Motor Ombudsman Advice

sambobo

Im seeking some help from MSE on a 'case' with a new VW polo. in short, I have a new polo on PCP with 18 months left on finance contract. The flywheel has failed and the car is practically undrivable. VW promise to give courtesy car or drive you to work on website but in reality they are not providing that service and Im left to find my own transport (hire/borrow car). VW are blaming motorline (VW franchise) and ~Motorline are blaming VW. meanwhile my car is off the road for two weeks until it can be diagnosed and repaired at motorline garage. Im taking up the matter with the ombudsman on advice of the vw customer service rep. but i thought i would check on MSE for advice first. I think that VW should not be able to advertise a feature of a car at point of sale and then not supply that feature when it is required. is this False Advertising or breach of contract? and what kind of compensation should i demand/expect?

sambobo

Here is the draft letter to ombudsman. I put in separate post because otherwise it is too long to read but says everything that happened. (names/numbers removed at this stage for this forum)

Edited after BeenThroughItAllComments
1. I purchased the VW Polo brand new from Motorline Gatwick VW on PCP in October 2014 and have had no problem with car until taking it in for a routine service on August 1st 2016.

2. 1/8/16. At the routine service the service advisor said that my car would be in breach of warranty if I did not pay for an additional Air Conditioning service. I asked for a courtesy car but was informed that no courtesy car available at VW Gatwick, I was offered a lift to work which I accepted.

3. 3/3/17. On the next hot day since the AC service, I noticed the AC was once again not working and called to arrange the next available booking which was in 4 weeks. It was very distressing for me to have no Air Conditioning for this amount of time; a huge inconvenience.

4. 7/4/17. I returned the car for rectifying the air conditioning problem four weeks after booking the car into the garage. Again after asking I was informed that no courtesy cars were available. Additionally, no refund was given for the Air Con Service which had failed in August the previous year. This was at vw Gatwick motorline, the same garage as I had purchased my car from. I was informed that there had been a valve failure somewhere in the AC.

5. 26/05/17. On the first hot day since the second Air Conditioning “repair” I found that the AC in the car was not functioning again. It was 29 degrees Celsius outside and the Air conditioning appeared to be functioning intermittently but not effective enough to lower the internal temperature of the car.

6. 28/05/17. The following morning the car suffered a breakdown. This is still the case on the day of writing this letter, the car will not go into gear with clutch operation.

7. 01/06/17. At my earliest convenience when the garage was open, I took my car to the Motorline VW garage. Here the issue was diagnosed as a flywheel problem immediately during an inspection performed by the head mechanic at VW Gatwick. The head mechanic then passed me to A Watts, Trainee Service Advisor, who booked my car in for inspection into the extent of the damage to other parts of the transmission and repair on 8/6/17.
The Trainee service advisor asked me if I wanted to be driven to work and I said yes. I then asked how soon the driver could drop me off (the context here is that I assumed that I would have to wait for around 30 minutes for the VW driver to get ready before he dropped me at my work place on the same day) but the Trainee services advisor told me that he had booked my lift to work 8 days from now. He then informed me that I was supposed to drive my car away and then return on 8/6/16 at which point I would then get a lift from VW to work. Again a running theme that a Courtesy car not offered even though it is a VW service “promise” and advertised to potential customers as a bonus of purchasing a new VW.
To Summarise the above:
8. No Courtesy car was offered.
9. No drive to work or home was offered for 8 days.
10. Drive to work offered 8 days after the event. (far too late to be convenient)

11. 01/06/17. On the same day I called the Motorline Gatwick VW dealer to demand a courtesy car but they said I would have to wait for 28 days before the next one became available. Of course this would be far too late to be convenient or useful. After I complained over the phone that the dealers were not providing the services that I was advertised before I purchased the car, they exclaimed that the Motorline Gatwick was “only a franchise” so they are not obliged to fulfil the all of the VW website advertised “promises”.

13. 01/06/17. I immediately called the main VW customer services (Milton Keynes) who attempted to get me to arrange taking car to another garage “Caffyns” in Hawyards Heath. Caffyns said the exact same things as the Gatwick garage, they would not be able to book my car in for repairs for 2 weeks and they did not have any courtesy cars available for 28 days and they would not be driving me to work or home and that they were “only a franchise” so were also not obliged to fulfil the all of the VW website advertised “promises”.

14. 01/06/17. I immediately returned the call to main VW customer services at Milton Keynes and Victor informed me that they couldn’t do anything apart from raise a "case". I was very upset to learn that they would not be fulfilling the promise on the website to provide a courtesy car or provide lifts to work or home either. He said I would have to wait until after the diagnosis. I explained clearly that I had already taken my car into the garage and it had already been diagnosed. After the conversation going around in circles a few times, I agreed to raising a “case”; VW Case number: 448354.

15. 01/06/17. After deliberating this matter further, and finding time in-between meetings a work, which incidentally I was late to because I did not have driveable transport, I made a further call to the main VW Customer services in Milton Keynes. I asked for VW to provide compensation for hiring a car or using public transport if they could not provide a courtesy car or drive me to work. I wanted to check that they would pay for the hire car before I went ahead and booked one. The customer service rep refused to allow this so I asked for this point to be added to the “case”. I cannot afford a hire car with my own finances so I will be missing social events over the weekend and accruing debt to pay for public transport to get to work during next week until the booked repairs 8th June at Gatwick and continuing during the duration of the repairs, this is very inconvenient to me.

16. 01/06/17. After a few hours had passed I had searched google to see if it was safe to drive a car with faults. From the search results I could determine that the Flywheel problem could cause further strain and unusual wear and even catastrophic damage to other parts of the transmission and indirectly increased wear on the brakes due to having to change the driving style to make the vehicle move under the conditions. I was keen for VW to confirm that, since a manufacturing defect would be the cause of excessive wear to the car (i.e. not normal wear and tear), they would extend the warranty to cover the effected parts if they were not immediately diagnosed and repaired during the repair works by the Gatwick garage. During the Call to main VW customer services of Milton Keynes the customer service rep said I should not have been allowed to drive away in my car from the Gatwick garage due to safety concerns, I agree. I then asked for an extended warranty to cover brakes and other components in the car which will have been exposed to excessive wear caused by the flywheel issue but a catastrophic failure will likely occur just outside of the 3 year period and me (the customer) will be forced to pay because it is outside of warranty, even though it was clearly caused by manufacturing defect. The customer service rep said that this was very unlikely, so I asked for this also to be added as a note on the Case mentioned above. I do not think it is unreasonable for a customer to get what they pay for and I think it is illegal not to.

18. 02/06/17. The next day, Amy, the Case manager from VW main customer services in Milton Keynes, called me and said my only option was to use my 'breakdown assistance' to drive me around to work and appointments. I was very surprised at this suggestion and I said that the breakdown assistance purpose was to get me moving in the event of a breakdown or take me to the nearest garage. She said that she was not fully aware what a breakdown assistance was but that was my only option as VW would not be providing me with a courtesy car or driving me to work. I said that clearly the breakdown is not a taxi service. She said that she didn't believe that vw were obliged to fulfil the promise on their website regarding promise of courtesy car or a lift to work, therefore, I said I would like to pursue the “case” and she said that the only option now was to contact the Motor Ombudsman. She also confirmed that she would be sending the details of the case to my email address but that has not come through yet. Apparently the email is being assessed with the quality team.

Additional Notes.
As far as I can see, failing to fulfil the promise advertised on the main VW website is false advertising; therefore, the car I purchased was not advertised correctly at the time of purchase. I, the customer, have not received the package as advertised which I was led to believe I am paying PCP for. The advert was located at link below at the time I purchased the car:
“address remove for MSE forum” Web Archive of VW website from September 2014
and can still be seen on the website here:
“address removed for MSE forum” volkswagen uk/owners/servicing/service-promise
Quote from the VW websites above:
"A range of convenience services to suit your needs
We promise to help you get on with your life. You can take a courtesy car; we can pick up and drop
our car back to you or even give you a lift into work, home or town. Just tell us which you’d prefer
and we’ll sort it out."

Before taking the Car to the VW garage, I had an independent VW expert explain that the Air Conditioning not working is very often caused by flywheel problems rather than the valves as the VW gatwick had lead me to believe at garage during the ‘repair’ to the Air conditioning, hence the reason the AC is still not working today. And this points to the fact that the Flywheel was overlooked during services paid for by me, the customer, and during additional checks of the Air Conditioning problems.

Before I purchased this car I had a perfectly adequate (but old) vehicle and there were only two reasons to buy the new car which were:
1. AC beneficial over previous vehicle without ac.
2. VW promise to provide courtesy car and new car under warranty gives peace of mind (i.e. A new car should be more reliable)

Both of these two driving forces to purchase the new vehicle have failed and due to the poor service reaction from VW I view this as a breach of the PCP contract.

In terms of resolution, I will accept one or more of the following responses from VW or Motorline:

A. Full refund for finance paid to VW to date to the sum of £6,355.00. Justified because the customer did not receive what was originally advertised under a PCP contract for all of the time until now. The customer assumes that VW will also begin to fulfil all promises to the customer after this case is settled.

B. No refund to customer and VW provide a completely new car for the remaining months of PCP contract with the customer continuing the same terms and VW cover the costs of changing insurance providers; approx. £300.00. This has the same justification as option A but additionally this resolves the issue of covering the other excessively worn parts of the car as a result of the flywheel manufacturing defect. It would be hugely unfair to force the customer to pay for failures of parts when the warranty ends but the root cause of the future failures occurred during the warranty period.


c.1. VW compensate the customer for hiring a car during the time the car is undriveable £GoodWill AND
2. compensate the customer fully for All the months where the AC has not been functioning since the 'AC service' £820 AND
3. the price of the service which broke the car should be refunded £271.92 (04/07/17)+£63.80 (01/08/16) AND
4. VW replace brakes and transmission in addition to any other findings during repair. AND
5. VW extend the warranty to cover all other clutch, transmission and brakes and any other components which could have become weak due to flywheel defect issues until the end of my contract. regardless of the fact that clutch and brakes are normally exempt from warranty.
Option C also has the same justification as option B.

DUTR

sambobo wrote: »

Im seeking some help from MSE on a 'case' with a new VW polo. in short, I have a new polo on PCP with 18 months left on finance contract. The flywheel has failed and the car is practically undrivable. VW promise to give courtesy car or drive you to work on website but in reality they are not providing that service and Im left to find my own transport (hire/borrow car). VW are blaming motorline (VW franchise) and ~Motorline are blaming VW. meanwhile my car is off the road for two weeks until it can be diagnosed and repaired at motorline garage. Im taking up the matter with the ombudsman on advice of the vw customer service rep. but i thought i would check on MSE for advice first. I think that VW should not be able to advertise a feature of a car at point of sale and then not supply that feature when it is required. is this False Advertising or breach of contract? and what kind of compensation should i demand/expect?

Personally I feel you have misunderstood the courtesy car thing, some centres offer a car subject to availabilty and there is a small indemnity to pay, you still have to ask though.

2 weeks to get to diagnose a fault seems awfully long,surely it's a warranty claim?
The claim is sought by the service centre after their diagnosis.

debtdebt

How old was the car when you bought it and what miles?

So you specifically bought a new car because you wanted working AC and promise of a courtesy car if it broke down? Surely it would have been cheaper to fix the AC on your old car?

Flywheel going on a car will probably be deemed wear and tear and not covered under warranty.

loskie

when my Volvo alternator failed. Not only did they fix it FOC but Volvo Assist provided me with a hire car from Enterprise as it was over Christmas this was much needed. I wasn't given a Volvo but a BMW 320d. VW should be doing similar with you too.

