mwcf said:

I should add the following by way of further feedback that might be helpful to other forum members/Panda owners who look in here.

Arnold Clark at Salford (from whom I bought the first faulty gearbox car) have been good to deal with about this. I don't feel that they've tried to 'fob me off' at all. I feel that the Fiat Sales Manager and the dealership General Manager have always taken my calls and been willing to talk to me and let me air my grievances. Emails have always been responded to straight away or at worst the same day. So fair play to Arnold Clark at Salford.

S. G. Petch Fiat dealership at Middlesbrough (who've dealt with the gearbox problems - i.e. replaced the original gearbox and since then also replaced the new replacement gearbox too…) have been exemplary in all respects. Calls always answered and returned. Very friendly and as helpful throughout all of this as they could have been - even though I didn't buy the car from then (shouldn't make a difference but we all know in the real world it often does…). Fait Panda courtesy car provided throughout.

Fiat Customer Care…. Well…. very slow off the mark - took a week just to allocate me a case number and a further week of constant phoning before I eventually got a call back from my case manager. Whilst very pleasant, all my case manager really told me was that the contract for me buying the car was (as I already knew) between myself and Arnold Clark and that as such (and what I didn't already know, although I suppose I should have done with hindsight) Fiat Customer Care could not authorise any refund or replacement car. (Also; apparently the biggest financial gesture Fiat Customer Care can make to compensate a customer for inconvenience and disappointment and such is £250-00 which I consider rather poor.) I never received acknowledgement of receipt of any of my emails, with them further insisting a couple of my emails to them had never made it through...

I then seemed to begin to become embroiled in being in the middle of Arnold Clark, Fiat Customer Care and S G Petch all needing to confer/discuss with/between themselves with the whole thing looking like being lumberingly slow beyond belief as a result. At that point I said to Arnold Clark exactly what Fiat Customer Care had told me i.e. the contract was between them and me, and if they were looking to get support from Fiat in this matter (to cover their loss given that Fiat had supplied them with a defective car) then that was for them to sort out afterwards rather than me being further inconvenienced in the meantime. To be fair, they broadly agreed and got on with sorting this matter out as it now has been.

So; all in all, 10/10 for both Arnold Clark and S G Petch, and 4/10 for Fiat Customer Care.

So looking forward to getting the replacement car and putting all of this behind me!

Best regards to all,

Mike

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