Poor Ringo Part 2

[Ringo*]

I posted a while ago about Ringos coolant overheat breakdown, well the story continues. I mentioned his sudden shaking and vibrating. So I hve been joking about Ringo doing the jitterbug. Anyway a couple weeks ago I took the car to VW to investigate the jitterbugging and I went very early in the morning and they of course have no record of my appointment oh well cause they take Ringo anyhow and say they will call me. So they take Ringo all day and they are checking out the non-functioning airconditioning as well and I wait and wait for the call. About 7:30pm I call them to get the lowdown. I am told my air conditioning works fine but Ringo doesn't know I turn it on. So if I want to pursue that its going to cost 300+, so I say I'll roll the windows down. Next they tell me the door latch is broken, uh ooook. I ask whats broken about it and he starts going you know that noise your car makes when you get in and start the car? And I swear I could have laughd in this guys face because he is telling me he set off my car alarm and that makes Ringo broken, and I try to tell him that the manual says thats thecar alarm and explain what he did wrong. Then he mentions about the button on the door not going down all the time. Alright Ringo does that, fine fix it. Then we get down to the jitterbugging Ringo needs a wheelbearing, ok fine. SO they tell me they need to keep him overnight and that doesn't fly with me since no one wants to give me a ride at 6am to work. So I go to pick the car up and they say it will be a little while because they are still working on the air conditioning and need to put the dash back on and then they tell me well its really good timing to pick ringo up because there isn't anything else they can do and they have to order parts. Uhhh so you wanted to keep it overnight why? About a week and 1/2 later i get the call the parts are in and i make an appointment and i forgot about that appointment completely. So I make a new one online take it in yesterday, guy comes out and greets me by name (is that good or bad?) and take my ringo away. I get a call about 7:30am and great they didn't do anything at all and Ringo is still there this morning. Of course I work until 10 pm tonight and i can not get him tonight. I miss my bug.

[Mr.Yellow]

Yeah I hate dealing with the stealerships too. fully suck. they were only really nice to us when we first bought Mr.Yellow

[noR]

Awww That's heartbreaking that they're treating you so poorly Emily. Sorry to hear it.

So you told them not to fix the A/C, that they said wasn't broken, but they still did anyway?

The wheel bearing is very important if that's really the problem, I'm glad they're getting that fixed up.

Sucks they didn't do it on the day it was scheduled. I wish they coulda given you a loaner car since it's gonna take so long for 1 bearing.

[Beetlemania]

Bummer!

After years of great service, I haven't been having the best of luck with my local stealership. Big change of people in there, and the new bunch doesn't seem to know who are the regulars (ME!!!!!) and who are the deadbeats. I wonder sometimes if they're trying to hassle me. Today sucked. It was a good thing they'd let me order my parts online before hand. I would have paid over $1000 otherwise. And then they discovered my tire was bad! Not a good time for us New Beatle owners, I suppose.

[Ringo*]

Well I picked Ringo up last night and boy was that fun, NOT!! First thing I get there and its oh give us a minute to do the paperwork, okey dokey. Then I hear them saying that the warrnty company isn't covering some parts and I hear htem say its like 600+ and i'm think i'm screwed i'm screwed but then they say they are going to take care of it and cover it themselves. OK then they tell me I owe them 173 dollars for when they looked at the a/c a month ago. And he's like so can I just have your card so I can run it again? Uh no! I tell him I didn't know I was going to have this charge and I don't have the money in my account. So the guy I was talking to went to talk to his manager and at this point I have been waiting about an hour. and so I just want to get out of there because I had to meet my boyfriend. So after a while the guy comes back and says heres what we are going to do i'm going to get you a rental car and i cut him off and tell him i want my car and i want to leave. He says you don't want your air conditioning fixed? I say no I told you that a month ago I just want my keys and I want to leave. He says ok hold on and he comes back out later and says i can't leave unless i pay and i said you cant legally keep my car and he says well i just talked to the service manager and i cut him off and said well i would talk to him. At this point I am really pissed off partly because i have been there for over an hour and partly because every two seconds someone is asking me if i have been taken care of. So I meet with the manager and he gives some bs about someone approving 300 dollars to work on the a/c when he called my home number a month ago and he tells me the initals of who approved it, well those where my father's intials (now he lives in vermont and paid on a bill for me once, so they know his name) and I tell them no, no one lives there by that name. So I get to argue with the service manager for another hour until my boyfriend gets there and they are finally printing a bill for me to sign and takes my number to bill on friday, because I told them forty times I get paid on thursday and i can show up here with cash, just give me my car. So I got out of vw 2 hours later and get on the thruway and the car is terrible, shaking vibrating feeling like I have a flat and feeling like its losing control for a few seconds. So either they did a crappy job with the wheel bearing or its something else but its not right still. I don't recommend going to Northtown VW because they are just tooo rude and don't communicate to eachother. I called tuesday was told my car was fine nd culd be picked up then I get out of work at 10pm and i have a message to call immediately, call asap, things like that and there is one on my sisters phone too, which was not the number i gave them. But of course they where closed so I call in the morning and again i was just told its ready, come pick him up. Noone told me ahead of time that I had to pay, if i knew beforehand i would have shown up with cash and it would have been fine but it turned into big thing because they didn't tell me about it.

[ubugnme04]

Sorry about all the trouble with your stealership. I am lucky and have a great one here, well others complain about them, but I put the fear of God into them the first time I went in for regular service and I didn't like their attitude. I made it clear to them when VW of America called to ask how the service went I was going to tell them exactly what I thought about their service department and that as long as it was under warranty I would be there and watching every move they make, apparently when my head started spinning 360 degrees they got that I was serious. Good luck!!!

