How angry should I be?

[Deano]

Very Interesting subject, It has made good reading to me and quite interesting to who/where/how we all view ourselves and others from the Left to the right.
A few years ago on this forum, I had very good reason to have an issue with Breeze Southampton for an undiagnosed PDF which ended up costing me £2,500.00. when my Cali was a couple of months short of being out of Warranty, only for Breeze Poole to fined the problem after my warranty had expired .
This sort of problem could have happened to a builders van T5 which was half the price too.a Cali at double the price or even a European ambulance T5 which is 6 times the price.

Arn't we all lucky that we haven't had to see the interior of the latter.

I feel very lucky to own a Cali, Don't you?

Glad that Breeze are sorting the problem out Shambly, and you have many good times in your Cali,

" a few more thumbs up from passing Cali's please"
Dean

 

[gatvol]

Not much point getting angry as I don't think the dealer or VW will care, unless you get some proper publicity or financial compensation that helps influence their behaviour and business practices.

I think it is really a question of whether you want a California or not? Sadly no other vehicle I have seen comes close in terms of concept design and flexibility.

If you do want one. It will be unreliable. It will demonstrate appalling engineering failures and plain stupid design faults. Repairs outside warranty could cost outrageous amounts. Many car maintenance organisations are incompetent. Thus you will almost certainly have to cope with shocking vehicle failures and then there will be a fair chance of pond life mechanics butchering your vehicle in their clumsy attempts to fix it.

I wish that literally any other manufacturer made a comparable vehicle. But as of now they don't. So I will continue to have a love, hate relationship with mine

 

[wee westy]

If you do want one. It will be unreliable. It will demonstrate appalling engineering failures and plain stupid design faults. Repairs outside warranty could cost outrageous amounts. Many car maintenance organisations are incompetent. Thus you will almost certainly have to cope with shocking vehicle failures and then there will be a fair chance of pond life mechanics butchering your vehicle in their clumsy attempts to fix it.


Do you consider all mechanics to be pond life or is it just VW mechanics, strong words to describe your fellow man no matter if they are competent or not.

 

[gatvol]

I know some able mechanics and some able garages who do a very good job. I find that the independents who have to sing for their supper tend to be better.

Over the past ten years I have sadly encountered absolute stupidity at a number of main dealerships, and have had to find the good ones through a bitter learning curve that has cost me time, money and sometimes collateral damage to my vehicles. I have had problems with most marques, but eventually got to the good mechanics via word of mouth. The following main dealers all let me down

Land Rover
Audi
Mercedes
VW
Nissan

Only Volvo has done a proper job, every time, in the last decade for me

 

[Andy]

I seem to have offended some folk by using the phrase "builders van". Apologies. That was not my intention & I accept what James says about vans being used to support a business & arguably more important than our calis.
I'm not a snob, I drive a truck 5 days a week !

My cali gets used every day, it is my daily transport.

I still do not expect my vehicle to have ali swarf on the floor when I pick it up, what ever the vehicle is.

 

[rasmith66]

I have had lots of problems with Breeze at Poole. The van department seem to be out of their league with the California as they don't seem to have the specialist knowledge of the camper side of the vehicle. They are probably very good with the commercial vans but not the California...... this is a very expensive vehicle (£50,000+ new) and it is sold in the commercial vehicle/van dept. Personally I think that they should be sold with all of VW range in the main showroom.

 

[gatvol]

The simple fact of the matter is that calis cost 40k to 50k. That rightly creates high expectations. If you pay 500 for a vehicle, that creates low expectations as to what the state of it might be.

