dont write off independants for servicing.
however why not give your nearest dealer a chance?this threads a year old and a lot can change in that time.
some dealers have turned things around

Irish Fiat Dealer: Ambrose glass motors, kilternan
ordered water pump for cinc gave him chassis number and was given wrong pump went to return it when I had a weekday off, bloke i was dealing with had admitted responsibility for the mistake and said to return it when I got a chance but since then he has left the co. Was made aware of a seven day return policy and was told I did not give a chassis number, I insisted that I did and was told that I did'nt. I'm not too impressed with 1:being given the wrong pump 2:them making me out to be a lier in front of other customers. My advice is to stay away from this company.

Thankfully I have a good one here in south wales L.C.Motors in Newport Gwent my Panda went in this morning because I was getting a metallic knock coming from the back end of the car on bumpy surfaces thinking it was gong to be a right pain in the butt to find I took the new DET they have there out for a drive so he could hopefully shed some light on it he thought first of all it might be rear shock bush and they have had some panda's in with leaking shocks but one hour later he came out with a big smile on his face and handing me the keys :slayer: he found that the rear tailgate was slightly out of line and had worn through the rubber seal around the opening in the tailgate and there was metal to metal contact on ruff roads ..one new rubber seal and a realignment and the job was a good un :worship: gotta give it to him I would have never even thought about that as a possible fix ..well done to all at L.C. Motors and for my warranty :devil:

Never though anyone could make research nuneaton look good. Here was me thinking they were a useless shower but by comparison they are pretty good. The only gripe I had was that it took them far too many attempts to fix an errant airbag warning light that was being caused by the wiring loom being caught when the glovebox opened and closed. All they were doing was resetting the light not fixing the fault. And last time I dropped my car off there for work the service manager got someone to run me home in a demonstrator car and they dropped it back off at home for me when it was finished. Can'r argue with that.

Stoneacre Fiat in Doncaster. They were very unhelpful and couldn't even be bothered to come and look at my car last time i took it. Think its because im only young, they probably dont take me seriously.

Oh yeah and for my last punto i needed a wheel trim, he told me i had a certain type of trim and he went to get it to show me and i said it was different and he said it wasn't and refused to go get the other design for me until i made him come and look at the car. . . he didn't bother to put my reg into computer either to check, ignorant b a s t a r d.

philmgro said:

Avoid Reg Vardy's Springburn Road Glasgow and especially condescending, patronising, slimebag Martin on the service counter. He seems incapable of opening his mouth without uttering untruths and nonsense.

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Ah yes, brings back fond memories of when that was my local Fiat dealer for a year or two. The driver side suspension control arm was busted on my stilo. I ordered a new one my self to save the "yes it's broke, we'll order a new one, please take another day off to bring it back when we've got the part" routine.

So they had the car for a few hours, then told me it was fine no problems with the arm at all, and gave me my unneeded arm (no refund available). So perplexed as I was I invited the now curious bystanders in the waiting room to come inspect they're handy work. Got in car, rotated wheel, and behold, we have a suspension arm resting on the guard plate, with the strut going right through the busted rubber bush. The curious bystanders weren't impressed, and the previously gloating service desk guy looked like a right ****...

Needless to say that was the last time I went there. The time before that they did the brakes, and I lost all brake pressure on the way home. Had to use the handbrake to stop and pump the brakes for a while, then it seemed to get better. It was a friday evening, perhaps they were in a hurry?

T14086 said:

"Arnold Clark have a "monpoly" in Scotland"

No they dont,there are other dealers,i.e. Bicketts in Kilmarnock etc.

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There's also Parks of Hamilton / East Kilbride which were as bad as the rest.

I'm trailing AC's in Dundee at the moment after a brief (trouble free) run with AC dunfermline. Dunfermline replaced by inside door panel for a meager 256 quid. And doing the timing belt and timing Variator for 450. Nice chaps they were, always looked happy...

Dundee are off to a flying start by cracking my windscreen while replacing a busted wiper linkage, all for 186 quid. At least they were kind enough to provide a courtesy car. But only after thinking it would be fine to drive for a couple of days, then reversing it out the garage and changing there mind and phoning me back. I wonder what happened? I will give them a second chance, you can't blame them for an apprentice using the old Glasgow screwdriver in the plastic trim...

euan said:

Dundee are off to a flying start by cracking my windscreen while replacing a busted wiper linkage, all for 186 quid. At least they were kind enough to provide a courtesy car. But only after thinking it would be fine to drive for a couple of days, then reversing it out the garage and changing there mind and phoning me back. I wonder what happened? I will give them a second chance, you can't blame them for an apprentice using the old Glasgow screwdriver in the plastic trim...

