VW main dealer repair times?

VW warranty might come up a replacement car, they should pick up yours and you pick up a loan vehicle from a hire company. They're pretty quick to fix once you have a hire car at their expense.

Nobody likes having to wait for appointments but why do people jump to the "bad service" explanation, as if the dealer wants to turn work away? Do you really think it happens just for the craic?

Workshops buy hours from technicians and sell them to customers, it is literally their entire business model. One technician can work 40 hours a week, they pay him 40 hours and want him to work on cars for 40 hours so they can sell the time. They don't want him working for 10 hours because then they could only sell 10, they want him to work for 40.

That also means they book 40 hours worth of work into their workshop, because if the cars aren't there he can't work and they don't have anything to sell.

So why on earth would they tell you they cannot work on the car this week if in fact they could? Why would they pay the technician for 40 hours and leave him standing around with no work to do? Of course they wouldn't, they want and need him to be working.

Your booking isn't 2 months away because the dealer just decided they didn't want to do the work, it is 2 months away because their workshop scheduling shows that as the next available time. Because for the next 2 months they predict their workshop to be 100% productive. Because to work at your car they need to move some other customer back in the queue.

The chronic lack of new technicians is of course a huge factor but it all comes down to the same equation, hours needed against hours available. Maybe it isn't acceptable, but that's a meaningless word if they can't change the equation by buying more hours.

Ok. Good luck with wanting to be considered a more important customer than everybody else.

At the moment if a main dealer (or even independent) is reasonably well established then yes it's normal at the moment, we have a customers car waiting 6 months for a new subframe currently from the local dealer

It is simply not good enough. Garages and main dealers allow some space for emergencies also. I have had instant attention from the many main dealers I bought cars from so I would say its just that garage, too interested in selling new models and maybe expensive Audis etc perhaps?

If you walk into a shop and all the staff are flat out busy with other customers, then what do you want them to do? To serve you they have to ignore a different customer and then that person is angry instead. It is a zero sum game.

Because thats the equivalent, not the messy aisles stuff you made up, it is all about the capacity of the staff.

Not having capacity is not the same as poor customer service.

Your wrong there. Poor customer service is the result of not having the capacity.

In the example of the shop, if the hiring manager fails to hire enough staff and manage turnover then this will result in a lack of staff in the store and thus a poor customer service to anyone who walks through the doors

The same applies to VW here. For you to say having to wait 2 months for VW to even think about looking at a car which has a major fault and is under warranty is not poor customer service then what is it?

Do you think its good customer service? Because they are trying their best?

Don't make me laugh Op bought a vehicle assured by a VW Warranty... Not a longmile road merchant.

? Wonder will they send Op a satisfaction survey when matter is resolved.

But a shop is a finite space, as is a garage. There are only so many lifts and service bays, once they are at capacity then what can you do?

We have this issue as an independent, there is about a 2 month backlog ATM because there are more customers than people to do the work, no room for expansion, capacity is absolutely maxed out. It is becoming an issue in general the last few years.

They are probably always putting warranty and guarantee work at the end of the list because there is nothing in it for them, it costs them money.

The paying customer repair work will get priority because they will be in a hurry to fleece them.

What you could do to suss them out is get a friend to ring up saying they have an out of warranty VW car with a problem (think up of something very expensive) and see how fast they can look at it. I suspect if there is a chance of making money they will be look at it sooner.

Then show up with your car and tell them oh ya your friend had to cancel but said you could take their appointment time.

I dunno why people say this. It's complete boll0x. The manufacturer pays the dealer for warranty work.

But the barber or fancy restaurant hasn’t sold you an expensive car with a supposed 2 year warranty, a warranty in which they are failing to uphold if it means your car is off the road for the 2 months.

I think the only way to get car dealers to do anything is to go in and bang on the desk and make a scene and tell customers in the show room that they are a shower of cúnts and not to buy anything off them.

My father did this for my mother some years back when she was getting fobbed off with shít service by a dealer.

You all shouldn't listen to the clown talking about warranty work, trust me, warranty repairs are generally always priority.

• They are more likely to be breakdowns which do indeed bring an expectation of quicker response times
• They are more likely to be defects rather than planned service work, which again gets them priority
• The warranty rates are generally based on retail recovery rate so are linked and comparable to your retail sales anyway
• They have an established invoicing procedure, so no messing about with delinquent customers or chasing cash sales
• It is far easier to get an expensive warranty repair approved than it is to get some internet know it all to believe that they do actually need an expensive part
• If parts aren't available they can be more easily escalated to emergency VOR for warranty repairs

Seriously, don't listen to the mouthpiece talking rubbish about beating counters and blocking doors, they haven't a bulls notion.

Stop selling cars with warranties they can’t honour.

To clear some of the back log perhaps the main dealers should consider 'farming out' some of their work to approved (by them) independent garages, they could supply parts etc. 99% of panel beating, body work, spraying etc. is done by third parties for the main dealers.

What do you think they should do to change it?

And don't say "hire more staff", because they can't get them.

So what should they do?

If a select few outsourced bodyshops can carry out bodywork repairs on behalf of VW then the same can be done for mechanical repairs.

Like I said, not gonna happen, but could be easily done.

To be fair it’s difficult to get mechanics at any level. I have a few friends who were trying to hire mechanics for months with no luck.

I know exactly how much they get out of it, I pay the wages. And all the many, many, many bills.

I already said in this thread, I have techs picking up between €70k and €90k a year, they bring home more than I do because of the overtime. If you want to call that peanuts then more power to you.

Not all mechanics earn top dollar but most garages are pure meritocracy, if you are good then basically you name your price. Or what, do you really think in a world where good mechanics are like hens teeth that they don't have bargaining power when talking money? Do you know how many times I have had the conversation that starts with "Rival place has made me an offer...". That is why retention is a problem, because they are constantly getting approached by all the companies out there desperate for staff.

But sure whatever. I guess all those dealers are leaving money on the table and not bothering to fix cars because they just don't want to pay any money to the only people qualified to do it.

Our apprentice programmes are now the only way we can get new technicians, we put a lot of time into them and are quite proud of the result. Of our 40+ technicians over 60% of them came to us as first year apprentices and then decided to stay with us when they qualified. A couple of apprentice of the year winners too, we have some fantastic staff learned their trade with us as kids.

I don't need to justify anything, I just find it lazy and boring these threads where people complain about garages and awful service without really knowing what is going on. We have some fantastic service advisors that go out of their way to help people, why are they considered bad service advisors just because there is more work than the workshop can physically do? Its not like they broke the damn car on you, they just don't have ten pairs of hands.

I mean, you are telling the likes of me that we need to get more staff, when we have been pulling our hair out for years trying everything and anything to do exactly that. As if we don't already target schools and invite kids in for work experience, as if we don't already work very closely with FAS/SOLAS. And thats us with a good reputation for training people up, its worse again for the smaller places.

The reason no mechanics can be found any more is that the job was rubbished for years. It was always the lowest paid trade you could have, by a good margin, and what was always said was why the hell would you serve your time 4 years to get paid marginally above minimum wage for your career, and have to do nixer work just to make ends meet, when you could become a plumber or electrician in the same time and be absolutely coining it in, with as much nixer work naming you price fro cash if you want a little extra.

It doesn't matter that you are paying more acceptable wages now. The damage to the reputation of the job has been done. because of that it is seen as a shít low paid job and nobody wants to be doing it.

This is decades of absolute miserliness coming back to bite car dealers.

Believe it or not, I spent a year as an apprentice back in the mid noughties for a main dealer.