Am I expecting too much??

italiastar

Two years ago I spent £19,500 on a brand new car listing at £22,000. With 4 children I needed a Seat Alhambra (Galaxy with a diffrent badge).

It turned up with imbalanced wheels and damage to the sill where the dealer jacked it up incorrectly. The dealer got the front wheels balanced and I agreed not to bother about the sill as they'd cause more damage fixing it. The wheels were still out of balance, but this time the dealer said that this was not covered by the warranty - 1 ruck later and they arranged to get all 4 wheels balanced. They made arrangements for me to take it to their tyre repairer. I turned up as requested and they told me that they couldn't do it as someone had gone sick. We made arrangements for the following week - I turned up and they still couldn't do it because they were too busy. I drove to the dealer, had another ruck and they sent round a mobile tyre fitter to my house who did the job perfectly.

At 1 year they charged me £190 for an oil change. I mentioned that one of the rear doors needed to be pushed harder to close properly - the service manager said "what do you expect - this is not a hand built car - one rolls off the production line every 3 minutes!" The badges on the wheel trims were corroding (common on all VW derivatives) The same service manager said that they werenot covered by the warranty and there was nothing he could do. I complained to SEAT, they said the same - several more complaints and rucks with SEAT, they replaced them with two brand new sets of trims - I only wanted one!

Year 2 - the dealer wants to charge me £372 for the 2nd years service - basically an oil change, pollen filter and brake fluid change - the car's only done 12,500 miles. I took it to another local SEAT dealer who serviced it for £170 !! The airconditioning is not performing as it used two. SEAT recommend a re-gas after 3 years. I booked it into dealer no 2 who said that this would be covered by the warranty. I dropped it off tonight and a diffrent person said it was not covered as the aircon gas was regarded as a consumable, adding that it lasted between 0 and 6 years - at this point I'd add that my boss has a 1998 Primera with perfect air con and a friend of mine had a 15 year old BMW with the same - neither had theirs serviced.

The prognosis is not good - the car has a reputation for other known faults and before you say that's because it's a SEAT, the FORD and VW versions (Which are identical) get lower ratings on the BBC JD Power survey.

I'm thinking of getting rid out - the car which listed at £22,000 two years ago is now worth £13,000 on the private market..........

Please tell me, Am I expecting too much?

Stonk

You are not expecting too much for the dealer to fix under warranty things that should not have gone wrong, like doors not closing, bit corroding so soon, the unbalanced wheels it turned up with, etc. I also think you are not expecting too much for a simple service to cost a sensible amount of money (i.e., not nearly £400!).

I'm thinking of getting rid out - the car which listed at £22,000 two years ago is now worth £13,000 on the private market..........

Unfortunately, you are expecting too much if you thought your mass-produced car would hold more than 60% of its value after 2 years!

stripeyfox

Have you tried another garage. You don't have to use a dealer, no matter what they try and tell you about warranties etc. As long as the garage doing the work have qualified mechanics and use decent parts then it should not affect the warranty (which is usually worthless anyway)

IvanOpinion

In the past I have always made sure that everything on the car that is not exactly right is fixed under warranty. I have even managed to get the dealer to replace a pair of half worn front tyres because the tracking was badly off. You should have pushed to get the bodywork fixed (doors and cill) under warranty. Assuming the car was well looked after, washed weekly etc. then I reckon any form of corrosion in one year should be warranty (after all they are meant to have umpteen years of anti-corrosion warranty).

I think part of the problem with the every increasing cost of servicing is all the little 'must-have' accessories that are now fitted to cars as standard (either that or they are fitting gold plated parts). My new car, according to the price lists, will cost the following to service £180 (12,000), £240 (24,000) and £320 (36,000) - compare that to my trusty old Rover 220 that cost me £80 every 12,000 miles at KwikFit.

The only thing is that you will lose a fortune on a trade-in/sale ... they used to say that a car lost 25% of its value just by being driven out of the showroom.

Ivan