P0420 & Dealer rant

[Chucktastic]

Fair warning this will probably be a little wordy as I tend to ramble/over share


So Saturday before last my CEL comes on while out and about, so I pull in to the closest Advanced Auto Parts and borrow their scan tool and proceed to pull the code. Comes up with P0420 so I quick google search on my android phone tells me its the cat code and shows me a few links back to here for more info and others experiences. Go back inside the store and talk to the parts guy about replacement costs and they have 'universals' from $130-$190 (if I remember correctly). Thank them for the info and head out the door.

While we are eating lunch I read on here that cat might be covered for 80k+ miles so Im excited that this might get fixed by the dealer at no cost for me. So I call both local VW dealers and since its Saturday the advisers are all busy. One of the dealers uses a call center for prices and I am quoted $1700 to do the cat! Part alone at one dealer is $800+ and the dealer Im getting the warranty work done at is $1100.....just for the damn part!

Both dealers transfer me to advisers VM's and I leave detailed messages about the code, symptoms and possible warranty coverage from what I have seen online. No call back that day or the following Monday.

Called both dealers again on Wednesday of last week and again after explaining to call center reps I am put on hold then told they are busy but I can leave a VM. Again leave VM's and never hear back. This goes on at least 2 more times for a total of 3-4 vm's left at each dealer. Call back this past Saturday and leave another VM and then call right back and the call center rep offers to send an email to the advisers asking for call back due to lack of previous followups.

Well, as you can guess they didnt call back. So I twitter bitched about the situation this past Tuesday since:

A) I like to vent to the world
B) Both dealers follow me since I follow them

A few hours later I get a twitter reply from one of the dealers and then a call from a strange number. Being at work I do not take the call and let it go to VM. I forget to check my messages later in the day and dont check till Wednesday afternoon and its from the director or manager for the chains service and parts departments. Due to dealing with my twitter bitching before they already had my info, including my VIN and he let me know that my car would be covered by 8yr/80k but that VW has extended it to 100k and until 2013 so either way I was covered since my born on date was in May 2003 and Im a little over 67k right now. So that was good news.

I call him back on Thursday and arrange to drop off call on Friday. He does however tell me that 'there is no record of me ever calling or leaving any messages'. I just blew this off as the advisers covering their asses, but telling the customer he is lying is a HUGE issue for me.

Friday, drop off car at 930am and told it should be a few hours and they will get back to me. Needless to say no call back 5hrs so I call them back at 230pm and have to leave VM. No call back after another hour so I call back and leave another VM and this time he gets back to me after only 30 more minutes.

Adviser tells me they are still running the test (takes an hour two per adviser?) but that right now the test are coming back fine so more than likely they will just send me home with the car and I will have to wait for the CEL to come on again with the same code THEN VW will approve the replacement. I tell the dealer that I threw the code 2 saturdays before and cleared the code at that time and that the CEL came back on this past Tuesday. Well he says that may not matter since VW 'demands' that the codes be confirmed with their equipment, but he will see what he can do.

Calls me back an hour later around 5pm and tells me he was able to get it approved and they will start work on it now. I tell him I will get dropped off at dealer shortly and will just wait for it to be done or arrange for ride home and pick up on today (saturday).

Get to dealer and my car is outside....ODD ???

Go inside and adviser tells me that they are sorry, but the part is actually NOT IN STOCK?!?! and that they had the car all day but didnt check to see if the part was available prior to telling me they would do the work today. Tells me the work is approved and they have ordered the part but it will be tuesday of next week till the part gets in and that he will call me next week to schedule.

Not much I could do so I just left, but I was pissed so I called the other VW dealer (10miles away?) and their parts guy says they have one in stock and he's not sure why the other dealer didnt call them to get the part from them directly. (more anger is building up)

Tried to call parts dept back at the dealer that approved work last night to see if they had part in stock but got tired of waiting on hold.

So this morning I have the gf call the parts dept and ask for a cat for the same model/year/engine bug and guess what? They have it in stock! Yea I was a little pissed to hear this to say the least. So I call right back and ask the same question and Im told that the part is avail so I explain that the part was not avail yesterday and I was told that it would not be there till next week. Oddly enough the part was delivered this morning or that was their story.

Of course the adviser didnt call me today to bring the call in so I guess I have to wait for his call before I can schedule the replacement.

Not overly happy about this situation so will call the corp office contact back on Monday to let him know how I feel, which wont do much but will at least make me feel better.

Will keep you all posted on how the replacement goes, but Im hopeful it goes off without a hitch.

Oh yea, sorry about the long ass post, but I needed to vent to someone and the gf only stands my bitching for so long.

[charmingtrouble]

venting isn't such a bad thing, it's healthier to let it all out instead of keeping it inside you until you snap at someone innocent

I hope it works out and sorry that you had to go through that trouble

[Smileybug]

Hopefully it works out. If they give you too much of a runaroud, I got my cat replaced for under $200, parts and labor, at a local muffler shop. I was a year out of the extended warranty of 10 years/120k for my car. Wayy under for miles, same exact symptoms that they extended it for. But VW wouldn't do a dang thing for me.

[Chucktastic]

--Update--

Waited for call from Service Adviser that never came today so I called them this afternoon before they closed.

Spoke to nice person in call center about scheduling cat replacement and wondered why I had not received a call back from Adviser after I had already confirmed that the part was at the dealer as of Saturday morning. I was put on hold for about 10mins and she came back to inform me that they can get me in on Thursday of this week and that the part is indeed in stock. No excuse or mention as to why I was not called back and no excuse or mention as to why the part that was not scheduled to arrive until Tue/Wed of this week was magically delivered on Saturday morning.

Oh well, I drop off the car on Thursday at 11am so we will see what happens from there.

Cant get any worse can it?

[Smileybug]

Shh..I wouldn't say that. You're dealing with a VW dealer after all.

Good luck though. Let us know what happens!