Unless I take it back to Melrose there's no local Toyota dealer not owned by Stoneacre.
Dunno just hate what they did to the place, when it was Hodgsons the Customer service was significantly better and they weren't constantly chasing you about insurance for the sky falling in or trying to get you to buy another car..
That and the lack of a direct line absolutely boils my ****. They ring you, you miss a call, you have to go to a national call centre to be redirected back to the tech who rang who is probably after that 10 minute delay busy with something else...great customer service.
Also the desk staff are useless...unless of course you want a brand new car.
What a lovely wee town Melrose is. The first "proper" school I attended was in Melrose and Thomas Brown, the funeral directors, made a very good job of handling my brother's funeral. There's also the world famous rugby elevens for excitement.
The big garage groups here do seem to have direct numbers which take you to the dealers on site. I don't tend to have much to do with the big dealers but with the Scala being still under warranty I have had contact with both of the big dealers around here. I bought the car from "Uncle Arnie" and I find the whole experience quite underwhelming. The other big, but significantly smaller, setup is West End Garage. They've been Skoda agents for many years based somewhat west of us but a few years ago opened a quite large garage on the western outskirts of the city - unfortunately not so easy for me to access as the AC which is about a 15 minute drive away.
The buying experience at AC was actually quite good - which surprised me after all the poor reviews you read about them - but I think I was lucky in that I got a salesman who was very knowledgeable technically about the product and didn't attempt to bull*hit his way past something he didn't know. He was actually a fan of older BMWs! The car is going in to them for services during it's warranty period, only had one so far, an oil change - next due around October, and it was satisfactory - mind you an oil service with no faults reported by me, what was there fir them to get wrong?
I've had a couple of small problems though. A few days after I got the car and first time out to my boy's house south of the city, a warning light came on. I stopped immediately and checked all levels and looked for "anything" but everything seemed Ok and the car was driving fine with no funny noises. Cut the visit to my boy short and went to the dealer - it was getting on for closing time, about a half hour to go. Of course the only person you can speak to is a reception person who informed me I could make an appointment for about 3 weeks from then! I pointed out that by then, if something serious was wrong, then expensive damage may result and I wanted a signed acknowledgement that they weren't going to look at it and that it was Ok for me to go on driving it. While this person was trying to wriggle out of doing that a chap came through the door from the workshop, He turned out, I think, to be the workshop manager. So I immediately spoke to him. I think he realised that I actually had a fair idea what I was talking about and questioned me closely about exactly what was going on. The light was orange so, he said, it was alerting me to a problem. Had it been red he would have advised leaving it with them there and then, although it would be several days before they could look at it! But, as it was orange he advise me to drive it and keep a watch on what was going on. When i went back to the car and started it the light had gone out and it's never come on again. I talked to him again when the car was later in for it's service and he told me they've had a few done this, very new and low mileage cars, and the light always goes away without any intervention.
The other very annoying thing about AC is that you ring to speak to the service desk but, once past the reception person, the phone just rings and rings and rings. This doesn't happen just occasionally.
Later I had a concern about the battery - stop start stopped working - and we were about to go on our annual Devon trip. I rang them - AC - to ask for it to be checked (the battery is covered by warranty so, if scuppered, they replace it under warranty) but they couldn't do anything for me for about a month - for goodness sake, how long does it take to stick a battery analyser on it? Anyway, I rang West End and things couldn't have been more different. I was given an appointment almost immediately and told they'd check it for me while I waited - also confirmed it would be replaced FOC to me if needed. The reception staff were very helpful and one girl was particularly knowledgeable about the car. It took them about 3/4 of an hour and the outcome was that the battery checked out Ok but I most likely wasn't using the car enough to keep the battery fully charged. I'm sure they were right as it's been behaving better now we're going out to my boys and down to Gala for stuff to do with my deceased brother's estate. I've also rang them a couple of times when I couldn't get through to the AC reception desk and they always answer promptly and I end up speaking to someone who can give me the info I'm seeking. Just wish they were nearer to me.
