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Problem Dealership=Runaround.  Advice?

ultravorx

Full Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2002
Messages
360
Location
New Britain, CT
Hey, whats up everyone. Im kind of in a angry mood :8: right now. I've had nothing but problems with my dealership from day 0. When i first test drove my AV i noticed the alignment was off. I told them to have it fixed for my delivery date. They said ok and the next day i picked it up. It stilled pulled :7: I went back to them the next day and asked them why it pulled, they said they forgot to do the alignment. I had to wait 1 week for an appointment to get it done :6: great customer service. :9: The next appointment was for my fogged up drl and headlights. They said they would replace the drl's, but not the headlights( its normal for condensation :9:) They replaced the drl's. 2 days later i noticed the passenger drl was filled with water, the service guy did not secure the bulb in the housing, and it was partially out, when i snowed, rained etc, it filled up, and while running the fog lights it burned the housing half way up where the socket was, and then burned it self out. I immediatly brought it to the dealer, he looked at it, said he would order one and to come in on friday to have it replaced. (no apoligies yet) On friday, i came in and he said" your here to replace your foglight, right?" i said yes, and also look at the pulsating interior lights(the simple pigtail fix) 1 hour later he calles up and says i have a bad gasket on my drl, and he has to order a new one :7: I thought thats why i was there. Apparantly he was going to clean out my original housing and reseal it, but cause it was burnt he got trapped in his own lie. and the interior light pulsating is probalby due to my aftermarket electronics(my radio, nav and radar detector), what a crock, i worked at circuit city for 4 years and know thats not possible. after this i talked to the head manager. He talked with his service guy and told me that my appointment for that day was for a diagnosis of why there was water in the housing! He told me earlier that he was replacing it. I then called corperate, who then called them up, and fully listened to there story :7:. They said the dealership are there eyes and ears. Since my dealership lied about everything i loose out. Now corperate was supposed to call me today to see if my foglight came in yet, its been 3 business days and no calls yet, apparantly the dealership doesnt care about me. I will give corporate a piece of my mind once they call me tonight(hopefully). And the issue with condensation with water in my headlights, even with a TSB on it, they will not replace them, even at other dealerships in my area.
Any sugestions on what to do? I want to return my truck to them and but it from another dealership, who will take care of me, even if it out of state, because most of CT's dealerships are horrible. Let me know what you guys think.
Thanks for letting me vent
Frank
 
You don't have to return your truck. Any Chevy dealership can do your warranty work. You don't have to take it to the dealer where you bought it. There are lots of dealers, shop around.
 
I also know my dealship will be reading this post, since i gave them the link to this site to show them how unfair I'm treated im comparason to all the other dealerships. Im VERY unhappy with your service. :C: Will someone not come to my rescue :rolleyes:
Frank
 
Have them order all the parts and then when they call to tell you to come in and get the work done...go somewhere else and let them sit on the parts. I don't know if your dealership is like the one I went to, but within a couple of weeks after I got the service done, I got a survey from GM. The dealerships seem to really bank on surveys. I'd assume you would too.

If GM believes the dealer over you, that's GM's problem and they really need to satisfy the end customer (as does the dealer).

I'd say just find another dealer.
 
I am REALLY sorry to hear of the events that you have had to deal with, with your Dealership. ?Makes me want to :D:

I can understand why you are ?:8:. I have had to go through un-necessary STRESS at the fault of a GM Dealership!! What a pain in the a$$ that was and what a pain in the a$$ this is for you.

All I can say is, GM Corporate Customer Service are really just "mediators" who try to resolve conflicts between the customer & the Dealership. And Yes, they do, in my past experiences, take the Dealerships side first. ?They should be a little more Customer Service oriented. ?In my dealing with them, they really have not helped me.

As for the surveys, I have filled out my share and not heard anything about them from anyone. I think they are sent out for us to "vent". I do believe that a copy of the survey gets sent to the Dealership to make them aware of the issues presented. As to whether anything changes because of those surveys, I really do not know first hand.

I think you should take your AV to another GM Dealership. This Dealership that "forgets" to do things is probably not the place you want to get the repair money for your warrenty work.

Good luck, and keep your AV. (y)
 
Posting complaints on the club site will keep future customers away from this dealership. Their job is also to resolve any warranty problems related to their vehicles. If they fail, and GM does not seem to care, you should contact your TV station, and get a consumer affairs person to look at your situation. State Consumer Protection Agency, and your local Chamber of Commerce would also like to know about their performance, or lack of performance. Negative advertising spreads quickly, and if the dealership wants to keep a good public image, they should kiss you a$$, to keep you happy. Thats my .02 -from the horses mouth.
 
If you find another dealership that is recomended
Tell them you just moved from out of town

Some dealers don't like to work on vehicles they don't sell, even though they are obligated

If they can LIE, so can you
What come around,,,,--------------

BTW--ultra---
Planning a GTG in Mass, if interested
 
tomsr said:
Posting complaints on the club site will keep future customers away from this dealership. Their job is also to resolve any warranty problems related to their vehicles. If they fail, and GM does not seem to care, you should contact your TV station, and get a consumer affairs person to look at your situation. State Consumer Protection Agency, and your local Chamber of Commerce would also like to know about their performance, or lack of performance. Negative advertising spreads quickly, and if the dealership wants to keep a good public image, they should kiss you a$$, to keep you happy. Thats my .02 -from the horses mouth.


Good point Tom :)
 
Sorry to hear about your bad luck with this dealer. ?I had many, many bad experiences with two Fords I purchased new in two different parts of CA several years ago. ?Thus, my hate and discontent for Fords.

Have you tried to talk to the salesman who sold you the truck? ?I wasn't thrilled with my service department and I talked to my saleman about it. ?Sometimes they can help out.

One thing I can suggest for certain, ?you never know where this may end up, so keep good records of everything that happens with this dealer. ?Record the names of the people you deal with and the dates, etc. ?It may get to a point where you'll need proof of this crappy service and they won't expect you to have better records than they have. ? Good records went a long way when I challanged Ford and proved my Aerostar van was in their service dept. once every month for two years!

Good luck.

Truckman :B: ?
 
I've talked with my sales guy, he's been real cool from the start, and has tried to help me as much as he could, but the service side just wont budge.
frank
 
That's why I've ended up doing my own repairs. Now suspension and alignment, you can't do those in the garage at home, but the squeaks, rattles or other little stuff, I've found that it's easier, less inconvenient and I learn something about the truck, if I try to repair it myself.
When my truck was under warranty, I took it back for a lot of problems. 90% of the time, they never fixed it, or they gave me the standard "COULD NOT DUPLICATE".
How many of us have heard that before? Only thing I ever got out of my visits to the dealership was :8:
I had to take my truck back 4 times for them to get the alignment right. Talk about making me :8:, I was :7: at everyone by then.
As a result, I'll order the part myself and replace it on the weekend. I would rather do it myself than let the dealership poke around my truck and screw something else up.

For that fog light. Take it off, clean it out and put some silicon around the lens seal.

Take your business else where. Word of mouth can be a business's biggest fan & enemy. Make it this dealerships enemy.
 
I cant just reseal the light, when the bulb was hanging partially out, it burned a 1/2" hole thru the foglight housing. Thats why the dealer didnt replace it, they wanted to do what you said, so they never ordered the part, but when they saw it was melted, thats when they got lost in there game.
Frank
 
I see your point Pendlum, but doesn't it just frost the hell out of you :8: when you know that included in the price you paid for your AV was a warranty. And these problems that ultravorx has been encountering are absolutely covered by warranty. There is no pride in some of these dealership service depts. We were looking to purchase a new Pontiac Transport back in '94. I asked one salesman about how the service dept. was from his dealership and he said they sucked. But he still thought I should buy my minivan there. Go figure.

Truckman :B:
 
I have always bought GM vechiles. And I have found that there seems to be more bad service depts, than there are good ones. I had to have a oil pan replaced because of one of the bad ones a few years back.
When I purchased my AV, I also got the extended warranty, that included free oil changes for a year. The first time I took it in for the oil change it took over an hour :8:, when I asked the Service Manager what took so long he told me that since it was a free oil change it was put at the end of the line! Even thou I had an appoitment- I never went back to that dealership for service again.
We should start a thread of Bad Service and Good Service depts?
 
Pendlum said:
That's why I've ended up doing my own repairs. Now suspension and alignment, you can't do those in the garage at home, but the squeaks, rattles or other little stuff, I've found that it's easier, less inconvenient and I learn something about the truck, if I try to repair it myself.
When my truck was under warranty, I took it back for a lot of problems. 90% of the time, they never fixed it, or they gave me the standard "COULD NOT DUPLICATE".
How many of us have heard that before? Only thing I ever got out of my visits to the dealership was ?:8:
I had to take my truck back 4 times for them to get the alignment right. Talk about making me ?:8:, I was ?:7: at everyone by then.
As a result, I'll order the part myself and replace it on the weekend. I would rather do it myself than let the dealership poke around my truck and screw something else up.

You wouldn't be referring to a dealership on the far "WEST SIDE" of town, would you?
 
I have experienced similar treatment at the dealership where I bought my truck. When I was first interested in purchasing there, every department bent over backwards for me, promising this and promising that. Fortunately, my parents were with me and had the common sense to have the dealership write up a contract containing these promises and then sign it. Unfortunately, they are now making everything else difficult. If I have a warranty issue, we play a game of 20 questions. If I book an appointment, I arrive at 7:00am and my truck is usually in the shop by 5:00pm the next day. The latest adventure involved the cladding pulling from the body on the rear drivers side door. When I arrived, they told me that their cosmetic claims person was busy and so they would book an appointment for me for him to look at it. Not to repair it, but for him to look at it. I was upset, but I agreed. Immediately, I drove to another dealership and they looked at it and booked me into their bodyshop for the same day my original dealership booked me in to have it looked at. And as luck would have it, I also paid them to pull my drivers door, strip it down, and repaint it. (This due to my truck being egged last April 1, chipping the paint to the primer.) I had my truck back the next day, sooner than I would have even had my truck in the shop at my original dealership, since the visit they wanted was just to look at it. Since my truck would usually sit for two days before being looked at, making appointments pointless, I returned the reward and never even notified them of what occurred. I simply did not show up. It is now quite funny to look back and see that not only did they not make a few dollars on the cladding, but by chance, they also lost out on making money on bodywork. And in addition, they have also lost out on any other future work I will have done on my vehicle.

Lakewood Chevrolet Oldsmobile, kiss mine.

The only unfortunate aspect that I find with many companies is what do they care? So they lost $500 in work and maybe $5,000 for the life of my vehicle. They are a large dealership. They will never notice. And as many people may read this post, how many were going to consider them as a dealership to begin with, given how scattered we are geographically? If only there was a way to really make them notice. Oh well. I'm done now.
 
By the way, I guess my point is that if your dealership is not satisfying you, look elsewhere. There are plenty of dealerships who will be happy to help. And since the departments are semi-independent from one another, most service departments do not mind if you purchased your vehicle elsewhere. (Though some dealerships will bump their customers forward in the queue, but after visiting a few times, I would expect you will soon receive that same treatment.) In addition, you may want to contact General Motors and voice your concern.
 
It's actually sad. The dealerships are not customer focused. You're just another dollar to them.
"Come on in and give us your money. Yeah, we'll get to you when it's convenient for us. Oh you're in a hurry? Sucks to be you."
That's how I feel like they treat me.

I think it's because for the people at the dealership it's just another J-O-B. They couldn't care less if you're happy or not. It's not their business, they have their job and chances are, they aren't going to lose it no matter what they do. What motivates them to treat you with respect?
The Service Manager hears so many complaints, I bet he goes in to auto mode when he sees an unhappy customer walking up. He'll always believe this techs and the Advisors over the customers.
My fiancee use to work for Lexus and she told me that the Service Manager would yell at the Advisors to make the customer feel good. The minute the customer walked away, the Service Manager is buying the advisor lunch saying, "Good show".
The dealership is a joke.
Super high mark ups on Accessories and crappy customer service. What great business practices. :rolleyes:
 
well theres good news and bad news. Good news is my fog light came in. bad news is i can only bring it on saturdays(because of my new job at pratt ). the bad news is they wont take me on this sat. i have to wait until the next sat :D: with the service there were/are providing me, they should squeeze me in to make me happy, but they dont care. BTW, the dealership has yet to apoligize to me :6:, what are they waiting for, for me to hand them the keys and say keep the truck, i'll buy one elsewhere :cautious:
frank
 
ultravorx said:
well theres good news and bad news. Good news is my fog light came in. ?bad news is i can only bring it on saturdays(because of my new job at pratt ). ?the bad news is they wont take me on this sat. i have to wait until the next sat :D: ?with the service there were/are providing me, they should squeeze me in to make me happy, but they dont care. ?BTW, the dealership has yet to apoligize to me :6:, ?what are they waiting for, for me to hand them the keys and say keep the truck, i'll buy one elsewhere :cautious:
frank

I'd go pick up my light. Say thank you very much and install it myself.

My Dealer butchered 2 parts of my drivers side door, Once was a chunk out of it and the second was a screwdriver stress mark to replace the first problem.

I ordered the part for myself from Dal and all is well with the world now.

I can't stand going to the dealer.

just my 2c.

jw
 
ultravorx said:
BTW, the dealership has yet to apoligize to me :6:, ?what are they waiting for, for me to hand them the keys and say keep the truck, i'll buy one elsewhere :cautious:
If you are like me, you are laid back in person and have a difficult time making an issue of something unless you are really hard pressed. What you might want to do is look for your dealership's web page and e-mail the manager to express to him your discomfort and upset and see how they respond. It is entirely possible that they are blind to their own attitude and how they come across to their customers. Unfortunately, when I tried this with my dealership, I found out that they are pretty aware that they come across as dinks and they could really care less about it.
 
Boar-Ral i had my truck egged today on the passanger side door and it chipped the paint so u can see where the egg hit i was wondering how much did it cost you to get the section repainted? thanks
 
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