new to Jag... worst start ever ;/

[Bajasaki]

Hello world :)

i've changed my mind and will make my first Jaguar experience more public.It's my first and last Jaguar (and Land Rover...)

 

Please take a seat, lean back and read the full story. Sad but true, it’s not a fairytale

Once upon a time in late November 2016 in Luxembourg. I’ve visited Garage ArnoldKontz as I was looking for a new company car. Jaguar catched my eyes, so I signed the contract (Dec. 8th) for a bluefire Jaguar XE R-Sport from stock. After some days my boss came to me and stated that we should get the new car registered in the new year. So I called the Garage and they said ok, no problem. Meanwhile Christmas came closer and somehow I had the inner request to get some update on the sale. Meaning, I wanted to know, when the car will be registered, when I could get the new car etc. As for days no one picked up the phone at the Garage I went over to them and they told me, that my sales person is on vacation for 3 weeks and they don’t have the access to the file. My salesperson will be back in second week of January…….

Jan 11th…. Calling the salesperson….. “oh yes, I’ll look to give you an update, I’ll ring you back asap”
Jan 12th…. Calling the salesperson…. “yes, we have the appointment at the registration office on Jan 27th but please bear with me, we want to deliver the car on Jan 30th 10 AM just to be on the safe side”

Remark: the ordered car out of stock should get a tow-bar attached and to be equipped with winter tires…

Jan 26th… driving to the Garage, asking if everything is ok for tomorrows registration… paperworks, tires, tow-bar…… “yes, everything is ready”
Jan 27th…. Call from the Garage… “there is a problem with the insurance, could you please deal with it?” so I called the insurance and they said, that the garage mixed up the papers. The car is paid by another company than the one, which signs the insurance-contract….. normally not a big deal.
Jan 30th 8 AM  … call from the Garage… “we’re sorry, yesterday we discovered that the wrong tires are on the car, we ordered new ones. These will be delivered this afternoon”
    %&”*(/%, i am at work, I don’t have another car with me as it was so clear, that I receive my car today… “come over, we hook you up with another one till this afternoon, we should have your car
ready at 4 PM”

So far so good… I’ve received a Jaguar XJ for that day, moved couple of appointments to free up some time for the afternoon

Jan 30 3.30PM … call from the garage……”Hello Mister, we’re sorry, the new tires haven’t been delivered, keep the replacement car till tomorrow, no problems”

Talking to myself: “….%&”*(/%... take a deep breath… relax…. It’s been a !Removed! stressy day… but hey…. You made it somehow possible to either shift the appointments or solved the problems earlier than expected…..now go to the gym and let the angriness go”

Jan 31st … 11 AM… call from the garage… “Hello Mister… the tires have been delivered. If you want, you can come over at 4 PM and we do the paperworks first, then you get the car”
Jan 31st … 3.50 PM… showed up at the garage. Yes, 10 minutes too early… it’s me… I hate to be late!
Jan 31st …. 4.10PM – 5.30PM signing the paper while the car is anywhere at the garage… haven’t seen it yet but hey… what could be wrong… it’s a new car…..
Jan31st…. 5.40 PM… finally the salesperson went with me to the car….. what a beauty… but, hey… what’s this… coatings at the trunk, sideskirts.. not clean, opened the backdoor behind the driver and also there are dirt-scratches from getting in… strange…. So there were already at least 3 people driving the car -> The service-advisor gave me another appointment in 2 weeks to polish up the car…. Well…. Ok, let’s move on, finally I have my car, I need to prepare everything for all the shifted appointments, so I get into the car… started it up, went away from the garage and looked first time to the speedometer and baam… it showed already 68km!

WHAT? Ok, it’s a car out of stock, it had to be driven to the registration so that’s something around 30km back and forth, plus a bit moving around 10-15km at the factory… ok, but still … oh wait… combined with the dirt at the BACKSEAT and the car festival last weekend AND they figured out the WRONG TIRES on a Sunday……ok, stop it… move on, you had busy days, you need to prepare a million of things, go to the company, load the car for tomorrows installations….. 6.30 PM

Jan 31st… 7.45PM Driving relaxed, listening to music, looking at the speedometer….. 97….98…..99….100km……BANG….. car switched off, steam at the front, could hardly reach the reach the emergency lane at the highway.
%&”*(/%... the car is fully loaded now with equipment and doesn’t move any further…. Calling the tow truck…. Waiting… waiting… 9.20PM first tow truck arrived… filled up water as the cap of the liquid container was off…. Trying to start the engine… nothing… he tried a lot of things and a lot of times at 11 PM a second tow bar driver arrived to help him… at 12PM they gave up and called a taxi for me and a third tow-bar truck with a crane, as they automatic gear box was blocked, the parking brake was blocked….
Feb 1st… 1.30 AM went with a taxi and the whole equipment back to the company (8 Monitors, 3 ThinClients, a Laptop and lots of cables…) and grabbed the company owned Smart, which was already booked by my colleaques that day, during office hours…. Anyhow… I need to get home.. 50km’s

