peeps buying imports, is that we in Britain will no longer pay high prices for sh*t, and thus are more intolerant of crap service.
 


And indeed, rattles and squeaks constitute crap service. The manufacturers only saddle us with cars that sound like a skeleton w**king in a tin can cause we accepted it for years.
 

GR7

  Shiny red R32


Technicalman, dont you think that these days, people are not afraid of complaining, especially as consumer type programmes like Watchdog on the television encourage us to speak up when we have received less than satisfactory service, especially from car dealers.

Often there are troubleshooting articles in newspapers and car magazines about the level of service and faults in cars/warranty problems etc and Trading Standards would no doubt sort things out if necessary.
 
  1995 Mondeo Speed Machine


alot of dealers will try to go for a quick fix without actually solving the problem.

As one of the other posts said, sometimes its out of your local dealers hands whether they can get the necessary parts or not.

My dad had a similar experience when he was trying to get a new company car ( a Scenic). Initially his car mysteriously went missing and Renault UK couldnt find it, but somehow after spending about five minutes on the phone to the dealer my dad managed to locate it. (It was stored at a different dealership) Then three days before picking the car up he gets a phone call saying theres a problem with the stereo. Two weeks later and after many fruitless calls my dad decides to visit the dealership in Leicester where hes supposed to pick the car up from. Turns out the aerial lead is faulty; can they just swap the lead for one of the other Scenics on site that hasnt been sold?? "No we need to get a new part from Renault" Eventually, about six weeks after he was supposed to get it, the car is ready......................Only for the auto box to fail after 500 miles!!

Some of the problems are due to lack of communication, others are down to company policy. Unfortunately, theres not much you can do other than cause a fuss about it.

Rick
 


I agree with what Capn Slarty says about we see more problems on this list because of the nature of the people who use it.

I dont really agree with this if it rattles, turn the stereo up idea which has been floated around from time to time. At the end of the day, people pay a lot of money for cars and have the right to expect them to be rattle free and reliable. Sure, with thousands of cars sold, some of them are going to have problems, but you would expect it to be a very small number, and you would expect the dealers to be able to rectify the problems quickly and efficiently, i.e not requiring several visits to fix a problem.

I dont think the problem is limited to Renaults though. Many other dealers have the same problem.
 


My experience of my renault dealer was really good. I bought my clio in wakefield but i live in sheffield so thats the dealer i took it 2 for any work. a light came on on the dash board and it was really sluggish so i took it to the sheffield dealer as it was the closest one to me and the car was still under warranty. i picked the car up and the dealer had fixed that fault plus a load of things that were wrong that i did not even know about. i dreaded the bill but it didnt cost me anthing cus a penny cus of the warranty.
 


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