Talk Morgan Forums Community The Malvern Arms Main dealer cynicism..

A Morgan dealer charged me for a change of anti freeze. The car was brand new, only one month old. A couple of months later when I took it back for a small repair under warranty I was told ‘you didn’t buy it here’.

In Australia I worked for a brief period with a motorcycle dealer.

They had fitted plates to two black motorcycles, but got them mixed up. They discovered the error a few days later when the warranty information was being entered in the computer. To correct this error with the authorities would have beed a nightmare so they called the customers and told them there had been a minor recall to update the ECU and gave them appointments for the same day. The workshop was closed to the public and two mechanics stripped and remounted all the parts on the correct frame and engine assemblies. Both bikes had hardly been used so they were not concerned regarding mechanical components. In reality the only real difference was a small difference in the odometer reading for kilometres traved. The job was done in about 6 hours and later both owners commented that their bikes ran much better after the "update".

Talking of 'swapping' plates - I once heard, from a priest friend of mine, of an undertaker who got a cremation and burial mixed up. They allegedly quickly produced a new coffin plate for the one that was being buried and everyone was none the wiser....

I had a nearly new Skoda from a Skoda dealer who operated out of an old cramped premises. First free service was fine then they moved to a huge new place all plate glass & customer care nose dived. I found oil dripping from the sump plug after second service, tightened it myself. Third service they did not reset the service indicator. After that took it to a small Skoda service agent who had no plate glass, they were excellent.
A long time ago a contractor building a new plant where I worked got a new car. A couple of days later I asked him why his new car had different number plates on front & rear. Did that double or halve his chance of getting speeding or parking tickets?

I have stories that would make your hair curl.. even those without any.. All factual.

Classic one was a customer coming to collect their car after service. Nobody could find it and they were about to report it stolen when a new member of staff owned up to mistakenly loaning it out as a courtesy car to another customer!

Also cases of new cars being collected to be told by the customer that's not the colour I ordered...autos when manuals were ordered and an X Trail that took 3 months before the owner realised it was 2WD when he ordered a 4 WD.

A 2WD X Trail in post office red is hardly great stock!

My two pennies.

1. Self inflicted wound by a sales rep at a company years ago, sorry if it is a repeat I have mentioned before.

Late 1980's and many cars still have carb's. One rep does a high mileage into/home from the office. We got offered some "magic" things to try and improve his economy. One was a magnet that wraps around the petrol pipe and claims to align the petrol and smooth the flow blah blah blah. Any way he fitted it and ran it for a couple of weeks. Always coming into the office and saying how much better it was blah blah blah. One day his car was in for a service and he borrowed mine. We got a call from the dealer asking if he wanted the magnet thing to be detached from the brake servo hose and fitted to the petrol line where it should be!

2. I got the E63 estate on lease from Mercedes Benz Fleet Services some time back on a great deal. On arrival I enjoyed driving and one day registered it for London Congestion Tax through the web site. It informed me I was driving a pink Fiat 500 Pop. I will admit to being surprised at how spacious the boot was on the new model 500. The supplying dealer had fitted the wrong plates to two (or perhaps more) cars in their central prep site. LE63XXX instead of LL63XXX had been put on mine. I put it on a letter to them instantly incase I had been clocked by the Police or camera etc. with me knowing it. I got a tug the very next morning, sods law. Anyway they were nice about as I showed them the emails and my work at discovering and trying to correct it.

3. I had a Renault 5GTTurbo many many moons back. I got involved in an accident due to someone underestimating my speed away from the line on a roundabout. It went away for repair at the Aldershot Renault dealer. I had a date 3 weeks for the repair. I got two weeks in and the date came back for another 3 weeks claiming parts problems. Anyway 7 weeks later I got the car back and noticed some paint flect on the offside (my impact had been from the near side) and did a bit of sleuthing. It turns out they had repaired it and then spanked it on the test drive!

Just priceless