Courtesy car??

[RhysQ]

You guys don't know how lucky you are At my dealership (80 k's away) you have to pay nearly $80 to get a loaner to use, that's on top of the service charge They don't give anything away for free I should be charging them for the privilege of driving the GT around the block

So please don't complain about what sort of a loan car you will be given, just consider yourselves fortunate you don't have to walk everywhere !

By the way I would take it elsewhere for servicing but the next closest dealer is about a 320 k return trip so I don't have a lot of choice.

Russ

That's horrible.....and exactly the reason why they charge for a loan car. I would be writing a letter to VWA and questioning why everywhere else gets a free loan car and your dealer feels the need to charge for it, on top of the premium service fees.

Alternatively, why not take your car to a non-VW euro servicer. If it is a reputable servicer, your warranty will not be void.

[Russ59]

That's horrible.....and exactly the reason why they charge for a loan car. I would be writing a letter to VWA and questioning why everywhere else gets a free loan car and your dealer feels the need to charge for it, on top of the premium service fees.

Alternatively, why not take your car to a non-VW euro servicer. If it is a reputable servicer, your warranty will not be void.

The only problem there is that the nearest one of those is probably even further away than an alternate genuine VW service centre, just had a quick look and nothing appears to be available in my area with a Google search. Some times you just can't win


Russ

[mrx]

The dealers in Perth (at least for me) have charged if it's just for a service ($30 and no need to put fuel in it), or provided a car for free when warranty work is done - but you need to book in at least 3 weeks in advance to get one.

One of the dealerships gave me a Mitsubishi Lancer. I should be thankful, they also sell Hyundais!

[TDIESEL]

Good lord! A courtesy car is just that..a courtesy. Not a god given right. Be thankfull you don't live in a rural area and the only courtesy car you'll get is a 20 year old pile of snot that is barely roadworthy or you'll just be offered a lift home and the car gets delivered when it's work is done.

[livingthedream]

Ha nah it's not my plate combo.. I do have personalized plates in that style but not that combo.. Only downside is that those style euro plates don't look that good on the front..

Yeah i went a slimline version on the front, looks heaps better imo.

[NickZ]

I've gotten a red auto 1.6 beetle and a honda accord. As mentioned before, be happy you get a car at all!

[RhysQ]

Good lord! A courtesy car is just that..a courtesy. Not a god given right. Be thankfull you don't live in a rural area and the only courtesy car you'll get is a 20 year old pile of snot that is barely roadworthy or you'll just be offered a lift home and the car gets delivered when it's work is done.

I've gotten a red auto 1.6 beetle and a honda accord. As mentioned before, be happy you get a car at all!

That may be so but we're not buying Kia here are we. It's a good quality brand and the service should be the same, including free loan car use. For warranty to not be void, you are required to follow your scheduled servicing. That means VW are forcing you to hand over the car for a full day every now and then to keep it under warranty. To me, that is an inconvenience! We should be compensated for this inconvenience with the free loan of one of their own cars (which keep in mind they claim all costs back on tax).

My mum drives a Lexus RX 350 and gets a free loan car whatever it is she gets done at the centre. About 12 months ago, she wanted to drive one of the top of the line cars (GS430 from memory) whilst she was getting work done, they happily handed over the keys for a few days. Also, she has never had to book a loan car!

In addition to this, my Dad's Lexus (mum's old RX330, well 4 years old now) is out of warranty and still gets a free loan car.... along with not having to book one. They will give them anything to drive, as long as its not in the showroom.

[TDIESEL]

That may be so but we're not buying Kia here are we. It's a good quality brand and the service should be the same, including free loan car use. For warranty to not be void, you are required to follow your scheduled servicing. That means VW are forcing you to hand over the car for a full day every now and then to keep it under warranty. To me, that is an inconvenience! We should be compensated for this inconvenience with the free loan of one of their own cars (which keep in mind they claim all costs back on tax).

My mum drives a Lexus RX 350 and gets a free loan car whatever it is she gets done at the centre. About 12 months ago, she wanted to drive one of the top of the line cars (GS430 from memory) whilst she was getting work done, they happily handed over the keys for a few days. Also, she has never had to book a loan car!

In addition to this, my Dad's Lexus (mum's old RX330, well 4 years old now) is out of warranty and still gets a free loan car.... along with not having to book one. They will give them anything to drive, as long as its not in the showroom.

As I said before, be thankful you don't live in a rural area .
Don't take this personally as it is a generalisation but why does it seem that people who purchase expensive things have higher expectations? And the more expensive the product the more full of self importance they become?

I remember when I had my first service done at the dealer, I didn't even ask for a loaner, I just arranged for someone else to pick me up and drop me back when it was done. Can you imagine that... I actually had no expectations!

