Personally, I put it down to a couple of things...
1. Fiats warranty handling.
For many years Fiat have been giving owners agro when it comes to warranty claims. This causes enourmous degrees of bad feeling & will, 9 times out of 10, evoke the immortal words "I will never buy a Fiat again". The majority of those disgruntled owners will indeed stick to their words.
In alot of cases, in the past at least, Fiats warranty department would refuse a full pay out, saying the faults were dont to normal wear & tear or driver abuse & then offer to pay a percentage, it was then up to you & the dealer (aka piggy in the middle) to argue your case & barter.
Its a warranty for God sake, not a bloody car boot sale...
2. Dealer attitude.
Problem 1 means that the staff in the dealers have to put up with an almost daily torrent of abbuse from these angry customers, this leads to a high staff turnover, mainly in service reception & on the sales floor.
This also leads to lowered staff moral who are less willing to help because they KNOW the pattern... they KNOW they will get a bollocking from an angry customer, possibly in front of other customers. How depressing is that day in day out?
And what can they do about it? they end up being go betweens, trying to please the customer, and the service manager, and the dealer principal & having to deal with Fiats warranty claim department.
Its not an easy job to do, its not far off being a traffic warden!
Dealers are often understaffed to, resulting in people being too busy to get cars back when promised & customers routinely not called back.
This also causes huge irritation to customers, who again, vow to never buy Fiat again. It also goes for Alfa & was the same with Lancia back in the day.
Also, tarbyonline covered another thing... quality control. Its almost non-existent at most dealerships, its due to the low moral & understaffing issues mentioned above, resulting in things being forgotten or not bothered with..
A little while ago, against my advice, my parents got a used low mileage Stilo SW from a dealer they`ve been using since the early 90`s (Dad previously bought 2 brand new Fiats from there). They payed top top dollar on this car (I wasnt there when they got it, if I had have been, they wouldnt have got it!) & the dealer wanted a week to prep it. My parents were fine with this.
They asked me to go with them to check it over when they collected it a week later.
After an informal chat, we were dragged through the back of the showroom to the workshop (which was a right state). It was immediately apparent to me the car was in less than mint condition. it wasnt cleaned to dealership standards inside or out, it had been washed, polished haphazardly & hoovered out, thats it, the same sort of valet you`d expect for a fiver. The alloys were kerbed, the rear bumper was scuffed, the service history had vanished. Amazingly, when I opened the bonnet, the battery cover & clamp was loose, with the (missmatched) bolts lying seperately.
There were no mechanics there & after a long wait, I gave up & ended up refitting them myself, using the strewn out toolbox next to the car (I think it belonged to Mr Clarkson, not Mr May).
Frankly, I could have bought a car in identical condition from an auction for 3 grand less.
Yet this was a car they had a week to PDI, Absolutely rediculous.
The thing had running issues the day after collection & the car went back 2 days later. This part the dealer dealt with in a decent way.
I found the whole situation embarrasing, I felt shame for the dealer & Fiat.
For the record, my parents got a Volvo V50 on the 1st of March & are very happy with both it & the dealer standards, I`m 99% sure they will stay happy with both too.
This lack of attention to detail & general lack of care is exactly what people dispise about the Fiat group, there may be the odd exception, but as a rule the dealers leave a bad taste in a very high percentage of customers mouths.
We love the cars, we could even live with the faults, IF they were handled properly by the dealers & we were handled in the professional way we expect (and get) from other car companies.
The 500 is doing wonders for Fiat, its the perfect oportunity for Fiat to become strong again. Its also a bad time to be p**sing customers off. I just hope standards have now risen in all the above areas, or in a few more years the word on the street will once again be "Fiat? I wouldnt have one of them again".... :bang: