P*ss poor customer service, Ridgeway Paint and Body Center - VW / BMW - Up at Greenham Options

[motormad]

I'm very disappointed with the level of service I recieved at Ridgeway VW Bodyshop over the last few weeks.

It's a bit of a long story so please bear with me. I have registered my unhappiness with VW UK already, I'm just sharing my story.

I bought a Mk5 Golf GTI and as per usual with Mk5s it suffered from rust bubbling through on both front wheel arches.

I took it along to the VW Bodyshop in line with the warranty process and they submitted the car under warranty work.
Eventually I heard back to say that I would be getting a 50% contribution to the total cost and that I would have to pay £370 to complete the work.

Having had the same issue with my old car, which I didn't have to pay anything on, which was 2 years older and had done 40k more miles at the time (not that it mattered), I entered into a long and drawn out process. I said that if it would help sweeten the deal I would get some other work done at the same time, if the price was right. I know what it costs to get body panels sprayed so wouldn't pay over the odds.

I later received a call to say that the bodyshop would complete the work at no cost to me. That's all that was said to me on the phone call.
The car gets booked in on Tuesday the 30th July. The date at the time was around the 12th or 13th.

I ask about getting a quote for the cost to respray my bumper and bonnet. I chased 3 times and still did not receive the quote - Very disappointing.
With the car booked in for the Tuesday, the Friday before hand (26th) I finally get the quote at about 4:45pm.

At this point in time I decide that I don't want to pay £470 to have a bonnet and bumper sprayed (plus at the time I was thinking of selling the car) so come Tuesday morning, I drop the car off and they tell me that in order to have the wings replaced, under the 12 year corrosion warranty, I have to pay for the bonnet and bumper to be sprayed. I said that I didn't want to go ahead with the work so the guy said "well then you're not getting the wings" and buggered off inside.

I felt like I was being blackmailed - Ultimately the car has to be in tip top position so I was put into the position of either have a tatty car or pay the money. So I reluctantly pulled out my wallet and unhappily paid £475 or there abouts.

You can read about it here on my build thread for my car here.

http://uk-mkivs.net/forums/t/520487/3629026.aspx#

The next morning I received a call, with some manager guy complaining that I had written negative comments on our owners forum (of which there are tens of thousands of members and it's viewed by hundreds of thousands of people). So I, the customer, was being moaned at for complaining.

Moving on from that, when I pick the car up and, as I do paintwork correction and detailing, it looked pretty good.
I give it a quick look over as I have other things to do.

I recently spent the weekend doing a full correction detail on my car and was the first chance I had to have a proper look around the vehicle.

I spotted that there was a paint run on the lower drivers door, right at the edge near to where it meets the wing. And standing back and looking at the front end, obviously the panel gap was wrong on the bonnet -> wing, and the bottom of the wing does not sit square with the panel.

I go back to Ridgeway yesterday lunch time, and can tell they are not happy to see me - At the end of the day I am a paying customer and I expect to be spoken to with a modicum of respect.

I speak with this estimator guy, Shaun or whatever - and I'm nice about everything - I say the rest of the work was great but there were just these little things.. and asked for him to put them right.

He seemed like he could not give a crap!! He tells me, and I'm not joking - "it's not a rolls royce it's a mass produced car!" and that I'm "being picky".

I explain that the car is a show car (I regularly take it to VW shows across the country) and it's the small details that make the difference between any old car and a true show winning vehicle.

The bodywork is not mint but I am sorting that over the winter when there are no shows to attend - Instead of accepting this Shaun says "well what about this rust here [on the sill, another common Mk5 issue], that's not like a show car is it?"

He goes on to say " i have a keen eye i could spot everything, you've had paint on every panel" -

Urrr, no I haven't. I went around it with their own PD8 (it's a paint depth gauge and measures how much paint is on a panel) when it went in for the warranty assessment.

I found him so arrogant, constantly going on about his "good eye" and how he could "point out loads of faults on my car"

I said just because it's not a rolls royce I don't care, I expect the paint work done to be mint and for it to look spot on.

He said I was being "very awkward" and a "difficult customer", I was called "arrogant about the situation" and that I "kicked up a stink before.." -

I couldn't believe it!! That is absolutely not how you speak to a customer. Regarding the panel alignment I said to him that he should compare the bad side with the good side and tell me if that's right - I explained it absolutely was not like that before.. he immediately and without thinking said "you can't prove that"

He offered to fix the work under the warranty (and he was offering this because he had to, not because he wanted to or could even appreciate my position). However I am not in such a position where I feel the relationship between myself and the bodyshop is not conducive to any future business. So I'm left either giving a bodyshop I don't have a good relationship with my car, of which I don't have faith in treating the car with the respect I would expect, or fixing the problems myself.

I have photographed the issues.


You can see a gunky looking substance everywhere. This is called "waxoyl" and is a corrosion inhbitor. It's supposed to be applied in a neat manner but it's been splattered on everywhere and is very, very difficult to remove.



Drivers side wing fitment (OK and no issues with clearing the tyre at low heights/aired out - note the straight fitment between the wing and the sill



Passenger side wing which fouls the tyre when aired out and notice the angle between the wing and the sill.



Panel gap drivers side between bonnet and wing (fine)



Panel gap between passengers side bonnet and wing - NOT FINE!!!



I would suggest anyone who DOES use the bodyshop does so with EXTREME caution.
I cannot recommend this bodyshop to anyone any more, not so much because of the work but because of the terrible attitude of certain members of staff.