A letter to VW and others

Here is a copy of a letter that I sent to VW Corp, BBB and the dealer that worked on our car. Still waiting for a response from them.

I called the VW dealer in Salem and ordered just the pulley. It was at my house in three days at a cost of $105 including shipping. And they sent me the correct part. I had to wait another week for the special tool to remove the pulley at a cost of $50. I pulled the fan off and removed the pulley from the car. I went down to a Alternator replace business in Sweet Home and had the pulley replaced. When he was done, I asked him to check the brushes as the VW mechanic said they were worn. Nick pulled them out and they were almost brand new. They were only worn about half way across the face of the brush. A long way from being worn out. I put the alternator back on the car and it is just like new.




Oil changes.
I have had my oil changed by your service department three different times since I have owned it. One time last year, one in January and the latest in June. The sticker in the window and the last two invoices say that they put Castrol Syntec oil in the car. Castrol Syntec is a 505.00 oil. This car REQUIRES 505.01 oil. I called the service department and questioned it, and was assured by Joe that they used 505.01 oil. But if the window sticker and both invoices state that the wrong oil was used, who am I going to believe? This is not a small thing. The owners manual states that using anything other than 505.01 oil can cause serious and extensive damage to the vehicle.
Not knowing who to trust, I purchased the correct oil and filter from the Eugene VW dealership, and am in the process of changing it. I am also waiting for an oil sample kit to have the old oil tested.


Why did they have our car for two weeks and could not get it fixed?
Why did they want to replace the alternator when it only needed the pulley?
Why could they not find the part when I had one in two days from another dealer?
Why didn't they offer a loaner vehicle knowing that we lived so far away?
Why do the invoices and window sticker say that the wrong oil was used?
Why do I have to pay for a new oil change because we are not sure if it is correct?




To sum it up, we had our vehicle towed to the VW dealer for a very simple repair. What we received was something very different.


A copy of this letter is going to the Better Business Bureau and another going directly to Volkswagen. You guys will never work on my car again. The repair should not have been more that $150 including labor, yet you wanted to take advantage of me.




Jack Scoville
900 NW 4th Street
Corvallis, OR 97330
1-541-753-1694

Good for you! More people should write letters when the stealerships try to throw parts at problems at enormous cost to the consumer. I would definately get the oil analyzed and documented. When you get the results back, write another letter.

Interesting, I never had a problem when they changed my oil on my '06 Jetta however my window sticker said they had used 505.01.

We purchased our '07 Rabbit from them and we thought they were a lot better than Dick Hannah Volks in Vancouver (where I purchased my Jetta).

I will say though that the time that I spent sitting in their service department listening to the calls to owners diagnosing their volkswagons, when they were told what repairs were needed, they were always excessive and seemed rediculous for the problems that they had said they found with the cars. Jack Scoville never seems to be a very busy dealership, I wonder if they are performing unnecessary repairs in order to keep their head above water?

Way to go on the letter though, you definetly set a precedent that I want to follow when dealing with Volks service departments.

Sounds like my 2008.88 Axle from mofitt VW in bossier city.

Excelent letter... I always thought the alternator didn't have brushes or a commutator... guess I was wrong...

Alternators have brushes and 'slip rings'. These are continuous loops, unlike commutators that are segmented. Brushes on slip rings can run a long time .

John C

Jack, sorry to hear of your problems but great letter. Let us know if anyone responds.

FWIW, the brushes and voltage regulator are easily replaced, they are a seperate screw on unit on the back of the alt.

-Jason

Well, Volkswagen called me today to confirm the info in the letter. We spent about 15 minutes talking about both the alternator and oil issues. I now have a case number and they will be contacting the local dealer to get their side of the story. She asked me if I would mind if the service manager contacted me on this issue. I told her that I did not want him to call me but I would accept a call from the owner of the dealership. Waiting for round 2.

Stick it to 'the man'!

Go get em my bald hero!

My Experience at the Stealership.....

A couple of months back I lost turbo boost on my 04 Jetta and took it to my local dealership. After a couple of days, the verdict was a blown turbo and $2200 to fix. I said "close it up, I'm picking it up tonite". So I started an internet search, found TDI Club and to make a long story short, discovered with help from the club that the true problem was a vacuum line that had rubbed against the exhaust manifold and had a hole burned in it. $3.00 of new line later, my car was good as new.

Never one to turn down a good opportunity like this, I showed up at the dealership unannounced with old hose and receipt for diagnostic time in-hand. Again, long story short - it took about 15 minutes of stammering, studdering, apologizing, and assuring me that I would not have been billed for a new turbo once they discovered the real problem before the Service Manager finally decided that he was going to offer to refund my money. He asked me if would like a shop credit, which I politely declined as I'm never going back. I took cash and left him with the hose!

On a different note, 2 weeks ago I traded that car on what I believe was the last new 06 Jetta Pkg 2 on the East Coast (yes, different dealership). What a sweet ride!

My Thoughts

If VW of America wanted to sell cars, they could just fire about half of the dealers, and make a large donation to tdiclub.com

Funny thing is, if you go over to VWVortex (a good resource as well) they frequently link over to TDIClub.com for non-tdi issues that are covered here.

VW Dealerships here in the states give VW a bad name. Furhter, only select dealerships shhould be allowed to sell the TDIs - the ones that also have good service technicians...

Heck - I am scared to even take my car in for a Brake Light Switch Recall.

Walt

Spokane Walt said:

Heck - I am scared to even take my car in for a Brake Light Switch Recall.

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That's where I'm at... besides I've already replaced the switch.

Good job. You don't actually think you'll change anything though, do you?

