Snows Plymouth

[heavysalad]

Just back from hols.... great to read that this has ended well wobble's mum. Very jealous of your red roof bellows though

Hope you have been out enjoying the stunning weather in the sunny south west. We caught a few nice days in Devonshire at river dart country park last week, so good for the kids.

I think the bench knocking is normal... on and off maybe, but normal.

Let me know when that cab carpet may be released from dealer captivity if you get a mo... I'll put it in the calendar.

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

So for anyone following the saga we’ve had, the leak is back.

We are gutted. We don’t know what to do now or where to go with this. Snows will obviously offer to buy it back, but we are out of pocket whatever happens.

We can’t get a new one or a used one for the price we paid and will have to pay thousands more now to get an equivalent vehicle. Our insurances will have to be swapped or cancelled at our expense. We paid for after market window tints.

We have more holidays booked thinking it was all ok.

I could cry. Off to get legal advice tomorrow. If anyone knows what our options are now please say something that might help me sleep tonight

 

[motacyclist]

So sorry to hear this. There are Cali’s to be had, you could ask for a refund and if you have the money in your hand you should get a deal. Or you could insist they loan you a Cali for your holidays while yours is sorted. In the meantime the wear and tear will be taking place on the loan vehicle and when you get yours back it will be as new. Try and be positive.

 

[SimonB]

So for anyone following the saga we’ve had, the leak is back.

We are gutted. We don’t know what to do now or where to go with this. Snows will obviously offer to buy it back, but we are out of pocket whatever happens.

We can’t get a new one or a used one for the price we paid and will have to pay thousands more now to get an equivalent vehicle. Our insurances will have to be swapped or cancelled at our expense. We paid for after market window tints.

We have more holidays booked thinking it was all ok.

I could cry. Off to get legal advice tomorrow. If anyone knows what our options are now please say something that might help me sleep tonight

Very sorry to read this. After all you have been through already. I think you have been more than patient with them. Other owners who have had far less wrong have had loan vehicles until theirs is repaired to their satisfaction. I would certainly insist on that. The amount of vouchers they have given you is also pretty mean for the amount of hassle you have had.
Simon

 

[Jabberwocky]

Oh my goodness! I have only just heard about this saga. My heart goes out to you both, especially as you both so excited at the Devon meet about your future travels. I am sure it will get put right eventually but in the meantime try and stay positive (as has already been said).
Minimum demands! (at the risk of duplication, this would be my starting point from here)
Loan vehicle to last the length of time yours takes to be fully repaired (no strings). This includes your holidays of course.
A detailed explanation of what has already been done (and failed) from the dealer. Can you post here so folks can add their bit as to other ideas?
Detail of what the dealer will do now to repair - i.e. a plan - no guessing!! I wonder if they have heard of Root Cause Analysis?
Yes, seek legal options - Sale of Goods Act, Contract law, fit for purpose etc.
More cash compensation for inconvenience, heart ache and angst (what you have been given/offered so far is derisory IMHO!). Have you thought about escalating the issue to VW Group level? Just a thought.
JW

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

Thanks to all for the continued support.

What makes it worse and I don't think I fully shared on here, was that when the van was returned, the tailgate power latch wasn't working anymore, AND they had returned it with damage to the interior trim and two small door dents. So, this will actually be the third time they have had Bruce back. I didn't want to bore everyone, or put people off who were due to have work done, as having met Jamie, my faith in them to some extent been restored.

The damage to the trim cannot be rectified without removing the whole habitation unit again, so we agreed to live with it. The damage to the driver door was fixed, but the dink in the sliding door cannot be pulled out, as it is in a structural part of the door. We also reluctantly agreed to live with that too. It is slight and you can't really see it unless it is pointed out or in direct sunlight. Still; frustrating.

