Comedy Fiat dealer!

[Nuova500]

On Wednesday I thought Id pop into my dealer, Olympian Fiat, for a quote to get a rear spoiler fitted and painted to the Panda. Before I tell the tale I will say that in 1998, I had one fitted to my cinq; went into dealer who is no longer around, asked for a quote, got one in minutes, booked car in, job done...

Walk into dealer and say hello, ask for a quote for spoiler, paint and fitting. Told that they couldnt help, would have to go to their bodyshop 3/4 mile up the road... but first, I would have to go over the road 100 yards to their parts dept. to get a cost for spoiler. Thought this is weird, why cant they do all this? Walked over to parts dept. which is in Renault showroom! Wait in que for 10 mins, while people are ordering and collecting Renault parts, then parts man says, will be 5 mins mate, have to help fit a wiper to a Renault!!! Great, when he comes back he says cant help and fetches a Fiat parts man! So 15 mins waiting for nowt! Got a price, now off to bodyshop, first up they say I need appointment!!!! Told them Fiat sent me, they roll eyes and a man comes to talk. He asks how much spoiler is and also asks if its a bolt on or glued on, lucky I knew.... then asks me how much the glue is!!!! Anyway, this clown reckons 4 hours labour!!!! 3 hours to paint it, 1 to fit it. I tell him its primed and ready for painting, he says £250 all in, I bugger off cos I only got charged £150 by previous dealer.
Thing is how can they honestly think that was good service?

 

[Steven]

It wasn't and they can't. The fact is that most dealers aren't interested these days unless you are buying a brand new car. You've already bought one, so you're not important any more... Sad but true.

 

[Nuova500]

It wasn't and they can't. The fact is that most dealers aren't interested these days unless you are buying a brand new car. You've already bought one, so you're not important any more... Sad but true.

Noooooooo! Im so sad now! I will find a decent one...

 

[J333EVO]

Everything you have said does not surprise me in the slightest about this shoddy excuse for a car dealer. & it sounds like the same one I tried the one in Poole as its attached to Renault.

I know for a fact from the integrale forum where there are members of the Lancia Motor Club that you can walk into any Fiat dealer in the UK & order parts for a Lancia, god the company is still know as FIAT/Lancia, & they will normally give you a trade discount, as either the parts man likes looking up the Lancia part numbers for you as he doesn't get asked very often & invariably wants to see the car, or as the parts have to always be ordered you have to wait or them, but I went in & asked for a part for the integrale (a rear wiper arm hardly the hardest part to get) they actually argued with me saying I was in the wrong place & that Fiat UK was totally unconnected to the European Fiat/Lancia group, so I asked who makes your cars then, someone different from the European market? Do you build them yourselves out back??? So after much heated debate they actually sent me to the Westover group who used to have the Fiat dealership but who now do TVR, Lotus & Alfa Romeo because they should be able to help, Jesus it was like pulling teeth! Turns out Westover can get parts but are so clueless themselves at ordering as no one realises that they do it takes about half an hour for them to get a part number for anything, I just mail order now, much easier!

Oh yes almost forgot, I had a similar experince to you when going to collect a part for the Cinq where person after person asked if I was being served, when I said no I'm here to collect a part for a FIat, they would reply oh sorry I only deal with Reanult, god sake its the same counter how hard can it be to get my part which will have my name on it!! Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! :bang:

Aaron.

 

[Nuova500]

Two things come to mind here, when they originally started selling Fiat at Olympian the parts guy was superb, and he actually told me that if I needed any Lancia parts to ring him! They sacked him after six months! Also, how the hell did they get the franchise in the first place from Fiat, and why do Fiat let them continue with it?

 

[J333EVO]

Two things come to mind here, when they originally started selling Fiat at Olympian the parts guy was superb, and he actually told me that if I needed any Lancia parts to ring him! They sacked him after six months! Also, how the hell did they get the franchise in the first place from Fiat, and why do Fiat let them continue with it?

All i can say is, WHO KNOWS!

It has been said over & over again in car surveys that its not always the fact that cars are unreliable or have to be returned under warranty to get things fixed that upset people its how the problems are dealt with & Fiat sadly are making better cars than ever but the customer service provided by the dealers is so bad that the reputation is being tarnished. Why else would any one buy a Mercedes at the moment with all the quality control issues that they have, not only in rust protection (read the many many threads on this subject on the Mercedes forums) or electrical glitches which Mercedes have publicly stated they are having problems with so much so that future models will have less items so try & curb the amount of problems, but customers are not as angry at theses faults, as they are dealt with swiftly & with little fuss.