"Mr. Jacoby, it's come to our attention that our dealerships are improperly diagnosing cars, in many cases just throwing parts at it. This costs our customers lots of money, and many of them will never come back to Volkswagen or own one again. This happens on both TDI and non-TDI related issues. We must stop this at once!"

"I competely agree, this is unacceptable! I will put an end to this at once!"

The letter VW should be sending out, but never will

Thank you [CUSTOMER_F] [CUSTOMER_L] for your reply

Your [PROBLEMS] has/have been addressed and all of the Technicians, Management, Ownership responsible will now go through a communist style "re-education" program. If you have a problem with him/her in the future, they will be executed for crimes against Heir Claassen and future problems with the new CEO.

All of your labor charges will be refunded to you within the next 90 days.

Danke,

"Utz"

had an 03 beetle gls tdi towed from Lake Charles LA to Houston TX, car would not run when outside temp hot. VW towed it to a local dealership who diagnosed a bad IP after changing the fuel filter. I went to the parts counter bought relay 109, installed it in their driveway and drove home, they offered me a job.

My golf started showing symptoms of a bad thermostat...always staying cold, etc. I took it to the dealer because it was under warranty and told them to fix it. Turns out it was a bad thermostat. Also, it turns out the thermostat is not covered under the engine warranty. The total bill was about $235. They charged 1.1 hours for labor. I was shocked.
Six months later the same thing started again. This time I did some research on the forum and found out you should replace the plastic neck also. So, I bought the parts and replaced it myself this time. Turns out the tech at the dealer didn't replace the plastic neck. one of the nipples broke off and got wedged in the thermostat. I took te evidence to the dealer and the service manager refunded my money.
By the way, it only took about fifteen minutes to replace. Not anywhere near 1.1 hours.
The service rep tried to make it sound like they were such a pain to replace and he was cutting me a break on the labor.
I have not been back since except to buy parts from the nice parts guy who gives me a wholesale discount.

Go Bald Guy! State facts clearly and name names, an unbeatable combo. Hope you get what you want from VW, but I wouldn't hold my breath. Good luck.

I received a call from VW today. A guy named Jeff called to tell me that he spoke to Craig [service manage] from the dealership. Craig assured him that 505.01 oil was used even though the invoices and window sticker say otherwise. I informed him that I was taking an oil sample and would have it analized. He told me that he would do the same thing if it was his vehicle. I do have all the receipts if anything should happen. Ha!

I also asked him about the dealers descision to replace the alternator. VW and the dealer are standing behind their descision to replace it. I asked him about the flat out lie of needing new brushes. Again, VW is standing behind the dealer and the dealer is standing behind their descision.

It does make you wonder how these dealers stay in business with the lousy calls they make.

Hmm, I just took my 03' golf in for a noise, they said it was the belt tensioner, and it wasn't covered by the extended warranty, $250. I remembered reading some stuff about the alternator pulley (my car has 77,000 miles) and wondered if the tensionor thing was a load of crap. Low and behold, they replaced the tensioner, and "now that the belt is good and tight, the alternator is making noise", that was covered under my warranty so I said go ahead and do it. Those guys are idiots! Either that or soulless, maybe both. Soulless idiots. Hmm.

mam0032 said:

Hmm, I just took my 03' golf in for a noise, they said it was the belt tensioner, and it wasn't covered by the extended warranty, $250. I remembered reading some stuff about the alternator pulley (my car has 77,000 miles) and wondered if the tensionor thing was a load of crap. Low and behold, they replaced the tensioner, and "now that the belt is good and tight, the alternator is making noise", that was covered under my warranty so I said go ahead and do it. Those guys are idiots! Either that or soulless, maybe both. Soulless idiots. Hmm.

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Are you getting a refund for the tensioner?

Did you keep the tensioner? They should have given you the old one if you paid for the new one. Warentee is something else, but you purchased the old part, you purchased the new part, you should have posession of both.

(Warentee they're trading you new for old - you just own one).

While it may not be right, dealership service departments make big money by selling parts. They don't want to do little repairs like replace brushes because there isn't a big margin in something like that.

Also, dealerships are not employees of the manufacturers. They're franchises. They're goal is selling as many vehicles as possible and doing as little warranty work as possible.

MayorDJQ said:

and doing as little warranty work as possible.

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I thought that the warranty work was a money maker for them - which is why they just follow the instructions and "replace, since we can't test" parts per the flow chart. Doesn't VW reimburse them for this? I thought that's how they made a bunch of their money.

rdkern said:

Did you keep the tensioner? They should have given you the old one if you paid for the new one. Warentee is something else, but you purchased the old part, you purchased the new part, you should have posession of both.

(Warentee they're trading you new for old - you just own one).

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No, I didn't get the old part, and I didn't ask for it. It's one of those shoulda, coulda, woulda situations at this point. Lesson learned.

PM me with which dealer did that... I'm keeping score on who not to go to here in the metroplex...

I've not personally had any problems with the dealers yet, but then again, I've only owned my TDI for 3 months. I am worried however though, the guy I bought the car from (2002 Golf) gave me all of the original service records which show that Castrol Syntec was used for all of the oil changes up to 60k miles. I changed the oil as soon as I bought it, and I'm very soon going to install an AmsOil bypass filter kit. I only hope that the improper oil use hasn't caused any serious engine damage.

Castol Syntec 5w40 is fine is fine for that year, as it is 505.00 oil. 5w30 is not though.

You may have had better luck e-mailing VWAG. I wonder if the Audi dealerships would do a better job, and if they would do warranty work?

Bravo!