I did escalate to VW Customer Services and we were offered further recompense. I think you are right @Jabberwocky, in that I need a detailed breakdown of exactly which bits they are supposed to have repaired. It is just so upsetting to find water in between the floor spaces again. It simply cannot be a new problem as it perfectly mirrors the previous one! Is an escalation to Group different?

If this were any normal vehicle, a full refund which they have suggested, would almost certainly allow us to pop along to another dealer and purchase another car. After all, depreciation would help when looking for another. With this being so specialised and the fact that there has been NO depreciation from what I can work out, coupled with the recent price hikes, I have searched and searched. I cannot find another with the right spec or with red bellows which we love without spending £0000's more. Even if we could afford to do that, we really don't see why we should.

We are trying to stay positive. It's hard when you know there could be further damage caused by taking it back for yet another repair. Where do you draw a line? The whole thing is just nerve wracking and stressful. I feel sick again, and I know it's silly. After all, it's only a car?!!

Obviously, you all know, to each and every one of us, they are so much more.

 

[Elmo3]

So sorry to hear of your troubles with Bruce. I think if I found myself in this situation I would bypass the dealer and deal directly with VW. The dealer has had more than reasonable opportunity to rectify the faults but has repeatedly failed. You have lost faith in both the dealer and the vehicle, which is clearly not fit for purpose.

An appropriate remedy would be for VW to replace Bruce with a like for like vehicle at no cost. Whilst they are sourcing the vehicle, you should have a loan Cali for the duration. This would seem perfectly fair and reasonable. If they don’t want to play ball, I’m afraid to say it may be time to involve our learned friends.

 

[Jabberwocky]

Is an escalation to Group different?

By escalation to Group I mean to Director level in the organisation in the UK or even to Germany. For example to the MD of the UK Operation. Or at least threaten to go this route. The MD's name is Alison Jones.
She is on linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-jones-fcca-mcmi-bbbba034/
Just a thought.

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

In the sprit of keeping things positive, we have renamed Bruce. His new name is Dudley as in dud. I think it suits him.


Dud
dʌd/
informal
noun

1. 1.
   a thing that fails to work properly or is otherwise unsatisfactory or worthless.

 

[heavysalad]

aaaarrrrrghhhh (head banging against wall emoji)

So sorry to hear Dudley is still not sorted after all this process... and in fact is in worse shape than before they started.

I think I would be looking for another van or gettiung them to source one... and insisting on a loaner in the meantime so you are covered for any holidays you have booked etc. I would also be expecting compensation for the window tinting etc. so as not to be out of pocket.

You are right about the red roof bellows though ... I don't imagine that will be an easy spec to find and it does look lovely on white. They are going to replace my grey one under warranty but wouldn't do it with red, even if I paid extra... petty rules.

Try to stay positive and don't let it spoil the sunny season.

 

[Jabberwocky]

In the sprit of keeping things positive, we have renamed Bruce. His new name is Dudley as in dud. I think it suits him.


Dud
dʌd/
informal
noun

1. 1.
   a thing that fails to work properly or is otherwise unsatisfactory or worthless.

I am so impressed you can retain your sense of humour and perspective. Well impressed!
Dudley? Great name. I wonder what VW would make of the rationale.

 

[Verity]

I just read this whole thread - this is appalling. I would definitely be speaking to a lawyer, and probably getting in touch with one of the tv consumer shows as well.

Since you are clearly going to be considerably out of pocket whatever transpires, a good spreadsheet with all the extra expenses you would incur even if they replaced your vehicle would help your solicitor to try and get some financial recompense as well.

I can only imagine the stress levels you must be experiencing. This would kill me as I have MS and stress is my main factor for exacerbating the disease. Dealers don't take into account that this is your life savings and a member of the family too - VW commercial dealers are presumably used to dealing with 'company vans' and the personal attachment is less common than a personally owned and loved vehicle.

I hope you can maintain your health and sanity. Your good sense of humour will stand you in good stead. You have my deepest sympathies. I hope this gets sorted and soon.

