Dealer in Berkshire, & 1 to avoid in Devon

[Live After Death]

<font color="purple"><font face="Comic Sans MS">Going to try Thames Fiat in Slough tomorrow about my drivers seat, with the stiching coming away. Not used them before, so I'll keep you posted about how they perform. It's a warranty job, so will be interesting to see how they treat me, as no money will be changing hands.

Bought the car from Sidwell Street Motors in Exeter last year, And do not rate them at all. Willing to take your money off you, but dont care afterwards. Would'nt even throw in a set of mats. Tight gits. </font id="Comic Sans MS"></font id="purple">

'02 Broom Yellow Stilo JTD - Yes it's temperamental, but it's Italian!!!

 

[Ave_Marea]

I am using Thames in Slough for an imobiliser problem. Damn thing won't disengage.

From my experience so far, I recommend this garage.

First the problem I have with Fiat - in fact all car manufacturers is that they won't let other garages fix their cars. Or they make it virtually impossible. And then they don't have the number of dealerships to cope with the monopoly.
Anyway - that's not Thames' fault. I Had the CODE prob, tried booking it in. Woulld take best part of 3 weeks to get a slot without replacement car, 5 with. I booked 5 in advance to get the car. A week later the damn thing refused to start at all. Got it towed to Thames by RAC. OK, no car available, but they managed to find time to look at it. They Re-coded the keys and it started behaving. I went away happy. But it turned out that wasn't the problem. It went again. OK - I don't blame Thames - this was an intermittant problem and it was working fine for them. Got it back in to them AGain they found time to slot it in, but no car available. So I asked if they could give me a lift in to Slough for urgent appointment I had there. They found someone who had to deliver a erepaired vehicle in that direction and got them to give me a lift. Saved my life. I blagged a lift off a colleague back to garage later that day. Car not ready. So they ran me round the corner to Burnham station so I could get a train home. Went back next day, and they said it MIGHT have been a loose connection so they wanted me to see how it went before they started replacing expensive parts. I readily agreed! It would have been easy for them to rip me off here - but they went for cheapest option first. Can't argue with that. I have kept the appointment because I have the revving high problem mentioned elsewhere in the tech pages. Their first suggestion?? Clean actuator - the very thing that was mentioned by one contributor here as a solution. They could have decided to try replacement first - like another contributor experinced. Again, the cheapes option is tried first.
Really, these people are friendly and helpful beyond the call of duty. Don't go there insisting on lifts to places - not part of regular service. But what I'm saying is if the opportunity to help is there these guys are the sort of people who will take it instead of just shrugging and saying 'not my job mate.'

I'll keep you posted as to how they do.. But right now I reckon I've found my garge of choice...

 

[ianw]

Lucky you - had a horrendous time with Thames after buying my Stilo, even though they were fine when my wife bought her Punto there 12 months earlier. Took ages to sort out minor problems, work wasn't done properly, etc.

Credit where it's due though; they pulled out all the stops to get a replacement rear windscreen when my car was broken into, and I needed it to go on holiday.

Stilo 1.9JTD Multiwagon 2003

 

[Ave_Marea]

I think that Fiat UK and Fiat garages are something of an unholy alliance generally. Post purchase niggles seem to be the biggest source of comaplaints with garages saying one thing, Fiat saying another and these pages something different again! All I'm saying about this crew is that they pulled out the stops for me too and were polite with it. They were straight enough to tell me they didn't know what was wrong but thought thaey had fixed it without replacing parts (and I've had no probs since thank god) and they didn't rip me off when they could have done. That makes them my favourite garage.

Jon
-=Marea ELX 1.8l 115=-
NB: To the bastard who writes my parking tickets it is BRONZE not BEIGE.