Well guy's and girls,
After telling the dealer for about a year and a half that my cooling fan was making noise and causing interference on my nav. screen and being told that there was nothing wrong with the fan but the nav. screen was bad, Guess what...........One week after all my warranties expire I bring it in for the engine light and the cooling fan is shot!! $1050.00 out of pocket.
The noise and vibration was so obvious how could they miss it ?
Thanks for listening!

 

As pointed out by others on this forum, there are good dealers and lousy dealers out there and it is up to us to find the good ones and spread the word....

Our local Jaguar dealership charges twice as much as other North Carolina dealerships for parts as well as service and their service advisors don't even bother to acknowledge you when you walk in their door. So yesterday while I was 75 miles away in Greensboro for a family luncheon, I made arrangements to stop in at the Greensboro Jaguar dealership to pick up the two IMT O-rings I need for the job I'm going to do on our S-Type later this week. It was only a $4.63 parts transaction but all three of the dealership employees I met greeted me warmly, treated me with utmost respect, and even held my parts order at the main showroom desk waiting for my arrival because their parts department is closed on weekends. They knew I had made a significant drive to be there, told me that they really appreciated my business, and gave me the nickel tour of their facilities. This kind of attitude and treatment makes all the difference in the world. I look forward to my new relationship with a much more customer-oriented dealership even though they are 75 miles away from where I live....

 

I hear ya man,
Out of the 2 dealers in the area this one is about 30 minutes further than the one closest from my house and have always been very nice to work and very good at finding problems with but lately I get the we know better attitude and don't listen to me when I tell them how I arrived at my diagnosis of a problem by doing certain things over and over to make it happen so I am sure. I just get the, don't worry we'll check it out.

 

badmojo, the dealership is in a catch 22 when someone like you comes in and says "I know what the problem is......." If they replace the part that you say is bad and it doesn't fix the problem, then the customer is upset that the dealership didn't confirm, but then, some are upset that their word is not good enough.

I normally find that if you can get a service advisor that is willing to come out to the car so you can show him the problem, you will get a much better reception than simply stating "my car is broke and I know you need to fix XXXXXXX part". Only time I would use something like this is if you are coming in again and again for the same part/problem. Then I would be telling them that obviously what they are replacing is only a symptom and that they need to troubleshoot further as to what is causing the part that they have replace before to fail.

I'm not taking the dealership's side on this, but sometimes the way you approach the problem can make all the difference. I know with my truck, I pretty much introduced myself with "I have one of your technical service bulletins(TSB) and I have this problem with my truck, I will show you if you like". That told the service advisor that I wasn't the typical person coming in looking for as much work that could be done under the warrantee as I only made a very few trips into the dealership, but each time being a very obvious problem. This lead to being one of the only people that was known by name and being asked "what TSB are we doing to your truck today?" It also paid off for the next vehicle purchase as the dealership knew I wasn't going to jerk them around.

 

That's a great assumption on your part of how I approached the dealer with the problem but what I ACTUALLY said was the cooling fan is very noisy and is causing some vibration when it turns on and I am also getting interference on my nav. screen when the fan comes om. Could you please check it out and see if you find anything. I know that because it was not completely gone it did not give a fault when they did diag. therefore in their opinion there was no problem. Now after it just totally quit working then I'm sure that it showed a fault and so was diagnosed. Unfortunately without any real seat of the pants trouble shooting skills and totally relying on the plug and play method it's easy to miss a lot of things that are going bad before they actually die! I have about quite a bit of experience building and working on cars and it was plain to me what was wrong but by no means did I ever say the "cooling fans is bad.......replace it!"
I also did bring it in at least 3 times going back about a year for this problem.
I am always very courteous and professional when i bring my car in for service.

 

IIRC..there is a gent here who had some problems with a dealer last year and he contacted some Jaguar management people well above the dealership level and was able to resolve most, if not all, of his problems.
I know I'm quite fuzzy on the details, but maybe he'll report in and give you some info on who to contact about your situation.

 

As you raised it when in warranty and they didn't fix it, so they made the mistake, surely they still have to fix it with no charge to you. They may or may not be able to charge it back to jaguar but that's their problem not yours.

 

I agree, try to get resolved thru the dealer...got any 'documentation' about the previous concerns when you brought it in, and thusly 'dismissed' by the techs? My guess, like most, if they don't actually do anything, there won't be a paper trail. But, maybe in your file? My guy likes to make notes on something when I drop off, perhaps you've got a trail?

 

Thanks for your support guy's and yes I will definitely contact Jaguar about this and many other matters.
I think it's funny how we finally reach a point where we can afford to own these cars and we expect quality service and reliability and yet some people come on and tell us how we have to treat the service reps. and techs with kid gloves so we don't offend or upset them and how it's our job to look for a dealer that's customer friendly. Isn't that why we buy these high end cars in the first place? for quality service and reliability and shouldn't Jaguar be the ones making sure their dealers meet certain standards?
All I do is call and schedule a service appointment. The trouble starts when they fail to do their jobs!
My car has been in the shop for a total of over 80 days and many times it takes several trys to get one problem fixed.Over 3000.00 out of pocket just since Oct
Thanks for listening.