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

On and on this goes...

Snows were informed last Tues that a leak had returned. Enough is enough now. We have requested a replacement vehicle.

Following an initial email saying that they would start to look for one, another whole week went by with no correspondence from either contact at Customer Services and Finance despite chasing. We just wanted clarity on how these things worked but couldn’t really get an answer. I wasn’t even sure whether to drive Dudley or not, being as Snows have agreed to buy him back.

Darren at Snows has been in contact this week to explain it all. He cannot find any replacements - no surprises there - everything is against us with the recent embargo reducing the number of demo vehicles available plus the fact it is now summer and Calis are in demand.

We have discussed keeping him, buying new, buying a MP instead... I know!!

Dudley went back on Tuesday so they can fix him again. They say they can’t find the problem. I’ve sent them a video. Darren suggested to James that we should be doing something with a valve every night?! Not sure what he means but either way, water should not be getting between the floors and running out of the power latch bit or the seals. Does anyone know what he could be referring to?

We have a loan Cali this time. In the grand scheme of things, whilst this is inconvenient, it’s not the end of the world and at least the dealership are doing what they can to help us now.

Anyone due to have Jamie working on their van, please don’t be put off by our experience. I honestly don’t believe that Jamie would have let Dudley go back out without checking everything thoroughly. He is no doubt proud of his reputation, and I think we are just unlucky.

Will update again when I hear from Snows.

 

[Verity]

On and on this goes...

Snows were informed last Tues that a leak had returned. Enough is enough now. We have requested a replacement vehicle.

Following an initial email saying that they would start to look for one, another whole week went by with no correspondence from either contact at Customer Services and Finance despite chasing. We just wanted clarity on how these things worked but couldn’t really get an answer. I wasn’t even sure whether to drive Dudley or not, being as Snows have agreed to buy him back.

Darren at Snows has been in contact this week to explain it all. He cannot find any replacements - no surprises there - everything is against us with the recent embargo reducing the number of demo vehicles available plus the fact it is now summer and Calis are in demand.

We have discussed keeping him, buying new, buying a MP instead... I know!!

Dudley went back on Tuesday so they can fix him again. They say they can’t find the problem. I’ve sent them a video. Darren suggested to James that we should be doing something with a valve every night?! Not sure what he means but either way, water should not be getting between the floors and running out of the power latch bit or the seals. Does anyone know what he could be referring to?

We have a loan Cali this time. In the grand scheme of things, whilst this is inconvenient, it’s not the end of the world and at least the dealership are doing what they can to help us now.

Anyone due to have Jamie working on their van, please don’t be put off by our experience. I honestly don’t believe that Jamie would have let Dudley go back out without checking everything thoroughly. He is no doubt proud of his reputation, and I think we are just unlucky.

Will update again when I hear from Snows.

Oh my word, WM, you sound awfully calm in the circumstances. Love and positive vibes coming from Wales to you x

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

Oh my word, WM, you sound awfully calm in the circumstances. Love and positive vibes coming from Wales to you x

That’s very kind of you. It’s just how it is.

We’ve resigned ourselves to whatever now, and will probably end up ordering a new van depending on costings.

In the meantime, we still plan on taking our Welsh tour next Friday - 10 days off! We can wave to you, wherever you may be Verity.

We are very familiar with the Mon & Brec canal and surrounding areas, so will probably bypass it this time, and head straight for Tenby to begin a little tour up through Pembrokeshire. We need to end up in Snowdonia the following week to meet friends.

Anywhere you care to recommend?

 

[Verity]

That’s very kind of you. It’s just how it is.

We’ve resigned ourselves to whatever now, and will probably end up ordering a new van depending on costings.

In the meantime, we still plan on taking our Welsh tour next Friday - 10 days off! We can wave to you, wherever you may be Verity.