It seems the wealthy think the world owes them something because of their status where as the common man is happy to just make do. Just an observation.

[Russ59]

As I said before, be thankful you don't live in a rural area .
Don't take this personally as it is a generalisation but why does it seem that people who purchase expensive things have higher expectations? And the more expensive the product the more full of self importance they become?

I remember when I had my first service done at the dealer, I didn't even ask for a loaner, I just arranged for someone else to pick me up and drop me back when it was done. Can you imagine that... I actually had no expectations!

It seems the wealthy think the world owes them something because of their status where as the common man is happy to just make do. Just an observation.

I can see where you're coming from and I agree that some people do expect too much, but the main gripe here is why a loan car is offered at certain VW dealerships and not at all of them. I'm pretty sure it can be claimed as a tax deduction by them anyway, so in the end all it costs them is a little extra time and effort on the dealerships behalf. Personally I think if more businesses adopted a similar attitude toward their customers they would probably do a lot better financially for themselves as well. I don't personally give a rats ar$e that the dealer I bought my car from, and have it serviced by, doesn't offer a courtesy vehicle, that's obviously just the way they are, but it still would have been nice to have been given a lift to and from town (3 k's return trip) even for convenience sake, which has I might add, never once been offered.


Russ

[Maverick]

That's horrible.....and exactly the reason why they charge for a loan car. I would be writing a letter to VWA and questioning why everywhere else gets a free loan car and your dealer feels the need to charge for it, on top of the premium service fees.

Alternatively, why not take your car to a non-VW euro servicer. If it is a reputable servicer, your warranty will not be void.

A loan car is an extra that the dealer chooses to provide or not, from memory Highway Auto have 6 loan cars for their servicing area and this would be a big additional cost to them but they have the throughput of service work to cover it, many smaller places may not have that throughput and need to charge for the loan car.

Remember they don't have to offer a loan car (free or charged) and it's purely something that the dealerships offer to attract business and retain loyalty.

And your warranty can be voided on parts of the car if the non VW authorised repairer did not perform the work correctly or missed something that should have been rectified.

[Maverick]

That may be so but we're not buying Kia here are we. It's a good quality brand and the service should be the same, including free loan car use. For warranty to not be void, you are required to follow your scheduled servicing. That means VW are forcing you to hand over the car for a full day every now and then to keep it under warranty. To me, that is an inconvenience! We should be compensated for this inconvenience with the free loan of one of their own cars (which keep in mind they claim all costs back on tax).

It may be a quality brand but it's also not an overpriced brand, what you get for your dollars is an exceptionally well engineered and built car with heaps of features.

Look at Audi, they're a premium VW and you pay 20-40% more for the same car and at least that much extra in servicing costs. With that you get free loan cars, well fitted out waiting rooms, tea and coffee and so forth.

VW are not forcing you to hand over your car car all, you can get it serviced anywhere and any one that buys a car knows that you can't expect to have 100% uptime with a car, if you want that buy a second car as a spare. VW already have half the service intervals of most other manufacturers.

They can't claim back the full cost of the car on tax and most of the cost comes straight off their bottom line which needs to be made up somewhere else. You want to negotiate the car down so they make almost no profit and want them to service the car at the cheapest price and on top of that offer a loan car whenever you want? Not going to happen in this world.

My mum drives a Lexus RX 350 and gets a free loan car whatever it is she gets done at the centre. About 12 months ago, she wanted to drive one of the top of the line cars (GS430 from memory) whilst she was getting work done, they happily handed over the keys for a few days. Also, she has never had to book a loan car!

In addition to this, my Dad's Lexus (mum's old RX330, well 4 years old now) is out of warranty and still gets a free loan car.... along with not having to book one. They will give them anything to drive, as long as its not in the showroom.

And this is all part of the Lexus experience, Lexus is a high end premium brand and all of this is built both into the purchase price and the servicing price.

You can't expect VW to offer value for money on their cars and reasonable servicing costs AND offer all the extras that go along with the Lexus experience.

You want the Luxus experience go and buy a Lexus then. You buy VW and you get a damn fine car for the money along with reasonable running and insurance costs.

[Nardi330]

to be fair, even Merc and BMW don't offer such service which Lexus offers.

and you can't really expect VW to supply the same. their market is different which is reflected by the price of the products.

last time i asked and offered a courtesy car by Highway Honda, i asked the excess i have to pay if i bend it and it was something like $2000. i got my wife to pick me up and drop me off instead.

[dangerous_daveo]

Well the excess is so high because people do abuse the cars. Which I do think is wrong. It is given to you so you don't have to walk, you should treat it like its something borrowed. Which should be better than you treat your own stuff. But anyway...

