millemille wrote: Thu Jul 01, 2021 4:01 pm
8 weeks ago my 67 plate citroen van, 96k miles and 3 1/2 years old, dies on me over in Derby. AA called, plugs on OBD reader and much sucking of teeth as it's throwing cam and crank sync errors. Get recovered to home.
Local garage, who do all the work on the van, come and collect it and take a look. Cam belt has lost a load of teeth and piston valve munchety crunchety.
All is not lost, say local garage, given that cam belt change isn't due for 29k miles Citroen should put their hand in their pocket for some/all of cost of new engine.
Ring Citroen UK, take it to local main dealer and they'll investigate and make warranty claim if appropriate. So local garage take it over to Derby.
Main dealer look at it and confirm what local garage had said, cam belt failure and that it shouldn't have happened so they'll start a claim. 48 hrs, they tell me, for Citroen to decide.
Don't hear a dicky bird for a week and I'm chasing the dealer, after 10 days they say citroen have agreed to replace the engine under warranty and it'll take 7 to 10 to complete.
Don't hear a dicky bird for 10 days and I'm chasing the dealer, spotting a theme yet? All going well, say dealers, all parts have been ordered and just waiting on a few bits and pieces. What bits and pieces, asks I, given you've had it for 10 days and the repair is supposed to be complete by now? Oh, just the engine, they say. I may have slightly lost my shit with them at this point.
Didn't hear a dicky bird for 10 days and I'm chasing the dealer. What progress, asks I? Still waiting on parts, says they. It better not be the fucking engine! No, they say, it's the bell housing seal. When is it due, asks I? Don't know, they say, it's on back order and there's no due date.
Right, so you've had the van 4 weeks for a repair that you told me would take 12 days max and you can't tell me when it's going to be started, let alone finished?
So I got a courtesy van out of them.
Didn't hear a dicky bird out of them for 10 days and I'm chasing the dealer. Got all the parts and the old engine is out, should be done for Monday.
Ring them on the tuesday. Got all the parts and the old engine is out, should be done for Friday. WTF, am I living in some kind of gordian knot of a time loop?
Meantime, I send them an email to.clarify a couple.of points about future warranty and servicing and also to make sure they put the old and new engine numbers on the receipt so I can make sure DVLA will change the V5 details with no problems.
Get to the dealer today, 7 weeks to the day after the van was given to them for a 12 day repair, and guess what? No engine numbers on the receipt. Takes them 45 minutes to sort that.
Fi ally get the keys, go out to the van in the car park. Fuck me! It's hot in the cab, best turn the AC on. ACs not working. No cold air. Maybe it needs to be driven, press the clutch pedal down and it shoots to the floor. Let it up and it feels like it's working against a hand brake ratchet.
Go back in to the dealers, tell them the problems. Oh no, we took it for a 20 mile test drive and everything was working fine. Odd, says I, because it hasn't got 20 more miles on the odo than when it was brought in...
So, I'm back in the courtesy van and they've still got mine.
Useless, lying, incompetent cunts.