We are very familiar with the Mon & Brec canal and surrounding areas, so will probably bypass it this time, and head straight for Tenby to begin a little tour up through Pembrokeshire. We need to end up in Snowdonia the following week to meet friends.

Anywhere you care to recommend?

We are in the Tanat Valley, just off the edge of Snowdonia. We found it by pure chance, having realised that we couldn't find anywhere to rent short term with a cat in tow, and took the only rental property which would take us. We absolutely LOVE it here. It is incredibly beautiful and full of lovely people and awesome countryside - hilly but just short of mountainous (the Snowdonia National Park starts about 5 miles to the west of us). For camping in Pembrokeshire, I would highly recommend sites near Newport Beach. We did a little Pembrokeshire tour last April in surprisingly good spring weather and the coastline there is stunning. I can't remember the name of our campsite, but it was a C&MC CL. Here's a couple of pics:

 

[heavysalad]

Long shot maybe .... but we had a mystery ongoing leak problem with an expensive Leibherr fridge that kept coming back despite a number of engineer visits and lots of spare parts being replaced throughout the system (mains feed for ice and water). In the end it was an actual plastic water tank, what appeared to be a very heavy duty. quality 'German' plastic tank... it somehow developed some kind of stress lines on it which were hard to see but clearly leaked. this was eventually replaced (twice) and solved the issue but it came back, even though it appeared they had revised the design on the tank. It was a small, thin tank.... not unlike the one behind the sink area in the Cali which made me think of it.

So it may be worth getting them to take a look at the actual plastic tank and not just the plumbing and connections etc. GL

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

Dudley update:

We did get a call on Friday to say that this time it was the inlet pipe. It had a nick in it, so would only leak when being filled, or very full. A totally different problem to the one before, however probably caused by the fact that whole habitation unit had been out/back in; out and back in again.

We are still not happy really. It’s really put us off having another used/demo van, especially when the dealers seem to let them go out to anyone and everyone for free hire weekends and we still don’t really know what the original problem was. It’s all very sketchy when discussed and despite me requesting a SAR and details on his repairs with part numbers, we still have none of it.

We are waiting for everything we’ve agreed with Snows to be put in writing before we accept Dudley back as our ‘loan’ vehicle until a replacement is found. Poor boy. It’s not his fault, but our faith in him is no more and coupled with the fact that he now has the trim damage and dent, we just aren’t happy to keep him.

We’ve been in touch with another dealer who has a van with the spec we want coming in July. Snows have said though, that we will only be able to get a large discount on a new van with them despite the fact that VWCS and finance are involved. So we seem to have 2 choices. Keep Dudley, live with his scars and forever worry what will go wrong next, or order a new one from Snows and sell Dudley back to them.

I still can’t believe that this whole thing hasn’t put us off Calis full stop. We are still hooked!

 

[heavysalad]

Dudley sounds like a fighter... keep him if he's no longer leaky ?

 

[Verity]

Dudley sounds like a fighter... keep him if he's no longer leaky ?

It's tricky, isn't it? If they DO manage to fix the leak in Dudley and make suitable compensation to you for all the stress, I wonder if it would be better to stick with the devil you know … We have been pretty lucky with ours, but have had 4 warranty issues dealt with now, none as bad as yours and almost all sorted (another story there I'm too tired to type up today …). Am increasingly fed up with VW levels of customer service. After spending over 50k on a van, I would expect better.

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

We’ve just been away in Dudley for ten days touring Wales in the hope that we could bond with him again and trust he’s going to be ok.

We are now experiencing problems with the batteries/inverter and the fridge turning itself off. It was a bit of a pain in this heatwave and meant checking it constantly. Snows are taking it back again as it seems to be a problem with that funny shaped socket - it didn’t like our electric toothbrushes!

Those issues resulted in us staying on sites with hook up, far more than we would have wanted and sadly, we have made the decision to get rid of him as he just seems cursed.

There are no replacement vans in the network so our only option is to order a new one, which will cost us more as Duds was an ex demo.