I have not read anywhere in vw literature or main dealers' literature disclosure that says "if you give us your pride and joy, in exchange for the 70, 80, 90 an hour we charge we may well damage it, scratch it, forget to put some of the bits we removed back into it ...... and that is just the way it goes big nose. If you don't like it, screw you and drive 30 miles to the next dealership then. Plenty more where you came from fat boy"

When you take a 40k asset in to be repaired by an organisation that charges 70, 80, 90 or whatever an hour and they claim to have done work valued at hundreds of pounds, that creates high expectations as to what you get back when they are done with it

70, 80, 90 an hour is real money to most people. Plenty of our fellow uk citizens earn less than this a day. For technical workers like a qualified electrician, they might charge you 150 a day or so and you don't expect to see bare wires or smell burning plastic caused by arcing after you have paid them

The paradigm is that your expensive Cali may well be left in the hands of a poorly supervised and inexperienced 17 year old who does indeed earn 7 an hour who is more focused on getting out of his/ her head on legal or illegal highs at the first opportunity. The potential for screw ups is obvious

And before I get trolled the the tony Blair politically correct brigade, I believe that a lot of 17 year old mechanics and most van drivers of all ages fulfil a far more valuable role in society than my clan of accountants /tax advisers/ divorce lawyers/ bankers etc etc. and I was 17 once too.

 

[Meoncoast]

Any up date on this did you get satisfactory conclusion to them dealer damage done

 

[shambly]

Funny you should ask, as I just collected it this afternoon.

They've replaced the main pieces of trim damaged in their last effort (kitchen out job; replacement side window assembly). They have marked another piece of trim in the process (not as badly as before, but still annoying). I will be raising it with VW customer services who still have an open case, but am not letting them (Breeze) near the vehicle again. So, calling it quits, as VW policy is that the dealer who breaks it, fixes it.

It sums up their service departments attention to detail that when, getting in the Cali to drive it home, it immediately gave a AIRBAG ERROR warning the moment I turned the ignition key. They must have driven it like that from the workshop to the carpark...

I will be AVOIDing them in future and travel further to another dealership.

On the positive side, their temporary fix to the steering column clunk is working so far, and the roof stays up without my workaround (up, down a bit, up again); new side windows haven't fixed the windscreen condensation issue, even though the old ones _were_ leaking.

Don't get me wrong by the way. I _love_ our California. I even preferred it to the Scirocco R they loaned me (Couldn't supply an automatic T5) whilst they did the work this time.

Simon

 

[777111]

A very disappointing experience and I am sorry you have been treated so poorly by this VW dealer.
Whilst I readily appreciate the difficulty faced by a mechanic to enact a 100% satisfactory repair ( -that where it is restored to original condition) I do believe that 99% of the time a competent and truly customer focused dealership can do this. And when it is that unfortunate 1% and things do unexpectedly go wrong (i.e. not by negligence) that the dealer make good a customer relationship with voluntary compensation. That is what I have always insisted on, always achieved and very much appreciate from the dealer I use up here in the North of England (Hadwins in South Cumbria).
Bad stuff happens, it doesn't measure up as a life & death experience (hopefully!) , but sounds to me like you have been badly let down by Breeze and personally I would not let it rest there. At very least they will be seeing a lot less customers via this site.
Enjoy the van tho and hope you can forget this episode.

Simon

 

[AlternativeKim]

We had a very very bad experience with Breeze in Portsmouth which resulted in me walking out in disgust, I will not be using them again.

 

[MrsShambly]

The saga continues… we've just opened the cupboard under the hob and there's broken glass and crud everywhere - seems Breeze can't even clean up after themselves.

Utterly disgusted with Breeze :censor

 

[smgcowfoldparts]

Not good.

Hope you find a resolution quickly.

cheers

 

[Sancho Panza]

Don't suppose VW do any specialist training course to supports Cali's do they?

Yes they do, and they are very worthwhile for technicians to attend.

 

[shambly]

Wait for it - the blind no longer fits correctly where they've removed and refitted the window trim.

Waiting for a response from our VWCS customer manager who has been told in no uncertain terms that we will not entertain Breeze attempting to put this right a second time.

 

[smgcowfoldparts]

Happy to look at it for you if you like.

cheers

 

[shambly]

Thanks Alex; You are at the top of my list.