'Courtesy' cars are clearly a cost built in to either the sale price, or the servicing cost of your car. A service is not cheaper if you don't use it (expect where you are charged for the car, and the fuel) so you may as well use it, as you are paying for it anyway. I feel where it is warrenty issues, they should be giving you a car, you don't buy a car expecting things to break. You can cop scheduled services, as you know they are going to happen.

Also, Lexus have the good rep because of things like service. I haven't heard of too many storys where the sales person has completely destoryed the coustomer relationship. Its 80-90% of the time the aftersales service that makes people either hate a brand, or a dealer. VW ARE trying to flog themselfs off as a premium brand, at least for some of their models. So I'd expect the service to go with that. It will be the thing that makes people come back to the brand, or the dealer. Faster it clicks the better.

[Maverick]

Well the excess is so high because people do abuse the cars. Which I do think is wrong. It is given to you so you don't have to walk, you should treat it like its something borrowed. Which should be better than you treat your own stuff. But anyway...

The excess is high because that's the way the insurance works, it's the same for rental cars which have similar policies.

I feel where it is warrenty issues, they should be giving you a car, you don't buy a car expecting things to break. You can cop scheduled services, as you know they are going to happen.

What company gives you a replacement product whilst yours is being serviced or repaired without you paying a premium price?

How much would it cost VW and the dealers to have cars sitting around not able to be used for scheduled servicing work on the off chance that someone has a car break down and how many cars would they need (2,3,4?).

Everything breaks down and it's up to the purchaser to decide if they can wear that by either having another car, hiring a car or paying a premium for a brand with that option (Lexus I'm pretty sure do this). If you buy a car expecting it to never break down then you're in for a big surprise.

Also, Lexus have the good rep because of things like service. I haven't heard of too many storys where the sales person has completely destoryed the coustomer relationship. Its 80-90% of the time the aftersales service that makes people either hate a brand, or a dealer.

And you're paying a massive amount extra for what is really a glorified Toyota with some extra bits and the top notch service. I would go as far to say that aftersales service is only a small part of liking a brand, if the product is a POS to begin with no amount of extra aftersales service is going to help.

VW ARE trying to flog themselfs off as a premium brand, at least for some of their models. So I'd expect the service to go with that. It will be the thing that makes people come back to the brand, or the dealer. Faster it clicks the better.

Are you happy to pay the extra 10-30% or more to pay for this? VW is a not VAG's premium brand, it's far from it. You want to buy VAG's premium? Go to Audi and pay the 20-30% premium on both sales and service, personally I'm happy to wear some very minor inconvenience in return for a large saving.

[dangerous_daveo]

I broke a mid range squash raquet the other day, and was given a new one off the shelf. No questions asked. 'Its broken' 'Here's another one'

We bought a mid range amp the other day, it had a small fault, it was replaced. Along with numerous other things over the years. 'It doesn't work.' 'Here is a new one Sir'

My point is, I can live without an amp, and I can live without a squash raquet. Hey, I wouldnt even really be inconveniced by not having these items. Its annoying, but hey.

However my car breaks down, its a bloody big inconvenience. If I take it in for any warrenty stuff, they first try and fob me off. Then I push harder they come up with some lame excuse. Then I keep pushing for it to be fixed, one thing gets fixed. Then I get fobed off on something else again. Which when the parts come in 2 weeks later I mention it again, and they find the problem then. Then I have to go in again, in my time to get that fixed, as they couldnt be stuffed listening to me or looking at it properly in the first place. I should never be inconvenienced because of a faulty product, they SHOULD be bending over to try and sort it, and make sure I'm happy. I'm sorry if I think that cars shouldn't break down or have faults, I mean its not new untested technology... Not like cars are new things.

And I don't care if VW are VAGs premium brand or not. If VW are trying to flog themselfs off as somewhat premium, which they are, they need to show that not just in their ads.

If I got a getz for $13k, trust me, I wouldn't be whining. But I didn't, because I didn't want hassles.

I'm glad you agree with me about the insurance excess. People also treat hire cars like crap also, so the excess is higher.

End of the day, the dealership I go to charges you the same money for your servicing weither you have a courtesy car or not. Therefore the cost of that MUST be built in to either the cost of the car, or the cost of servicing. So I am simply suggesting to people who have dealers like this, to use the courtesy car, as they are technically paying for it anyway. I mean, $310 or whatever it was for an oil change. I mean the oil alone was $95+gst... Sorry yes I expect something for that.

I guess I just have high expectations.

I'll leave it at that.

[edit] Thought I'd better point out, I really do like the car, VW have done a good job in design etc, I'm just not a big fan of the aftersales service. Once all these highly annoying warrenty things are sorted. I'll be going to a non dealer servicer, and not whine about not having a courtesy car, as I'd expect I won't be paying some stupid amount of money for whats basically an oil change.