S40 Questions

[jamiebentham]

Hi,

I purchased a volvo S40 r-design 1.6 09 last september. Only ever got around about 300 mile to a tank. I checked my front tyres a couple of weeks ago and found them scrubbed right down. I rang the dealer told them and they said they would take a look.

My first thoughts... Tracking. I have not knocked the wheels or bumped up a kerb or anything of the like. When I bought the car it was a demo model and the front offside wheel needed to be re-sprayed due to scuffs.

Dealer checked it out... No problems with suspension but they would do me a "free" tracking setup. I was also due a service soon, so they sold me a service contract which meant they would do "free" laser tracking all round and give me my new tyres at cost.

I questioned the tyres as why should I have to pay when the car was given to me like that.

The way it turned out was that the service contract they sold me would cost £30 more than getting the services done seperatly as I rang and found out the exact cost of each service. (I had asked about fitting an MPG guage to the car, I was quoted around about £150 for a simple software download!!! as all the hardware was there.) Because of the £30 difference in the service contract he offered to fit my MPG guage for nothing... so effectively costing me £30.

I went along with it all and got it all done. The tyres they offered me at cost were £118 each! so I sourced my own exact same pirelli P7's for £100 each and they fitted them.


Now I rang back this week and asked if there was a way, like an appeals procedure, I could get my money back for my tyres as it was not my fault and I was given the car like that. They said there is no such thing in place and because of the bad weather etc.. over the winter the tracking could have been knocked out then claiming I may have knocked it out.

To me, I should not have paid for the tyres as it was completely their fault? does anyone have any thoughts on this?


Also, Is it possible to get start/stop technology fitted to a car which does not have it?

I appreciate any help,

Jamie

[Murrayhouse]

To be honest, I wouldn't have thought there would be much chance of recovering the cost of the tyres. There are so many variables involved the dealer could find an infinite number of get outs. Regarding retro-fitting a stop/start function in your car; the electrical, software and mechanical modifications involved would mean you wouldn't get your money back in improved mpg till you'd done about 20,000,000 miles!