Vauxhall charging under warranty?

thescouselander

motorguy wrote: »

No - the purpose of the charge is to cover the diagnostic time - ie, to determine where the problem lies, NOT to determine IF there is a problem.



"hello, my bluetooth doesnt seem to be working"
"ok, can you bring the car over and we'll take a look?"
(customer brings car over)
"yes, you're right, its not working"

........


This really doesnt seem to be that complicated to me? Not sure why you're struggling with it.

^^^^^ This. Basically this is what happened with the fault I had. The service manager came along with his phone, which he knew worked because he used it with his own car that day, and determined he couldn't connect his phone either. The car subsequently went in and had the suspect module changed under warranty and thus the car was repaired.

That's how it should work at a manufacturer backed dealer.

motorguy

thescouselander wrote: »

^^^^^ This. Basically this is what happened with the fault I had. The service manager came along with his phone, which he knew worked because he used it with his own car that day, and determined he couldn't connect his phone either. The car subsequently went in and had the suspect module changed under warranty and thus the car was repaired.

That's how it should work at a manufacturer backed dealer.

Yes - confirm fault if in doubt, then perform diagnostic check.

However, confirming there is a fault, is not performing the diagnostics.

Crabman

motorguy wrote: »

The bottom line is, dealers get stiffed in the middle. Customer comes in with some "problem" - theres diagnostic time and time in a repair bay to be paid for, and if it turns out to be a non warranty claim chances are the customer will go somewhere else for a cheapie repair.

I'd say the amount of times your typical dealer has had to check out stuff that turns out not to be a warranty claim ads up to a fair few ££££ over the course of a year.

Not necessarily - this only applies if the dealership's workshop bays are always at 100% occupancy due to paying customers. Or if the workshop staff are only paid when working on a vehicle. Only then would the presence of a customer returned vehicle in a bay represent an actual loss.

fred246

I had the same with a Ford under warranty. Pay a diagnostic fee in case they can't send a broken part back to the manufacturer. If they don't send a broken part back they won't get paid so the customer needs to pay. I told them I had a Ford warranty and I wasn't paying. They didn't argue. They fixed the problem but caused quite a lot of other damage at the same time. It makes you realize what a franchised dealer is. There has never been any independent research to show that a franchised dealer is better than an independent garage. Just because a garage puts up some posh signs from a manufacturer doesn't mean it is any better at mending your car.

motorguy

Crabman wrote: »

Not necessarily - this only applies if the dealership's workshop bays are always at 100% occupancy due to paying customers. Or if the workshop staff are only paid when working on a vehicle. Only then would the presence of a customer returned vehicle in a bay represent an actual loss.

This is that banal i'm at a loss as to where to start....

prowla

motorguy wrote: »

No - the purpose of the charge is to cover the diagnostic time - ie, to determine where the problem lies, NOT to determine IF there is a problem.

"hello, my bluetooth doesnt seem to be working"
"ok, can you bring the car over and we'll take a look?"
(customer brings car over)
"yes, you're right, its not working"

How is that diagnostics?

Yay! Diagnostic time costs money! :T

Yes, so:
(a) Determine whether there is a problem.
(b) Diagnose and fix it.

So, (b) would only be undertaken if (a) was ascertained. Therefore, since the system has been repaired under warranty, there would be no case for making a charge.

motorguy wrote: »

NOT NECESSARILY. The problem - and as was my point up front - it could be a problem with the O/Ps phone, or the phone might need re-paired - hence why the prospective charge IF it turns out not to be a warranty issue.

This really doesnt seem to be that complicated to me? Not sure why you're struggling with it.

In that case, (a) would ascertain that, and there would be no requirement for (b).

It's just a matter of looking at it logically.

prowla

motorguy wrote: »

Yes - confirm fault if in doubt, then perform diagnostic check.

However, confirming there is a fault, is not performing the diagnostics.

Precisely - if the fault is confirmed then it's on to diagnostics, etc., to get it fixed.

But then how can there be a charge to the customer to cover the possibility that there isn't a fault?

Crabman

motorguy wrote: »

This is that banal i'm at a loss as to where to start....

It's basic economics, but don't worry about it.

Something that may be easier to grasp - dealerships make more money from rejecting warranty claims (if they even submit them) and charging the customer for the part(s) (+ margin) + their full retail labour rate, than actually carrying out a warranty repair for which the manufacturer pays them far less than their retail labour rate and without a margin on the part(s).

This doesn't apply to all dealerships but we both know there is no shortage of rogue traders among dealerships.

GabbaGabbaHey

motorguy wrote: »

Also, what you experience of the fault, described to the service admin, who then summarises it to one line on a job card may end up mean diddly to the mechanic who has to interpret it.

A service advisor is (supposedly) there to add value, by reducing the amount of mechanic's time spent interacting with customers.

However, if the SA doesn't relay the full set of information provided by the customer to the mechanic who will be working on the vehicle, they don't deserve to have a job. And if the issue is that the job card or other parts of the process don't allow the SA to record the full information, then any garage who operates such an inefficient process deserves to go out of business.