Feb 1st….6AM back in the office, already shifting appointments, installations etc.
Feb 1st…. 8AM a call from the garage….. the salesperson…. “Mr. Klein, what happened.. I’ve seen your car here at the garage” so I told her the full story and that I’d need another car, as I don’t have one anymore. “No problem, we’ll find a solution for you, can you come at 1PM?” Ok… so I went there during lunch time and they offered me a Jaguar XE…. Ok, this one looks pretty old fashioned, but better than nothing… grabbing the keys, pretty in hurry due to all these shifting appointments… opened the car, stepped in and ….. struggling with the smell of cold smoke, cigars and whatever… pulling down the windows… leaving the garage… trying to catch up all the work. During the night leaving the car with open windows in the garage at home.
Feb 1st… 6 PM leaving work, going through the highway, speeding 90km/h and the steering wheel starts bumping….. speeding faster, the bumping gets faster…. Omg….. rental car, never seen love before….
Feb 2nd…. 5 AM … the car still smells like a pub, even after a night with window open and 2 cans of air-refreshener…. Driving to work with a bumping steering wheel, during the day fetching up all work, shifted work etc….driving home, leaving the windows open, pulling in again 2 cans of air-refreshener, leather cleaner etc to get rid of the ugly smell..
Feb. 3rd… 1 PM… driving to the garage, asking an update on my car as no one picked up the phone.. Neither the sales person, nor the Service advisor. The Service advisor gave me an update, that my engine is broken and the new one is ordered. I should expect 4-5 weeks. So I asked to get another car as this Jaguar XE is far from hell…. Smelling ugly, bumpy steering due to rectangle rims… and I’m driving daily at least 120km, sometimes even more. After a while he organized a RangeRover Evoque… well… better than nothing. Asked again, how come 68km before delivery and highlighted the dirt-traces behind the drivers seat…. He’ll try to get some answers

Just as a comparison… my ordered XE R-Sport was automatic, with GPS, Tow-Bar, pre-heating, sunroof, meridian soundsystem and faux-leather… If another car would have been without leather, I’d have chosen that one as I absolutely don’t like leather seats….

So I went away with the RangeRover…. manual gearbox, no towbar, no GPS, no sunroof, no soundsystem, Bright-Full Leather seats… well… luxury problems… it should only last for 4-5 weeks until I receive my XE-RSport.

No news from the garage….

Feb 8th… sending an email to Jaguar Customer Relations to release a bit of frustration
Feb 14th… received an email from Jaguar Benelux, stating that they extend my warranty ….. ****haha….where is the point to be happy about an extended warranty on a car which broke down after 30km and which came from a vendor, whose service is in dispute… It’s a leasing car, so I’ll sell the car latest in 3 years and it comes with a 3 year warranty from factory…..

Feb 20nd… received the official paper document of the warranty prolongation.. checking the whole eMail, which was forwarded… translating all the French passages inside… some statements of prolonging the warranty for one year + a voucher of 380€ for the client…. Aha… nice…. This didn’t arrive on my desk. Let’s wait for my next show-up at the garage… keep it in mind!

Feb 22nd… sending an email to the After-Sales-Mgr of the garage… corrected his statements to the country manager, asking him also for a statement of these 68km before handout and asking to change my details in their database…. I’m not speaking French, they also have a wrong eMail address of me,  everything what I wrote was translated by google … I also noted a registration date on a Sunday…. Damn… stop it …. Don’t expect your way of work, don’t expect your logic……

Feb 23rd… received email from After-Sales-Mgr… Bonjour Monsieur, J’ai bien pris note de vos remarques et ferai le nécessaire. Bien cordialement ……$!#1”*%.... well… at least a response… in French….

Well… long time nothing heard from the service advisor….

Feb 24th… asking the Service Advisor for an update on my car…. The new engine just arrived, now they started to remove the old one….Wow.. so I can expect the handover when?.... Please expect up to 25 days…. You know, it has to happen based on procedures and also the paint conditioning will take 5-10 days (within the 25)……. WHAT??? So the last 3 weeks nothing has happened, just a prolonging of the warranty of 2 months???????????? No preparations to save time, when the new engine arrives? Just only starting when the package arrived……

Oh jeez, if I would work like this, my boss would fire me….. (/&)+”*$”+*… stop it…. Stop looking for perfection, try to get rid of your frustration… let’s go and chop some wood…. Wait…. Even if I chop all the wood I can’t move it as the Evoque has no tow-bar… ok, let’s go biking downhill to switch off the brain…. Wait… how to get the bike to the bikepark without a tow-bar… ok, then go to the gym and pull some weights…. Damnit… I already pulled so much weights from signing the contract early December till now (still with no car) that I don’t fit into my shirts anymore….. an evil circle…..

