Complain about a product or service

West Broad VW/Audi

Richmond

Aimee of Richmond VA (1/16/03):
I own a certified used '99 Volkswagen Passat that I bought from West Broad VW/Audi in Richmond. Two months ago, my oil pump failed. My family (husband, 2 young children) and I were stuck on the side of the highway. The car was towed into our neighborhood mechanic who said he was probably not the person to fix the problem. The car was then towed to West Broad Volkswagen & Audi where the engine was replaced at a cost of approximately $5400. Since then my car has gone back to them 3 times.

The first time I was driving home from work and the driver side air bag came on and the brake light came on and made continual beeping noises. I pulled over, stopped the car and called my husband. The car would not start again. He came, jumped the car and we drove it back to the dealership. They told us the 6-month-old battery was bad. We went back to the battery vendor and they replaced the battery that was still under warranty. A few days later, the same thing happened on my drive from work. Rather than pulling over, I drove it home, which wasn't far. The car would not start again once it had been stopped.

We jumped the car and drove it to West Broad Volkswagen again. The car was scheduled to go in anyway because of an oil leak. The mechanic replaced a seal or tightened something for the oil leak and charged the battery. When we returned to the dealership once more we could tell by the way the car was cranking that the problem had not been solved. There was a slight delay starting. Later that afternoon they said that their "diagnostic" indicated that it was a bad alternator (cost $700). We retrieved the car, purchased an alternator from a salvage yard over an hour away for a '99 Passat. This alternator was taken from a car with 22,000 miles on it. And was checked by the Salvage Yard prior to purchase. This cost $65.

It turned out though, that our car required a '98 alternator. We drove back to the salvage yard. We took the car to a local VW mechanic (not a dealer) where he charged us $61 to charge the battery and put in the alternator. The car started up. We drove across town home. The next day, I drove the car in to work. I drove the car home from work and noticed that it seemed a little weak. My husband tried to drive the car that evening to the grocery store. It would not start.

That evening I contacted Volkswagen via some 1800 number and placed a complaint. They assured me that they would be contacting the dealership to make sure that they are doing what they can to resolve this issue. Today I took the afternoon off to met with the general manager, the service manager and the mechanic to make sure that we are taking the proper route. I initiated this meeting. I had an extremely difficult time getting anyone on the phone. They were "at lunch" for over 2 hours. Finally, I spoke with the general manager and I told him I would be in this afternoon along with a brief synopsis of the past two months. I asked for a meeting to address my concerns.

The receptionist was extremely rude. After waiting a while I asked if the general manager was in the building since he didn't seem to be answering her page on the intercom. She said he was. I asked her to ask him how long he would be. Her response was "You haven't been waiting over an hour have you?" I told her that my time was valuable too and sat down to wait. During the meeting, the general manager, Mark Parham, was also extremely rude. He made comments regarding the "grimace" on my face and my "body language". After a very heated discussion, we came to the conclusion that they would do another diagnostic of the car and we would proceed.

Later this afternoon, the mechanic called with the results of this "new" diagnosis - the alternator was bad. My husband went around with him for a explaining over and over that we had come to the agreement that they would assume that the alternator was good and that they should look elsewhere - fuses, circuitry etc. The service manager called back with the claim that they could not proceed further in the diagnostic until the alternator was fixed ($700 remember?). We did agree that my husband would take the alternator back to the salvage yard (over an hour) and get another one from them. West Broad Volkswagen will put this alternator in for $110.

During the past few months, we made the decision to get rid of this car. This was not an easy decision. We owe over $10,000 on this car. CarMax offered us $5300 for trade in. The car hasn't been in working condition long enough to have another conversation with another dealership regarding trade-in.

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