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I've cracked a windscreen aswell (so has another tech).... these things happen.You have to expect a few things going wrong after all 30-40 cars go through workshop everyday.

I find if you are honest with customer & admit that you had a accident,give them a courtesy car for a day that they are fine & understanding.They come back aswell as you showed your were honest & done your best to minimise inconvience.

DESIRA, GREAT YARMOUTH.

Probably safer to avoid the whole group judging by the treatment we have had.
A Fiat Stylo went in eight weeks ago for a cambelt replacement as the car has done a few miles and we did not need a broken cambelt.
It came out like a sounding like a can of nails, twice ,and they drove it for about twenty miles each time to deliver it and said it was OK.
It's now been in for the last eleven days and still they can't fix it.
Not even the Group MD seems to be interested although they have apparently sacked the mechanic who did it.
You always have to chase them for progress and they don't return calls.
Wouldn't let them pump a tyre up again.

Well, not like there are many from Oz here, but in case there are, don't go anywhere near Rick Damelian at Leichhardt - fooking bunch of ignorant monkeys

I`m not sure I like the length of this thread, I mean it dates back nearly 6 years
and it seems unfair to dealers who made mistakes/bad service done years ago..

Staff will have changed, new managers techs etc. It just seems sad to me when Fiat and the dealerships have made big efforts to change and they seem damned and locked into a thread that is kept fresh by recent comments.

Sure, I`m all for recent comments, but don`t you think its time to give some of the dealerships in the older comments a break by splitting the thread at 18 months or so?
Regards

Evans Halshaw Fiat Lowe lane Horsforth Leeds

Never heard of customer service, expensive, technically incompetent.

stilovanman1 said:

Evans Halshaw Fiat Lowe lane Horsforth Leeds

Never heard of customer service, expensive, technically incompetent.

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Recommended then

Not sure I agree with the principles of this thread. It simply does not follow that if you have issues with a certain dealer everyone else that uses them will, if that was the case the dealer would be out of buisness in weeks! 12 months ago the service my dealer provided was appaling, since then they have appointed an Aftersales service manager and things seem to be slowly improving, certainly from my experience and point of view. If someone asked for my honest opinion of ******** I would say....try them, if you dont like what you get go somewhere else and take the same chance. Nor would I refuse to use a particular dealer based on someone elses "horror story".

Despite major issues in the past (now resolved) I have every intention of using my supplying dealer for as long as I own the GP, I dont want to waste my time driving all over the NW looking for the "Perfect dealer" (if they do indeed exisist). If I am not happy about what I get I tell them, if I am happy with what I get I also tell them. I think too many people accept what they are told without question and allow themselves to be fobbed off by dealers without having the confidence to confront them. If you can raise dealer related issues and complaints here in the forum why cant you raise the same issues with them face to face?

sledge said:

If you can raise dealer related issues and complaints here in the forum why cant you raise the same issues with them face to face?

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because were British & like to moan.....petrol prices,council tax,house prices etc yet we do f%ck all about it.

CORRECT, no-one moans like the Brits and no-one has less wilingness to do anything about their issues like the Brits.

My view is that dealers who dont deliver can be dealt with by the individual concerned if they are prepared to do something about it.

I have heard so many people moaning about car dealers and the poor service they have had...my question is always ...so what have you done about it?....the answer is nearly always.....nothing!......my conclusion: Stop bloody moaning to me then and go and do something about it.........and dont assume the same thing will happen if you go back.

You go into a shop,get served by someone who helps you in every way they can....result you go back there but what if you get someone rude/arrogant next time....do you go back?

Not exactly the same but you can see similarties in motor trade wether its receptionist or tech working on your car.