 

for what I hear from customer, see online on other forum with other makes. I think for the most part Jaguar does stand higher than most in many cases on service etc...yes there are always exceptions. But if you knew how many times concerns are not communicated to me properly...........I start asking the questions to the advisors are get a blank look like uh no I didnt ask that....Grab a tech, or the shop forman at least, if you have a less than optimal advisor. same with techs. I would rather talk/ride with a customer than play guessing games. Would also believe there are REALLY times when a part that constantly seems to be a problem for you is not for me?
Maybe the advisor didnt make clear to the tech they were talking about your engine fan and not the ac blower/fan. that was my original thought when you mentioned Nav interferance......
Can you believe I had a Doctor come in 8-10years ago and told me his car made a noise over bumps. When I asked him questions about how, when, where, his reply was "I dont know youre the mechanic" My response was " If I can to you and said I had a pain and told you to figure it out since you are the Doctor, how would you feel?"
He took me for a drive to help pinpoint what he was talking about, funny thing too, I heard 2 other noises that bugged me more that I tuned in on that he never mentioned.

 

There speaks the voice of experience!

It's the management of the franchises who are to blame, for not putting in place systems (that's PEOPLE) who get the right details from the customers, for not arranging the drives Brutal mentions, and so on. This can be where an indy shines. Smaller, owners often are the same as those who take details and do the drives. A real stake in the business. And the better franchises have people who figure out when a tech should go on a drive or chat directly with the customer before the customer leaves the car in the shop.

 

I agree that we customers are responsible for 50% of the relationship with our chosen dealerships. But there is another 50% worth of responsibility belonging to the dealership side of the equation, and there is absolutely no excuse for dealership personnel completely ignoring customers, failing to even acknowledge us when we walk in the door, or refusing to even look at the detailed full-page write-up that we've prepared in advance and brought with us in an effort to help....

And that, along with extreme price gouging on both parts and service, is why I chose to turn my back and walk away from the local dealership from whom we purchased our S-Type back in December 2008. My newly-chosen dealership knows that I drive 75 miles to get there, they appreciate having me for a customer, and they mean it sincerely. I look forward to the relationship....

 

I agree totally, and jon, i would write a well written letter to your old dealer's general manager and lay it out on why "his dealership" lost a customer and a less convenient dealer has you now. Most gm are there because they know how run a dealership and can only respond and work to fix things when theyre aware of problems. To often it the bottom line that says when a dealer(or any business) is not doing the right thing. Then its too late

 

Brutal,

I actually had your suggested conversation via e-mail with the General Manager of the local dealership exactly one month ago. I told him that my detailed research proved he was significantly overpriced for parts and service, provided some actual price quotes I had received from his parts and service personnel, and told him that I was headed to Greensboro where the dealership appreciated me as a customer, valued my business, was priced much more fairly, and that even though it was a 75-mile drive one-way, it was worth it to me because of the difference in how they treated me vs. how his local dealership personnel have always treated me. I provided my phone number and invited him to call me.

I got a generally vague e-mail response from him basically stating "we crosscheck our pricing twice a year, we think we provide good value, and we're sorry that you don't."

That was the final straw. I knew I would never darken his door again. He probably thinks that I'm just another disgruntled customer, but we have multiple friends who have had Jaguars in the past that they purchased and serviced at this dealership. They loved the cars but hated the way they were treated and gouged. Not being do-it-yourself maintenance types, they made the decision to get rid of the cars and swore off Jaguar as a result of their experiences with the dealership, not their cars. By the way, none of these friends of ours know each other. But they all came to the same conclusion that being treated like paupers and then being gouged for it wasn't worth the money it takes to own and service Jaguars. One moved to Lexus, one moved to BMW, and one moved to Cadillac, but all swear that they'll never own another Jag. They respect our S-Type (and think it's gorgeous) because they know I do 95% of the maintenance on it....

 

Jon.
You probably did this but I will ask anyways.
Did you forward your messages from this GM to Jag Corp. office and did you track down the Dealer principal (hard to do sometimes) I am sure they would give you a nicer return message if not try to get you back to that dealership.

 

I've taken several issues with this local dealership all the way to Jaguar USA headquarters in New Jersey. They've been somewhat helpful at times, less helpful at others. You can bet they know who I am. They sent me a $100 gift certificate last year, and they're always willing to listen. They know that I was on the verge of firing this dealership back in the October/November timeframe but I haven't talked with them since. With my new dealership relationship in Greensboro, I don't see having to get Jaguar USA involved again (which is fine with me)....

 

Thanks for all your input and support guy's.
Not trying to rip on anyone here that's for sure. I have had the same experience at 2 different dealerships. I bought the car about 3 miles from my house and after they kept taking 3-4-5 times to fix the same problems I decided to go back to the dealer that I bought my first Jag. at about 15 years ago. It's about a 30 minute drive. they were great at first but just lately they have been getting sloppy.
I even smiled and said thanks when I picked up the car even after they dropped the ball.
I will gather all of my service orders and highlight all of the issues that took more than 2 times to resolve and send them in a letter to Jaguar Motors to see what their response will be . I will also call them to follow up but I bet they can't help me.
I'll keep you posted.
Thanks again!
STILL THE SHARPEST CARS ON THE ROAD!!
BRUTAL, Love the Doctor story...So true!!