Volvo dealer confidence - ABSOLUTE ZERO

[losboz]

I'm afraid Ive lost complete confidence with the Volvo brand, their garages, their technicians and their service departments. I wont be purchasing another Volvo anytime soon! Its a shame as I do like the vehicles and our 8 year old C30 has been faultless but unfortunately my two nearest dealerships have made I right mess of diagnosing my XC60 and TBH on occasions they have made the issue far worse. Even to the extent that work carried out has left me with a dangerous vehicle.

It all started with immediate issues with my XC60 purchase last August https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showt...39#post2361639

To cut a long, long story very short the vehicle's geometry was a little out on purchase. Our local dealer took forever to rectify and handed it back numerous times, each time with different related issues, some far worse than the original issue. I lost confidence with their ability to diagnose and put right so it was taken to next nearest dealer (80miles away) who immediately diagnosed a damaged rack or pump. They couldn't say which as they found swarf in the reservoir!

Marvelous I thought but at least the problem had been found and it was under warranty so it would now be all sorted out. How wrong I was! Rack and associated items were eventually replaced and vehicle returned but guess what? It drove like an inebriated pig!

Symptoms were: Extremely light weight to steering, (something that had plagued the car from the start but now much worse), vague straight ahead feel, understeery initial turn in followed by immediate oversteer on more input to correct. I described to Volvo that it felt completely disconnected and loose and I considered driving at anything over 50mph dangerous!

It was taken back and after much discussion with service and test drives by head technical staff at the dealership I was informed "There is absolutely no issue with the vehicle and it drove as it should"

So I was either imagining the vehicle had an issue or yet again a Volvo main dealer had made a hash of it. After all it had now been 6months of ownership driving a vehicle with some sort of steering related problem and the originally dealership hadn't exactly bathed themselves in glory.

At this point I really had had enough. I consulted the citizens advice bureau, got advice from a solicitor etc etc. In the end I purchased another vehicle and advertised the XC60 for sale After all Volvo had deemed the vehicle safe and were happy it drove as it should.

So late February comes along and It gets its first test drive from a potential buyer. End result "Lovely car but steering seems a bit vague, I will leave it thanks"

After thinking long and hard and considering it a real possibility Volvo could be incompetent enough to have either ballsed up the rack installation or not set the car up correctly (Geometry) I popped down to the alignment place (hunter machine and good competent, consciences operators) that had highlighted Volvo's pathetic first attempts at wheel alignment earlier in my ordeal

This was the result



I can see the pic is not clear so the alignment revealed right front toe in out, so steer ahead and total toe out but the real shocker was how bad the rear alignment was. Both wheels toeing in significantly and why the vehicle had exhibited such alarming symptoms!

So with all the latest technical gadgetry at their disposal. (This dealership has just been refitted) they still cant manage to set up one of their own vehicles!

Whats more annoying is they would not admit there was an issue when the above CLEARLY shows there is, and not just marginally. ITS WAY OUT

The choice to have the alignment place rectify was an easy one and off to the dealers I went with the evidence. The service manager was apologetic and did not hesitate to compensate me for the alignment and stated he would have their alignment machine checked. He could not explain why his staff had not been able to diagnose their obvious mistake or why they had considered it roadworthy but for me the damage has been done

Who knows maybe another dealership could have sorted all this in a couple of visits but I really wont be entertaining a 4hr return journey to find out

Adios Volvo

[RoyMacDonald]

Are you sure they actually have an alignment machine? From my experience it is quite unusual. They normally send them out to be aligned.

I didn't feel mine was steering quite right and took it to an alignment specialist and then presented the results to my main dealer and they had it in and upon checking found that the rear sub frame was a millimeter out of tolerance (from the factory) which they corrected and then sent it out to be realigned.

The alignment specialist I normally use said that most manufacturers cars are out of alignment from the factory and they had a contract with a main manufacturer to align all their new cars before they were sold as part of the pre sale preparation.

Don't forget alignment needs checking every 6,000 miles or 6 months whichever is first.

Roy

[losboz]

Originally Posted by RoyMacDonald

Are you sure they actually have an alignment machine? From my experience it is quite unusual. They normally send them out to be aligned.

I didn't feel mine was steering quite right and took it to an alignment specialist and then presented the results to my main dealer and they had it in and upon checking found that the rear sub frame was a millimeter out of tolerance (from the factory) which they corrected and then sent it out to be realigned.

The alignment specialist I normally use said that most manufacturers cars are out of alignment from the factory and they had a contract with a main manufacturer to align all their new cars before they were sold as part of the pre sale preparation.

Don't forget alignment needs checking every 6,000 miles or 6 months whichever is first.

Roy

They just replaced the rack and ancillaries as per my earlier thread so it would have required an alignment no matter what. The dealership had just been built and a state of the art (their words) alignment machine installed

They were adamant it was fine and I knew it wasn't. Incompetent and ignorant of my concerns. Customer service slack

[GrahamBrown1]

For me, I would want to know what’s happened to the car for the alignment to be so far out!

[RoyMacDonald]

Originally Posted by GrahamBrown1

For me, I would want to know what’s happened to the car for the alignment to be so far out!

It wasn't a long way out. Modern cars are very alignment critical. Castor is not adjustable on the XC60 either.

Roy

[RoyMacDonald]

Originally Posted by losboz

They just replaced the rack and ancillaries as per my earlier thread so it would have required an alignment no matter what. The dealership had just been built and a state of the art (their words) alignment machine installed

They were adamant it was fine and I knew it wasn't. Incompetent and ignorant of my concerns. Customer service slack

Did they have anyone trained in use of the machine though? You saw the machine I take it? What model was it?

Roy

[losboz]

Originally Posted by GrahamBrown1

For me, I would want to know what’s happened to the car for the alignment to be so far out!

They set it up badly after replacing with a new new rack

All the service manager could state was that "he was surprised that it had ended up so far out" and could not comment on why it might have happened other than he was concerned it might not have been calibrated correctly. He said he would look into it as a matter of urgency

[losboz]

Originally Posted by RoyMacDonald

Did they have anyone trained in use of the machine though? You saw the machine I take it? What model was it?

Roy

Its a main dealer with a state of the art new showroom and workshop. You can see it through the large fancy glass viewing area but I have no idea what make it was

I cant imagine they would not have trained anybody up on it ?

[losboz]

Originally Posted by RoyMacDonald

It wasn't a long way out. Modern cars are very alignment critical. Castor is not adjustable on the XC60 either.

Roy

It was impossible to drive safely over 50mph on anything other than a dead straight piece of road. TBH I did not suspect the Geo as although it was vague it wasn't terrible at maintaining a straight line. No feathering on the front tyres etc It just felt extremely slow at transferring inputs from the steering wheel to the tyres. Honestly thought it was a knackered steering column UJ

Excessive toe in on the rears really do make these vehicles unstable

[GreenBrick]

It's not just Volvo...

My Dad bought a new Mk4 Golf, and it took many trips to the dealer to get them to finally admit that the body was not built straight and could not be corrected, so at that point they told my dad there was nothing they could do. So 9 years later he gave it to me, and it handled so badly it ate through 3 sets of suspension arms. So much for VW.

My boss had a new supercharged Jag and a week and 1K miles after having the tyres and tracking done, one tyre exploded on the motorway (scary, at 70, I was a passenger) and the other was also totally down to the steel belts, and the tracking was WAY off. Jaguar claimed their alignment machine was perfect, but still paid £500 towards the replacement tyres. So much for Jag.