Vehicle Complaints Corner

I would agree with you here P22.

Yes, good points - people who show they're not willing to cooperate (ie. the problem is all someone elses fault) will often struggle to get cooperation from the other party. Simply the number of faults is not a good gauge of the quality of a vehicle either - like you said, a rattle in the dash is less serious than a total engine failure.

BTW: "service from the local dealer (Lennock Motors in Canberra)" - are the sump plugs stripped yet?!

"service from the local dealer (Lennock Motors in Canberra)" - are the sump plugs stripped yet?!

Or did they forget to tighten the injectors so it pumped out 2 lts of oil as i drove home.

On return, did they say all that oil was there when you brought it in.

Then why didn't you mention the fairly bad leak and pls explain my clean garage floor?

Um ok then, sorry....

I can only call it as I see it....my experience with them has been good.

Matt

You mean we have to service these things ?

Havn't got time for that stuff. Can't afford to have vehicle off the road - I need it.

I thought you just put fuel in at the bowser and drive till it runs out and then fill it again.

True stories from a long past era ;-)

Malcolm

Reminds me of the woman with a mazda 323 where I used to work.
she asked me where we got the work vehicles serviced and I told her which place to go as they did a good job for us.
The mechanic rang me a few days later to ask if I had a contact number for the woman, which I did.
He rang back about an hour later and started laughing, I asked him what the problem was and he told me that they couldn't get the bonnet open as it was rusted shut! When he rang her to tell her she said "don't worry about the washer fluid then just do the service".
He then asked her when she last had it serviced as well as pointing out that if they couldn't iopen the bonnet then they couldn't service it.
When he looked at the service book it had never had one, 5 years old and never had the bonnet opened!

Local Toyota dealer told me they had just traded a corrolla that had never had a service in 150000ks.They must be tough.
Cheers Pete

Russ

Interesting comments. I think peoples' experiences vary so widely its hard to generalise.

There at least four variables:

The owner - some people are born whingers and must make the car dealers' lives misery. These people are rude, unreasonable, demanding, and have no concept of what its like delivering services to people. I'd love to know what some of these whingers actually do for a living themselves.

The individual dealer. Some dealers are sympathetic and have excellent mechanics. Others are worth avoiding. Some are downright crooks.

The individual car. Some cars are rock solid, yet others may be lemons. Luck of the draw? Monday/Friday thing? The way its driven? Who knows.

The make. Some makes have particular problems for which they become well known : Nissan 3.0 diesel engine, Toyota diffs, Land Rover ABS units (the three amigos).

My personal experience with Mitsubishi with two vehicles over 200,000 km was flawless.

My Land Rover experience has been satisfactory, although I am suffering from the three amigos at present (130,000 km on dial).

I've had negative experiences with Lexus reliability and service. But the car is now 230,000 km and still runs like new.

I had a very negative experience with the local Porsche dealer. Car had to be tray topped back to the dealer on the day it was 'serviced'.

Volkswagen GT TDI is just over a year old. Apart from a waste gate problem it has been a great car and the dealer service is exemplary.

Bob

Bob,

I know where you are coming from, but in my defence, the Pajero is the ONLY vehicle that has let me down and done so badly. In two years of ownership (from new), the vehicle was off the road for 17 weeks.

In no particular order:

The bonnet catch broke off, causing the bonnet to fly open and smash the window and roof in. It happened the very next day to the guy I work with, so it wasn't a one-off incident.

The fuel system was faulty, causing a dramatic loss of power (diesel engine). Took nearly a year, two injector pumps, ECU programs, fuel tank breather change, untold head scratching and a new fuel tank before the sieve on the fuel uptake pipe in the tank was discovered to have collapsed and got sucked into the uptake pipe.

Front suspension bushes wore out (blamed on the weight of the winch (even the the front axle weight was within Bitsamissin's own specification.)

Radiator support panel was cracked in 16 places and had to be changed.

Brake light globes kept falling out.

Numerous smaller things.

As I said earlier, Bitsamissin tried to get out of repairing everything, including the bonnet catch thing. They blamed it on the fact that I drove on corrugated roads....well excuse me for thinking that I'd purchased an off-road vehicle. They quickly changed their tune after it also happened to my mate's NP Paj (twice - once at 35,000Km and again at 80,000Km)

They blamed the fuel system problem on bio-diesel even though the only time I'd ever used it was months after the loss of power problem had started. I had to point out to them that there was nothing in the Owner's Manual stating that bio-diesel was not to be used. It took the threat of legal action to get that fixed.

I'm not a whinger, I just know what was right and who was wrong (Bitsamissin) and was eventually vindicated in every case. The problem was that I needed that car for work and it was costing me a $1000.00 per day every day I couldn't work (not exaggerating). Bitsamissin paid for a hire car just once, while the bonnet, windscreen and roof were replaced. The other occasions cost me - big time.

The bulldust that they spruked when trying to avoid repairs was truly amazing and they kept on harking back to the conditions in which the car was being used. I had to point out to them that they advertised "If you can find a better built 4WD, buy it" and "We've won 9 Dakar rallys with Pajero" and who can forget the TV ad campaign showing the Paj bouncing around on the surface of the moon? All implying toughness and reliability that the car simply did not have.

The whole experience left me gutted.

If any of the problems had occurred out of warranty I would have copped it on the chin, but as I said, the car was only two year's old when I flogged it out of sheer desperation.

Now, with the Land Rover, I personally have not come across a dealer yet who has not addressed any issues I have brought to their attention. It makes owning the car a nice experience, even if it has had the odd problem. The thing is they get fixed...without hassles.

The Paj was the worst car I've ever owned, bar none. Bitsamissin is the worst company I've ever dealt with, bar none. I'm happy for you that you've had a good run with yours.

Cheers

Russ