Macklin Motors MG Edinburgh West - MG Dealer Discussion, Opinions & Experiences

[Archev]

Never mind, we had a pleasant derail out of it.

I thought we were witnessing the birth of the MG tu tu

 

[Rolfe]

Just had an absolutely steaming row with the service manager.

 

[ReintjeWA]

Just had an absolutely steaming row with the service manager.

Tell us all about it when you’re ready

 

[Rolfe]

Well, hopefully that's an end of it.

Naturally they weren't going to back down and say, oh sorry we tried to scam you, can we be friends now? They stuck to their guns that they were the authority and if they said it needed doing it wasn't for someone else to say anything different. But obviously they knew I wasn't going to cave in and ask them to do it after all.

The problem was that they were insisting on doing another "vehicle health check", despite one having been done only two weeks ago. I protested, and was told they had to do it if the car was on the premises because it was their responsibility. Anything could have happened in two weeks! I could have a ballooning tyre, anything! I just wanted the door handle job done and out of there, and I strongly suspect these vehicle health checks are being used as a way to find extra paying work. I said that this was my car, not theirs, and it was up to me to decide what work to authorise and what not. They made me sign a disclaimer that I had declined the vehicle health check. I had a nice therapeutic yell at them anyway.

They did the door handle and it's fine, and there is no way I am going to make an issue of the fact that the speed limit detection software doesn't seem to have been updated, because it's useless either way regardless so who cares. Bye-bye Macklin.

They couldn't really let it go though. The woman I'd been dealing with declared, as I was leaving, that my brakes were "almost 100% worn down". Now of course that's nonsense. The issue was rusting and some pitting due to underuse, not excessive wear. Andrew has stripped the brakes and cleaned them off since Macklin raised the issue and there is no way he would ever let me drive off in a car that had brakes that were almost 100% worn. I suspect this was more likely to be ignorance on the part of the woman who was talking to me, rather than a deliberate falsehood, but it just shows how ignorant some of these front-of-house staff are, and how they'll grab any story to try to frighten a customer into having unnecessary work done.

There was a funny post-script that thankfully didn't go all the way. I decided to stop the car when I'd gone a little way, just to check the door handle. I couldn't get the car to lock. Every time I tried it was giving that beep that means you've left the boot open or something, but I hadn't. (I suspected it was something I was doing wrong but couldn't figure out what.) I went back to Macklin's and parked the car and picked up my rucksack and lo and behold it locked no problem. So I drove off again, but thought I'd better check again. Wouldn't lock. So I went back to Macklin yet again, parked the car and tried again, this time without picking up the rucksack. Again it wouldn't lock. (You have probably figured it out by now.) I went in and said, I think there's something wrong, I can't get the car to lock.

They said, take a seat and we'll get someone to look at it. I did so, and a moment later the penny dropped with a resounding thud. I had both keys with me (just in case!) and the spare was in the rucksack. Obviously the car wasn't going to lock while the spare key was sitting on the passenger seat. So I said, wait a minute, I think I know what's wrong, I just need to check something. Went out, picked up rucksack, checked locking, absolutely fine. So I breezed back in and said, sorry, my mistake, it's absolutely fine thanks, and left for what I hope will be the absolutely last time. Just glad I realised before the guy actually came out to check it, my face would have been red.

The woman said something about emailing me the invoice for my records and I said OK. It only occurred to me later that while they had quoted about £441 for the service I had only paid about £301 at the time, something about keeping the job open because it wasn't finished. But of course the door handle was warranty work, so I don't know why she did that. I had expected to pay the balance today and was getting ready to load for bear if it was more than £140. However, I wasn't asked to pay anything before I drove off. No email has yet appeared. Obviously I'll pay it (up to the £140 balance) if asked, but it would be nice to be on the winning side somewhere on this.

I got home to an invoice from Andrew for £300 for labour only, to changing the tyres and stripping and cleaning off the brakes. That's somewhat more like it.

 

[Anon70]

The woman I'd been dealing with declared, as I was leaving, that my brakes were "almost 100% worn down"

I would be asking to see her calculations (like they do on exams) by using the following...
Initial pad thickness = A
Current pad thickness = B
% of wear = (B/A) * 100

Also where does "almost" appear on the % scale 70%, 80%, 90%?

 

[Rolfe]

I'm not going to be asking her anything. I'm never going to be speaking to her again. That final remark just showed how ignorant she was about the whole issue of brake wear in electric cars.