DUTR

loskie wrote: »

when my Volvo alternator failed. Not only did they fix it FOC but Volvo Assist provided me with a hire car from Enterprise as it was over Christmas this was much needed. I wasn't given a Volvo but a BMW 320d. VW should be doing similar with you too.

They should or could?
The OP didn't answer the other poster's question about if the car was brand new when purchased. VW do offer a courtesy car even for a service, but there is/was a £12 insurance fee to be paid, sometimes they waive it.

sambobo

Personally I feel you have misunderstood the courtesy car thing, some centres offer a car subject to availabilty and there is a small indemnity to pay, you still have to ask though.

2 weeks to get to diagnose a fault seems awfully long,surely it's a warranty claim?
The claim is sought by the service centre after their diagnosis.

Thanks for your contribution, I consider a courtesy car as a way for the garage to keep you moving when your car is not drivable. And yes if they needed me to pay a small amount for insurance waiver then i would consider that. I asked for one and they said no cars available for 28 days. I told them they obviously dont have enough cars. In any case if they dont have the courtesy car available then they still have the 'promise' on the vw website that they will keep me moving by driving me to work or home but they refused that as well.

I think they will take 8 days to diagnose the problem then another couple of 'working' days to carry out the repairs.

BeenThroughItAll

If you're intending to send that wall of guff to an ombudsman, I'd try translating it into some kind of coherent story, as a bulleted list of out-of-context sentences is incredibly difficult to read and understand.

sambobo

How old was the car when you bought it and what miles?

Brand new VW POLO in oct 14. and currently on 40000 miles. The Warranty will last until Oct 17 and 60K miles. I will still be on the PCP contract until november 18.

So you specifically bought a new car because you wanted working AC and promise of a courtesy car if it broke down? Surely it would have been cheaper to fix the AC on your old car?

The number 1 factor in selecting a transport choice is the cost to me. After making spreadsheets to compare keeping my previous car (a 2003 Transit Van), a 3 year old Mercedes, and a brand new POLO, the cost to me was actually even when considering cost of insurance, mpg, repairs tyres etc, servicing, tax.

The number 2 factor is the reliability in getting me to work every day. Van clearly last, Mercedes could be more reliable, but a new car with promise of 'we will keep you moving' was the obvious winner.

Other things such as efficiency, looks/appearance, practicality/size, electric windows etc I consider 'nice to have' but these things do not sway the choice of a good MSE!

My old van had good old fashioned blowers which never failed - but no AC.

Flywheel going on a car will probably be deemed wear and tear and not covered under warranty.

I checked this and the Clutch is exempt from warranty but flywheel is not mentioned in my warranty. Additionally the head mechanic who diagnosed my Polo last thursday said that not to worry as this would be under warranty. Note, the warranty says the clutch is exempt from warranty UNLESS there is evidence that a manufacturing defect has caused it to fail. i.e. the flywheel failing during warranty failed and has caused damage to the clutch (and probably other items in the transmission)

Thanks for the response!

sambobo

when my Volvo alternator failed. Not only did they fix it FOC but Volvo Assist provided me with a hire car from Enterprise as it was over Christmas this was much needed. I wasn't given a Volvo but a BMW 320d. VW should be doing similar with you too.

Exactly, before buying this car i checked with everyone i could find who had purchased a car under PCP and they all said this same story. One guy who had a BMW at work even had a team of BMW mechanics arrive in 2 vans to our work car park to fix his 3 series AND brought along a brand new I8 just in case they couldnt get it working again and this was 30 minutes after he phoned them. I have also heard similar sounding stories from people who drive nissans, fords and hyundai so its not just 'luxury' car drivers like yourself who get courtesy cars.

sambobo

If you're intending to send that wall of guff to an ombudsman, I'd try translating it into some kind of coherent story, as a bulleted list of out-of-context sentences is incredibly difficult to read and understand.

Glad its only a wall of guff and not a full on pile of poo.
This is exactly why i came to MSE first thanks for the advice i will embellish with some context and then perhaps you can comment again for me if I post it up again.