Vauxhall Dealer Scratched my Car

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Mark_Mark wrote: »

Your post seems to contradict itself. If it costs £700 to have it put back to the condition it went in. Why should he accept £150?

put into simple terms.


OP didn't have a show car finish on his car when it went into the dealerhip, although the paintwork was in tip top condition.


dealer makes mistake.


OP pays £700 to have show quality finish on the back of dealers mistake. making his car better than when it went into the dealership. having the car wet sanded flat, mopped, polished, mopped, waxed, treated with some expensive treatments that come in stages requiring you to return at key stages of the treatment to have it applied.


when to put it back to the condition before the dealership had would have only required a medium or light cutting paste, mopping with a medium grade pad, then mop with a fine grade pad, then waxed and mopped with a lambs wool pad making the cost significantly lower than what the OP elected and opted to pay for.


the OP is basically asking the dealership to pay for their mistake and all the extra's he opted to have done to achieve his desired show quality finish making it better than what it was pre dealership mistake.


its bit like you scratching my door and all it needs is a t-cut and its gone away, but pay for a full respray because it would make the whole car better and ask you to give me the cost of a full respray back for scratching my door.

force_ten

people seem to be a little confused here, and the post above seems to have got it wrong as well

the OP bought a new car last year and took it to a detailer for new car protection package, the detailr said the paint finish was poor and carried out full paint correction and treatment package cost £700 a year ago

car is only ever washed and top up treatments added by the detailer that carried out the work when car was new

car goes into dealers for first service at a year old, dealer gives the car a courtesy service wash and car comes back with swirl marks

there has been no mention on how much the correction of the new swirls will cost

Mark_Mark

atrixblue.-MFR-. wrote: »

put into simple terms.


OP didn't have a show car finish on his car when it went into the dealerhip, although the paintwork was in tip top condition.


dealer makes mistake.


OP pays £700 to have show quality finish on the back of dealers mistake. making his car better than when it went into the dealership. having the car wet sanded flat, mopped, polished, mopped, waxed, treated with some expensive treatments that come in stages requiring you to return at key stages of the treatment to have it applied.


when to put it back to the condition before the dealership had would have only required a medium or light cutting paste, mopping with a medium grade pad, then mop with a fine grade pad, then waxed and mopped with a lambs wool pad making the cost significantly lower than what the OP elected and opted to pay for.


the OP is basically asking the dealership to pay for their mistake and all the extra's he opted to have done to achieve his desired show quality finish making it better than what it was pre dealership mistake.


its bit like you scratching my door and all it needs is a t-cut and its gone away, but pay for a full respray because it would make the whole car better and ask you to give me the cost of a full respray back for scratching my door.

How do you know what condition his car was in, have you seen it? No.

mrmot

From your first post it would appear that the paintwork is now in a similar condition as it was when you collected the car new. I can't see the dealer saying that it's present condition is no worse than what they encounter on every car that they see. Part of their dealer standards would be to provide a service wash on every car going through the workshop, they could argue that they weren't told not to wash the car.

There's some reading here about a car that suffered some washing damage during a visit to the dealer:

http://www.jaguarforum.co.uk/f27/unluckiest-jaguar-owners-ever-we-now-have-ruined-car-4589.html

Post 396 on page 40, gives the courts verdict.

AdrianC

So lemme get this straight...

You bought a brand new car a year ago, have done virtually no miles in it, have had it professionally cleaned to a very high standard frequently - and reckon that the 0% finance means this makes financial sense... and then complain when your obsessively high standards are not reflected by the dealer? Oooookay. But that's another thread.

If the swirling in the paint is more minor than that example photo - then £700 is a ridiculous price to pay for rectification, not that 99.9% of the dealer's customers would find that swirling an issue anyway. They would want that "free wash" as part of the service. The dealer is not expected to be psychic when it comes to your unusual preferences. If the car has been professionally detailed regularly, then there _should_ be a thick coat of protective wax over all the paint. Any swirling from a single wash will only be in that wax. What you view as the "normal" clean will remove those marks without any extra work - so you've suffered no loss, so there's nothing material to be compensated for.

Oh, and whilst you give the brand of the car, you don't give the model. Is it a Corsa, by any chance?

nash1977

OCD does spring to mind (no offence intended).

IamNotAllowedToUseMyName

I think some of our wrinklies will be thinking that buying a new car and spending a fortune on cleaning and then driving only 2500 miles - possibly such a low mileage that you might trigger maintenance issues (our Golf has strange engine management code issues due to it flattening the battery due to lack of use - modern cars use significant battery when lying around, VW quoted 4 week battery life).

We had a partial respray on our Merc and within 3 days it got doored in a car park. Basically, you have to accept that a car used on the public roads will get chipped, scratched and get grit on it from rain, stuff drifting from building sites. The other thing is that you might be very proud of your car, but it is just a car, and the small claims court will consider what a reasonable person would expect, not what someone with unrealistic expectations wants to impose.

It is quite normal for garages to do courtesy cleans, and I can't ever remember being asked if I wanted it.

I remember a friend of my mum used to polish his car every week. In less than 18 months he needed a respray.

You should have bought second hand, saved massively over the list price even with a low mileage, and felt a little less precious about your car - you might actually enjoy owning it rather than stressing over it.

karlie88

OP....is your car a VXR8? I'm genuinely interested.

1886

OP... this is why I own a silver car

The swirls will be there for sure, it's a 2001 plate. I can't see them though lol

I've previously owned two black cars and will never, ever own another

rob7475

yammyr4 wrote: »

I am fully aware of the two bucket method, but as I don't have the equipment to use this method, I do not undertaking the cleaning myself. Neither would I use a automated car wash or one of the hand car wash stations that pop up all over the place. As stated I enlisted the washing of the car to the detailer who undertook the correction.

Are you being serious - what do you mean you don't have the equipment to wash your car using the two bucket method?

Here's what you need:

Water
Microfibre or lambswool wash mitt
Car shampoo (splash out and buy some decent stuff - probabley about £6 a bottle)
drying towel
Oh, almost forgot, you'll need two buckets too and possibly a grit guard if you really want to splash out.

If you want to do a proper job, get some good polish, a clay bar and some collinite 476 wax. The wax cost's £15 and a tin will still have plenty in it by the time you've got rid of the vauxhall (I've nothing against vauxhall, good cheap runabouts and I've owned 5 that I can remember over the years. I wouldn't be taking one to a detailer to be washed though).

I know it's your first new car but you need to get used to the fact that it's going to get scrathced over time. I remember when I got my first new car - within weeks it had small stone chips on the bonnet and I was gutted. You'll learn to get over it though