 

[Scorg]

Worst service Ive had is the local MGRover dealer (also Nissan, citreon, proton, hyundai) and whenever my old rover went in, they always broke something or done something wrong. Was all under its warrenty but when the cambelt slipped it was 8 months after the job was done and they wearnt having any of it, so left me with a busted engine.
Anythings better then that, even uncle arnold Fiat

 

[Liam]

I've had the poor Fiat service thing too, clutch cable snapped on Sunday, phoned nearest dealers 15miles away and they said "yeah, got one in stock"

I said "Great, will you keep it for me and I'll pick it up on Saturday?"

Guy said "No problem"

Woke extra early Saturday morning, got my Dad to give me a lift down and went to the counter, explained to the guy and he said "You need to pay for parts in advance if they are being ordered in, we don't have a cable"

I had to leave immediately before I did something that got me arrested! Never been back since, prefer mail order from now on.

Nuovo, get the spoiler and get an independant place to spray and fit it for you and fcuk the dealers.

Liam

 

[Gav]

It wasn't and they can't. The fact is that most dealers aren't interested these days unless you are buying a brand new car. You've already bought one, so you're not important any more... Sad but true.

Last month when wanting to test drive a Stilo for my wife, my local dealer, Bishops of Guildford couldn't even bother having a salesman/woman in the showroom for the 10 mins we were waiting, at 3:30 on a saturday afternoon! So I think Bishops FIAT are leading the way on customer disatisfaction - but at least we didn't have to pay!

 

[Steven]

Obviously these people are just muppets in that case!

 

[steviepab]

i have to agree fiat are crap at customer service!! I went in the other day to order an injector for my baby and they left me waiting 25 mins while they looked for one that was in the back only to come and tell me that they don't have one in and it will take 3 weeks to get it in!! so then i asked how much and he told me £100 for just one!! I only have a 1.2 8v punto!! so i thought sod it and went to play around with the one that is already there and got it working so that saved me a ton!! but the way he talked to me was like i am a kid!! shame that i can't get the parts anywhere else!!

 

[Steven]

Not all Fiat dealers are crap. The one near me actually tries to help. They even try to help find obsolete parts for older cars!

 

[Big Black Stilo]

Not all Fiat dealers are crap. The one near me actually tries to help. They even try to help find obsolete parts for older cars!

To be fair also, my nearest fiat dealer is 5 miles away but again customer service issues and the fact they wouldnt budge on prices and offered me £200 for an immaculate 96n Ibiza as trade in was a joke.

I prefer to drive 10 miles+ the other direction to the next town and go to what another dealer (whom i bought the car from), who knocked £1800 of the window price, threw in mats, tinted windows, free service and 12 months tax and gave me £800 for my old ibiza. Any warranty problems, I phone them, arranged a date and time, turn up with me mrs in her car as well so we could bugger off somewhere, and the car has never been in there for more than 2 hours, and that was to fix the door led, creaking clutch and stuck on brake lights.

More importantly, always greeted with a smile, and the guy who sold me the car always asks me for a coffee!- something the other dealer would do when satan skates to work on the day the moon is blue and pigs fly

P.s the other dealer once stiffed my mates old man, he took a punto in for a 12k service and they did a 24k and charged him extortionate. He kicked off bigtime and eventually got the difference back

 

[Nuova500]

Just returned from a trip to Poland, went in a Fiat dealer there, and picked up some Panda stuff. While there, I asked for a part for a 126, which is a Polish only item. The salesperson spoke no English, so I drew him the part. He looked all through the parts book, computer and even phoned someone. Eventually found it but alas not in stock, he was so sorry and I was so impressed with the service too. Imagine a UK dealer bothering to do that with a Polish chap!? Its just plain English dont care attitudes that make the dealers so bad.

 

[Steven]

So why don't Fiat UK do something about it?

 

[Alex]

While english customer service for most things is crap. not only car dealers, but supermarket staff, mobile phone shop staff etc... Its as if its not worth them spending any of their time with you to solve your problem. Howmany times have you been to a garage, when youre standing at the front desk and the phone rings mid conversation, do they ignore it... nooo, they'll quite hapily shout at another dissatisfied customer while you wait.

I think part of the reason, particularly for car dealers is that their performance is measured in terms of the number of cars sold, the number of cars serviced, and the speed at which they respond to telephone calls compared to the number of calls they get. If the dealers were forced to give each customer that walks in 10 minutes of 'face time' before deciding wether or not the customer is serious about buying a car, booking a service etc... the customer would be far better off. 10 minutes is enough to start a conversation and get to the root of the problem, and once you're engaged in a conversation, its more difficult to tell the customer where to go. Thus the dealer is forced in to helping.