VW Customer Service and Breeze are still "liaising" at present, whatever that means…

Simon

 

[calicasas]

You can take this vehicle to any dealer you like during the warranty period.
I wasn't totally happy with my dealer and subsequently took our Cali to SMG and my own experience of SMG was excellent - not surprisingly did my first service and first MOT with them.. Just a thought...

 

[calicasas]

Don't suppose VW do any specialist training course to supports Cali's do they?

Yes they do, and they are very worthwhile for technicians to attend.

Unfortunately these are costly, so not all technicians within any given dealership go on them (as I found out...) this means you may be lucky enough to have a VW trained technician on your vehicle... Or not....
When I bought our vehicle, the VW trained technician I spoke to argued that the Cali roof was steel not aluminium.. Goes to show we know these vehicles almost better than they do....

 

[smgcowfoldparts]

The course costs are the same for a California as they are for a normal course so that shouldn't come into it.

You can take your vehicle to any dealer for a warranty repair, but rectification work caused by damage is not the same. I cannot claim to repair something that someone else has damaged through warranty for example.

cheers

 

[777111]

Wait for it - the blind no longer fits correctly where they've removed and refitted the window trim.

Waiting for a response from our VWCS customer manager who has been told in no uncertain terms that we will not entertain Breeze attempting to put this right a second time.

Hopeless dealership.
I am really sorry to hear about all this and very much hope you get this resolved very soon.

Simon

 

[shambly]

An update.

VW Customer Service will not let me take the vehicle elsewhere to sort out Breeze's mess.

From Breeze's "rectification work" I now have a misaligned blind, an ill fitting trim panel (not one that was previously damaged), and one piece of still damaged trim ("we didn't notice it was damaged"). Plus lots of broken glass rattling around behind the kitchen unit.

So I have no choice but to hand the vehicle over to Breeze again.

Breeze have at least offered me my out of pocket expenses for the last revisit, and their "master technician" is coming to my house next week to discuss the remaining issues and collect the California for further repairs.

Hopefully by Easter it will all be sorted out

 

[Martyn]

This has been a very interesting thread and as a new California owner I feel huge empathy, I truly hope you get the issues with your vehicle sorted out by Breezes.

I do feel that people's experiences of dealers is a very subjective thing - for instance, there was a post two or three back that pointed out great service from Hadwins in South Cumbria. I bought a car from them a few years back and the car and subsequent service was nothing short of dreadful, so I reckon you have to look at performance over an extended period. It's clear that SMG Cowfold understand this, I ordered a few parts from them this morning and it was an absolute joy to talk to someone who understands these vehicles and genuinely wants to help. They've got my business from this point onwards, no question.

I bought my Cali from VW Fossway (Benfield) in Newcastle and it has been a bit of a drama thus far. I collected her on Monday, having asked for parking sensors to be fitted before I took delivery (they were, sadly, not part of the original spec) and they made a dreadful job - they were totally misaligned and the cabling behind the bumper is already dangling down. They're coming to collect the van and fit a new bumper, so it's going to cost them. It's also cost me stress and is going to put an extra couple of hundred miles on the van. I hope they do a decent job, I will keep you informed.

Martyn

 

[shambly]

An update.

I have a '14 Caravelle sat on my drive in place of my California, which has been collected by Breeze's master technician.

For the first time, he has given me confidence that Breeze will sort out the issues that they have created with my vehicle in their first two attempts at fixing warranty issues.

I'll know tomorrow.

Simon

 

[James]

An update.

I have a '14 Caravelle sat on my drive in place of my California, which has been collected by Breeze's master technician.

For the first time, he has given me confidence that Breeze will sort out the issues that they have created with my vehicle in their first two attempts at fixing warranty issues.

I'll know tomorrow.

Simon

That's good to hear Simon, I hope you get it sorted. How are you liking the Velle?

James