Snows have offered around a 9% discount and will pay off our finance returning the equity to us.
I don’t know if we are being PITA’s but it seems unfair in the sense that if we formally rejected Dudley, we could seek to recover all money paid out with the dealer taking some back for depreciation. Around 3500 miles.

If we take the route offered, and allow the finance to be paid off, rather than a formal rejection, they have said we can keep Dudley until new van arrives but would charge us 25p per mile depreciation when they come to pay off finance. Does anyone know if this is normal ie 25p? Dudley is my daily with a 30 mile commute so needs serious consideration.

 

[motacyclist]

If you averaged 300 miles a week it would cost you £75. That seems a good deal to have a California available. If you sent it back you would have nothing, and if you hired one it would cost a fortune.

I would go for their offer, and look forward to a spanking new van in 6 months or so!

 

[Wobble’s Mum]

If you averaged 300 miles a week it would cost you £75. That seems a good deal to have a California available. If you sent it back you would have nothing, and if you hired one it would cost a fortune.

I would go for their offer, and look forward to a spanking new van in 6 months or so!

We are still paying the finance along side this though, so it’s coming off anything we are building up.

Are we being PITA’s? Lol

 

[Verity]

We’ve just been away in Dudley for ten days touring Wales in the hope that we could bond with him again and trust he’s going to be ok.

We are now experiencing problems with the batteries/inverter and the fridge turning itself off. It was a bit of a pain in this heatwave and meant checking it constantly. Snows are taking it back again as it seems to be a problem with that funny shaped socket - it didn’t like our electric toothbrushes!

Those issues resulted in us staying on sites with hook up, far more than we would have wanted and sadly, we have made the decision to get rid of him as he just seems cursed.

There are no replacement vans in the network so our only option is to order a new one, which will cost us more as Duds was an ex demo.

Snows have offered around a 9% discount and will pay off our finance returning the equity to us.
I don’t know if we are being PITA’s but it seems unfair in the sense that if we formally rejected Dudley, we could seek to recover all money paid out with the dealer taking some back for depreciation. Around 3500 miles.

If we take the route offered, and allow the finance to be paid off, rather than a formal rejection, they have said we can keep Dudley until new van arrives but would charge us 25p per mile depreciation when they come to pay off finance. Does anyone know if this is normal ie 25p? Dudley is my daily with a 30 mile commute so needs serious consideration.

I really think you need a fixed fee meeting with a solicitor. This is all wrong on so many levels, and you are going to end up out of pocket whichever way you go due to no fault of your own. At least you will know where you stand legally this way, and can then choose the route which you feel comfortable with or get into a legal battle if you don't. It's a b****y awful situation they've put you in, and is really not good enough. A call to Watchdog wouldn't go amiss either, imo.

 

[EddieEagle]

We’ve just been away in Dudley for ten days touring Wales in the hope that we could bond with him again and trust he’s going to be ok.

We are now experiencing problems with the batteries/inverter and the fridge turning itself off. It was a bit of a pain in this heatwave and meant checking it constantly. Snows are taking it back again as it seems to be a problem with that funny shaped socket - it didn’t like our electric toothbrushes!

Those issues resulted in us staying on sites with hook up, far more than we would have wanted and sadly, we have made the decision to get rid of him as he just seems cursed.

Hi, have been watching this thread and admire your attitude to what is a nightmare from hell. I would have renamed him Damien.......

Anyway, my point is that little socket for mains voltage produces the wrong sort of electric for contactless chargers on toothbrushes etc. as I found with my rechargeable mouthwash irrigator. Some 'bright spark' on here said it was not a pure sine waveform? so good for normal phone chargers and the like but no good for 'plate' chargers This may or may not be the issue with your inverter socket but thought I'd mention this as maybe your inverter socket is OK. Given the issues you are having with Damien/Dudley it maybe nothing of the sort!
Best wishes with getting it all resolved..