[LadybugEwa]

So sorry to hear about Ringo's and your troubles with the stealer. That's why I looooooove my mechanic!
Only took Ladybug to VW once, and after that we both agreed NEVER AGAIN!
We are very pleased to have a very professional young mechanic who works on VW's (and owns a Golf).
Ladybug even says he's cute! The cheek of that girl , she says he has the kind of soft touch she likes!
I told her, I don't want to know what they do in the privacy of his garage, as long as she comes back to me happy

[Ringo*]

Before the other night I thought they where great a little bad at calling and communicating. I hope they are not doing things to ringo like ladybug is having done to her. Its all guys there and Ringo really likes this red beetle around the corner so I think it would be against his will. Very cute little story though. I was so mad that when i was leaving i was doing the crazy person i'm never coming here again, i'm going to tell every beetle i meet not to come here. My boyfriend told me I should have started acting like Milton in Office space. I asked for my beetle, and they want to charge me a fee, and I said no a/c, NO a/c for the beetle, but it had a fee for it, i could burn the place down...

[Beetlemania]

I believe that's my stapler.

Now use it on their eye sockets!

[barrabiuri]

tell me about it ! complaints are endless !!! I get a CEL , ge tto the dealer after waiting 2 weeks for an appointment(yeah VW, what am I supposed to do for the next two weeks? Walk ?)Anyway, bring the car in, im in at 7:30 am, im told my car will be ready in the afternoon?yeah, i know it might not take a while to change catalytic converter but certainly not a whole day! well, i get back there at 6 pm, only to walk out with a CEL on for a throtlle body or something, which by the way is noted on my bill that if CEL came on for throttle it would have to be replaced because technician had trouble getting throttle to connect?kidding me right? Oh! Gotta love that stealership!
VWOA called today I was at work, Ill make sure to get the message through though!


edit: and they were so nice they even saved me from the trouble of getting an estimate on the throttle body replacement : $650

[Ringo*]

VW of America has never called me, how do I get them to call me? Ringo and I hve things to say because I am very unhappy. They always try to keep my car overnight even when i come in very early in the morning and they allow online appointments but when i got there and told them i got an online appointment he said yeah that probably didn't work. Isn't that nice? Now I need to start looking at other places to go to the waiting area is so nice. Its sad that there are 3 VW dealers in my area and I don't like two of them. I seem to have a hard time finding a place that will take my warranty as it is aftermarket.

[ubugnme04]

VW of America has called me after every warranty service since my car was new. They ask about everything from if the repair was completed, and was it ready when promised, if it wasn't ready or not completed, they want to know why i.e. needed to order parts etc. They ask about the staff and service manager and what the experience is there etc. One of the people at my stealership said that the service rep gets a "bonus/commission" if they get a good report, and it's directly from VW. I was also told by the service manager that I know at the local Ford dealership that Ford does the same thing. It's money in their paychecks if they get a good report. Maybe your stealership pockets the money so there is no incentive to those people you are dealing with. I would call VW and let them know.....1-800-822-8987-I had a chit chat with them about using the VW Tow thing, miscommunication with the call center, tow company etc., that left me on the side of the road for about 3 hours, VW wasn't excited to hear about it at all, especially since I was told by the call center that if I didn't think they were getting someone there fast enough I could call a tow company on my own and pay for it, afterall I wasn't getting charged for the tow. I flipped on the *itch, I told them that the cost is built into what I paid for the car and the warranty and that I wanted her supervisor, he was pissed and so was VW. Anyhow, I will stop rambling now. Good luck with Ringo...

[noR]

Originally Posted by Ringo*

So I got out of vw 2 hours later and get on the thruway and the car is terrible, shaking vibrating feeling like I have a flat and feeling like its losing control for a few seconds. So either they did a crappy job with the wheel bearing or its something else but its not right still.

If you haven't talked to them about this, do so immediately.

Your car doesn't sound safe right now Emily*, I don't want to hear that your wheel came off or locked up while you were making a turn. I'd say it definitely has to do w/the wheel bearing job.

[Ringo*]

sarah?? my name is emily, anyhow i am going to get my boyfriend to drive it this weekend and then give them hell, my boyfriend thinks i need a wheel balancing? anyone else think that? The car is fine under 50 then it gets bad. I will see what happens over the weekend.

[noR]

Might need balanced, but there's no reason it'd need balanced NOW, but not before you dropped the car off w/them. It could be something worse.

But yeah, that's cool. Sorry for the name thing, I fixed it.

[Ringo*]

Well I took ringo back today. And the guy started saying it could be a lot of things and when he said the tire i said oh the tires got a bubble in it. So I showed him and hes like thats it, that has to be it. So I put new tires on the front and will pick it up at 5:30, so excited!!

[noR]

Good luck!

[Beetlemania]

A bubble! Yup, that'll do it! Lucky it was just shaking on the highway, and not rocking the whole Bug as the tire blew. I hope he's working for you now!

[Ringo*]

Well he is better, i still feel vibrating from the gas pedal, i haven't been able to drive up to 65 yet. I was delighted to know that when they took the tire off it blew bout 9 million pieces of rubber on the mechanic and he was all black. hehehe take that. He seems a lot better but I am holding out on saying he is all better until I get him on the highway.

[LadybugEwa]

Crossing my fingers for you!
Any news yet?