Coming to SW England in your Cali - be aware!

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dartmoorscott

Guest User
My 2019 Beach lives here in SW England near the Devon/Cornwall border. The Cali is under VW All-In-One service and warranty plan and has less than 29k on the clock. My problems began with a power steering issue, losing fluid and poor steering. Broke down beginning of March and was recovered by VWUK to my nearest dealer (50 miles away) in Exeter. Was told that they were snowed under and had no diagnostic slots until June! A three month wait! Talk about a parallel universe! If the van was my business – luckily, it’s not.

After much telephone conversation VWUK found another van dealership over 100 miles away in Dorchester who could look at it sooner (within a few weeks) to determine the cause and decide whether the issue was covered by the warranty. So, my Cali was once more loaded up on the recovery vehicle and moved again, this time across Dorset to Dorchester. Long story cut short, the power steering block has split and needed replacing and it was covered by warranty. What have I learned.....??

There are only two VW van repair dealerships in SW England, one in Exeter and one in Indian Queens in Cornwall. Both are owned and run by the same company.

Plymouth, the largest conurbation has no dealerships within 50 miles.

Apparently three other van centres in the SW have been closed in the past few years including my local centre in Plymouth.

Both the two remaining centres are snowed under with work, hence the long delay in diagnostics (three months!)

The VW extended warranty or All-In-One plan has ultimately saved me a small fortune, the estimate for recovery and repair was over £3k!

This summer may be difficult for you if your Cali breaks down in Devon, Cornwall or Somerset and you need a VW dealership to sort it out.

I now have my van back albeit after a one month wait and a 4 hour train trip to pick it up post repair. Big shout out to VW Heritage of Dorchester who were able to repair my Cali and who were excellent.

Not so impressed with VW van repair coverage in the SW of England.
 
Had the same issue with no slots or loan vehicles on holiday in Northumberland. Nearest was Newcastle and could not be seen for Months.
I booked in with Breeze in Southampton, which is the best closest to us, but still a 2 hour drive. still Months wait, but luckly the gear selector switch issue cleared itself with a hard right turn and nothing stored so not replaced under warrantee yet.
We have Bridgwater who sell cans And Cali’s, it cannot do warrantee work.
Bristol as well and you need 6 weeks notice to book in for an inspection and service. If you need the tracking then longer as they only have the one MOT ramp.
 
Another vote for Breeze in Poole. 50 miles away from us but well worth it after suffering several awful bodges on our slightly elderly T5. One charged us £400 after failing to diagnose and replace a dodgy starter motor - and they claimed to be a vehicle electrics specialist.
 
Not a Cali but this is how the experience should be…

We discovered that the boot of our leased Tesla was flooded with water one Friday evening. So gave a description of the issue on the service app, received a message 10mins saying car need to goto a service centre, repair would take less than one day - booked a 9am slot on the following Monday.

Dropped the car in Crawley on Monday morning. Asked for a courtesy car (expecting to be told nothing available), got a fully charged courtesy car with free supercharging and off I go.

Later that afternoon receive a message saying they need to keep the car until Friday as they need to replace all seals, remove & dry boot liner etc and to keep the courtesy car. Collected the car on Friday.

..:.the service experience for the van at SMG was very different!
 
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Breeze vw in Poole and Southampton are one of the biggest and best in the country.
I agree - based on my experience Breeze in Poole are very competent and helpful.
 
Think the OPs point is time to wait for service. I assume Breeze are not getting you in next day if you have an issue?

It does weigh on my mind a little if I end up having a warranty issue. I’ll be relying in availability in midlands VW can centres.
 
I think it all depends on how urgent the issue is, always best to turn up or get aa roadside sort sort if urgent.
Had hire van and my kombi dropped at VW dealer they looked at it super quick as VW wanted the hire van off there books asap!
I think they look at cali/GC as you must have another vehicle (not saying it’s right).
They seem to look after commercial vans a lot quicker in my experience.
 
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