Conclusion… the service-advisor at the garage was the only person, who was looking for some alternatives, but the rest…. Oh boy…..

And yes… I’m frustrated and p****d off.
I do understand     
•    Up to 40 km for moving the car inside that factory, loading and moving at the dealership + a ride to the registration office
•    a garage doesn’t have plenty of replacement cars to fit customers needs. For a short period (1-2 weeks) it’s ok to offer a “not so good equipped” car
•    a new engine is delivered in 2-3 weeks

What I don’t understand:  

•    68km driven before handing out to the customer
•    An total engine-failure after 30 / resp. 100 km. I still don’t know the root cause
•    Handing over a dirty car (ok, It was washed, but within 1 minute I discovered 3 dirty spots in the paint, even it was dark outside + a little later dirt traces in the back door entry)
•    4-5 weeks for an engine swap
•    Starting to remove the broken engine when the new engine IS ALREADY on place
•    not even a try from the salesperson nor the after-sales manager offering alternatives or just a simple “Sorry, that shouldn’t have happened, may we offer you …..”
•    2 months warranty prolonging on a company leasing car

 

Meanwhile the replacement Evoque… received on Feb 3rd with 5000km, broke down on March 12th (9519km) while driving with a blocking handbrake and multiple error messages in the display. I could hardly reach the garage and leave the evoque there.... on Monday it was again nearly impossible to reach anyone at the garage, just in that second i was already on the way they sent an email stating that my car is finally ready. So i went there, jumped in, drove a while and discovered that it was ugly polished (stripes on the hood) and in the rear window is a glas-drop.... how is it possible that a car can leave the factory with such an error?

I'll have my next stop at the garage in 2 days that they exchange the window and also polish the car in a better way. Maybe they will show me where i can find the first-aid kit.

Now a question to the guru's.... i discovered in the COC-Papers that the car was build on Dec. 21st 2015 and sold on Dec. 8th 2016... is it common to sell the car for the same price like a "build-to-order" car?

 

All in all i'm really disappointed both from Jaguar factory and from the dealer here in Luxembourg. If something like that would have happened to an Audi Garage in Germany, they would loose there dealership-contract or pay a huge penalty.

 

 

 

 

 

[Jaguar Owners Club]

Hi Marco

It certainly does look like you've had a bucket load of problems with cars lately.

I have to say, it was an interesting read, and humorous in places....didn't know whether it was best to laugh or cry!

It does sound like the Dealership is entirely at fault....lack of proper PDI check(s), sourcing a car that has been sat around for a year (probably because it was known for being faulty), etc.

I would correspond directly with Jaguar (UK) and demand they investigate the sales practices of their Dealer in Luxembourg.

Keep us update on the progress 

Cheers  Trevor

[Bajasaki]

Hi Trevor,

 

unfortunalty i already tried to get in contact with Jaguar UK but only found the email-adress jagcrc@jaguarlandrover.com

 

After my first email i've received the waranty extension, the second time i didn't get any feedback at all. (I wrote them more or less this full story). Maybe you have another adress where i might have some more luck.

 

cheers

Marco

 

[Jaguar Owners Club]

Maybe best to look on Linkedin for the main man...start at the top and work you way down

[Bajasaki]

the saga continues.....

 

April 2nd: at 5196 Kilometers Motor failsafe due to a broken oxygen sensor -> 2 days at the garage with replacement car

during this i wanted to have my tires changed to the 19" Venom Summer tires and guess what.... the garage didn't find them and after long discussion they figured out that the 19" Wheels haven't been on the car when it got delivered.... we fixed a price discount and they should change the COC-Papers : -> April 13th

 

June 8th: AGAIN an email to the garage and CC to the BeneLux-CustomerRelation Manager asking for the voucher, the rembursement and the corrected COC Papers, no answer

June 22nd: towing an empty trailer and at km 10097 short message in the display -> low Oil and at KM 10098 *pfffff* Turbo blown

The day after i drove 8times the same trailer loaded with 1,5 tons with my wife's car and it didn't break......

 

A good point: the assistance on the phone was very nice and send directly a replacement car

 

Anyhow... that's it... i'm totally !Removed! up with Jag.. NEVER EVER AGAIN! It's just a beautiful trailer queen coz it doesn't drive