I have always stated 'talk to tech who will be working on your car' this serves many purposes....
a) you have immediately built a 'working' relationship. Be friendly in return to the tech & finish with "cheers mate i'll talk to you when I get back"
Immediately tech knows he will 'face' you after carring out the work & will therefore put that extra bit of effort in....& wipe of oily fingerprints
b) You can supply tech with the best info on the fault insteard of the tech getting it third/fourth hand!
c) If your happy afterwards thank the tech.No need for chocolates,bribes or flowers just a simple thanks works wonders.
d) Next time your there ask to speak to same tech (he will remember you as he will only get one or two thanks throughout the year if he's lucky) & so the circle carries on,result customer happy

If I have a bad experience, I will deal with the person responsible face to face but sometimes face to face dealings yield no result no matter what. If they did, it would mean that the planet Earth had been transformed into some sort of world of make-believe.

Can I just ask too if anyone disagrees that one of the main and best features of the internet is information sharing? And that this forum and others like it are fantastic as we can all read about other Fiat owners experiences and get help and advice from other Fiat owners? - just a thought

Although I have enjoyed reading this post, at no point during it did I feel so integrated with the web and the other users on here that I felt they were 'bloody moaning to me' just because someone had annoyed them so much they decided to take the time to type out their experiences for others to read about! Also, I noticed that several similar posts/replies on this great site have stated in them that they DID talk face to face with their culprit. Sometimes it helped, sometimes it didn't.

If someone asked me for my honest opinion on a particular garage and dealer, my honest opinion would certainly be 'try them at your own risk', but along with that I would also tell them what experiences I had had, good or bad. And I would be honest.

On the BBC's 'The Office', Peter Purvis said that customers who have a good experience tell 3 people, customers who have a bad experience tell 10. Is that true or not? I certainly believe that if someone wants to be recommended to others, they will provide a good service and not jerk their customer around in the first place. Or the second and third place. :bang: (yes, like what has happened to me as well in the past and face to face dealings got me nowhere)

I agree with oilrag that this post should be split into two with 18 months being a good cut off point, but if that happens, shouldn't that also apply to ANY post which gives opinions and experiences on garages/dealers on here, if they exist? Oh, and this should certainly apply to garages that have been recommended for good work and service too. After all, is it not feasable that garages/dealers that were good 3 years ago might have had a deterioration in their service recently?

In defence of the dealers and Fiat, I think its far too easy to *name* a dealer and post negative comments on the forum. The fact that dealers are named in this thread from 6 years ago can hardly be helping them.

i`m all for freedom of speech, but the ability to post a `spoiler` here could usefully be looked at I think.
I mentioned before using IP addresses as a means of aspiring to more accountability. After all, If the dealer can be named and the issue is factual, why should a poster not be made more accountable in identity? If that`s a problem, then don`t name the dealer.

Its all too easy currently to hide behind mothers skirts and throw stones.

Perhaps a complete `no shaming` policy should be considered, or at least removing posts that could be considered libel.

surely if we want more actual dealerships on the forum, (giving help such as Stoneacre) the forum should be fairer and provide an environment in which dealerships would want to contribute?

Regards

hjf007 said:

Can I just ask too if anyone disagrees that one of the main and best features of the internet is information sharing?

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Its very helpful yes but on the other hand it can be counter productive,how can we be sure someone is telling the truth or we are getting the whole story.

I know for a fact some posters are not giving the whole truthful story,I have met some of these people yet the story they give here is not what actually happened after all its cool thesedays to slag garages/techs is it not?

There are many posters (no names mentioned) who 'hijack' other peoples threads just to get another moan at someone/car/tech/garage....in the end it solves nothing for anyone except become a annoyance.

I agree with the bad experience of a member tells 10 others but only tell 3 more if good experience but even if we do have a 'good garage/experience' thread it gets hijacked by the above mentioned people.Quite often these people do nothing to solve their problems despite good advice given,personal offers of help etc...again its that British 'we like to moan' mentality

oilrag said:

Its all too easy currently to hide behind mothers skirts and throw stones.

surely if we want more actual dealerships on the forum, (giving help such as Stoneacre) the forum should be fairer and provide an environment in which dealerships would want to contribute?

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Stoneacre did come onto the forum to help....in the end it ended up with a big argument/swearing and a rather embarresing(sp) situation for the stoneacre dealer in question.

T14086 said:

Stoneacre did come onto the forum to help....in the end it ended up with a big argument/swearing and a rather embarresing(sp) situation for the stoneacre dealer in question.

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But there is a member of one of the stoneacre that although may not be online very often does come on every now and again and always tries to offer discpounts and tries to be helpful when he can which is a credit to his particular branch.