Seat Leon 2008 and Goodwill from Seat.

[Brookie48]

Subc

Just spoken to Seat UK and they have said that they are not willing to offer me any good will because of a lack of brand loyalty. As i purchased the car from an indpenedant garage and had it serviced independantly they are not willing to offer me any form of goodwill whatsoever. To say i am angry is an understatement they seem resigned to the fact that the part should last the lifetime of the engine and i am aware that things fail but for it to be such a common occurence with these engines points to a manufacture issue. Seat want 1400 for the work to be done so looks like i am taking it to another independant where the labour is not so high!

I hope you have better luck than I do in your case and I will still be having further communication with them as i couldn't spend too long on the phone due to me being at work when i called them. Will update if anything changed but looks like i am stuck with a hefty repair bill for Seats faulty parts!

 

[Jarre]

Legally, I didn't think manufacturers could force customers to use their dealerships to have work carried out. As long as the parts used are genuine it doesn't matter where you have the work done.

 

[LeonCR]

This is nothing to do with forcing someone to use a dealership, they are offering goodwill for people who continue to use the brand

I would be speaking to trading standards thou and going down the not of satisfactory quality route

 

[Fusster]

Legally you are correct,but when asking for "goodwill" when the car is out of warranty SEAT service history is the first thing looked at,If you havn,t got it then a percieved lack of loyalty is taken in to account when judging if any goodwill is forthcoming.
As has been said earlier without a full SEAT history you can pretty much forget goodwill excluding certain issues eg G201 ESP fault.

 

[Subc]

Re Servicing by independent, see my other post regarding 2004 legislation set out by the Office of Fair Trading.

I am sorry to hear of your troubles mine may be around the corner.
If it is a case of changing the chain I would ask the dealer to have another go at their calculator as the kit is sub £200.00 plus 8 hours labour plus oil and filter.

As far as the statement on brand loyalty we have had 4 new SEATs since 2007 and had orderd another before been in an accident (cancelled) so that should be interesting.

 

[Brookie48]

i can see where they are coming from but this problem is obviously common with the engines, I have heard of others with VW's and even Skoda's manage to reclaim some of the cost through good will when out of warranty although i cannot comment on where their services were done.

However the fact of the matter is that the tensioner failing on the timing chain is a problem for a lot of the TSI engines and Seat are not willing to help out with what i feel (maybe others feel differently) is clearly a manuafacturers fault. I havent bought a car from Seat or had it serviced there because of the outrageous cost of doing so.

 

[J400uk]

I had similar problems trying to get a goodwill contribution on my old Ibiza when the rad failed just out of warranty. Because I had purchased it from a Nissan dealership who also gave it a service, Seat uk refused to help. I managed to get round this by persuading my local Seat dealer to put in a contribution towards the cost as I'd used them in the past, which Seat UK matched. This knocked my bill down to just under 50%. Could be worth a try?

 

[Subc]

Hi you may have case under the Sale of Goods Act for up to 6 years in England against your supplying dealer. I suggest you give a consumer helpline a bell to get all the facts and then present it to them.
Good Luck.

 

[Subc]

Just had the Garage on the phone £1400 to repair my car

1 Timing Chain assembly

2 Variator

3 The timing chain engine cover they advise the breather pipe is broken!! £340.00 for the cover alone. Could do with some advice on this

Dry my eyes, you bet on my second box of tissues...

 

[J400uk]

Sorry to hear that, expensive indeed

Although fitting the new chain and variator make sense, I've never heard of the breather pipe failing. That might be worth a thread of its own, or a second opinion from another mechanic.

What do you think you'll do? If SEAT won't budge with goodwill you could try and find a decent independent garage and ask them to quote for the work.

 

[Subc]

Hi I never even heard of the breather pipe sounds like it must be part of the casting, I have searched the net and nothing.

Their was no word of it last week when they checked the chain.

I hope SEAT help out as I am being charged top dollar even after buying 3 SEATS from this dealer. The Mrs is planning a new car so time will tell whether we ever touch this marque again.

Gutted at the casting/cover it really is a deal breaker that I didn't need or even have heard off. If anyone can shed some light please do. I would imagine if the breather was damaged the car would have been struggling to run.

 

[silver surfer]

its not a breather pipe its a breather bolted to the inside of the cam chain cover and theirs a tpi for the bolts falling out causing chain damage

 

[Brookie48]

Thats about the amount that i got quoted,

with respect of goodwill should imagine you have better luck than I did having bought cars from Seat i was just chancing my luck really.

I did have a quote from an independant garage which was more like 600, the job is so labour intensive and the labour rates are so high at Seat i dont think i can part with that kind of money when i can get it done for over half the price at a garage i have a lot of prior experience with.

Hope you get yours sorted im in the process of moving mine to a different garage as I type this which is enough hassle but hopefully they will cough up on yours!

 

[Subc]

Hi thanks for your support this is really getting me down now, I ordered a new FR but had to cancel after being in an Accident earlier this year,decided to keep mine for another year (mistake!!).

The breather pipe is confusing me as they said it was broken off and they would have to replace the whole cover at approx £360.00

 

[Brookie48]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

I was saying that about buying my car as i know a friend of mine with the same engine has had no end of problems but the Cupra managed to draw me in.

Have you had much contact with Seat Customer Care? I got the impression they could have been quite helpful if you were loyal to them. I would definitely get a second quote from somewhere else that you can at least use as leverage though.

 

[robdf2]

Any more updates on this ?

 

[Brookie48]

My only update is as follows,

I got a quote from another garage for around 6-700 pounds Seat then offered me a reduced price of 1200 but I still felt that was far too high, so i have settled the diagnostics fees (£180 i will never see again) and the woman didnt even intend on giving me any report whatsoever. I kicked up a fuss and managed to get 3 lines of jibberish on the description of my invoice. Perfect... £180 i will never see again.

Will post when i get the car back and the price i eventually paid. Cambridge Marshalls Seat are rip offs so i advise all of you to steer clear. managed to set off two of my friends engine management lights when replacing spark plugs cant remember what they had done a seal had broken i think? but still you would expect a lot more when they are trying to charge £90 an hour for labour...