Newcastle VW dealership

Is that Reflex Silver @MikeMc88? If it is, the only proper way to deal with that sort of damage is to have whole panels and the bumper re-sprayed, and blended into the surrounding panels. I have a Reflex Silver camper van, and have spoken to my local independent body shop recently about getting some scratches done on the doors, and was told that this is about the worst colour to deal with. Don’t accept anything less IMHO.
 
@Noddy996 Yes mine is reflex silver too. Thanks for letting me know, I wasn't aware of that. I noticed some spray already on the black plastic part of the front bumper which is a very poor job and the rear bumper looks like it has been sprayed to a poor standard also. I am sure they try and get away with not fully spraying the areas needed. They have given me little hope or encouragement up to now. Going by my conversation with the manager of the dealership this morning, I am now not confident at all.
 
Looking at the above pictures @MikeMc88, I cannot see any that will successfully 'buff' out, a scrape to the sill, a plastic foglight surround that needs replacing, a poor previous 'smart' repair and overspray over another foglight surround.

I can see why you might not be overly chuffed :eek:

As you've mentioned, a 2nd hand vehicle will have some age related chips, but i've purchased several over the years from Sytner Leicester, and I genuinely think my sales guy would be embarrassed to hand that to me.

Saying that, i've not purchased a used commercial before.
 
I too can see why you are not happy. I guess there are risks in trusting what someone tells you, when can't see the van yourself.

We bought our T6 from VW Birmingham. It was 1 year old with about 14k on the clock, and it was in almost perfect condition, so you should not have to compromise on the condition, unless they have declared scratches etc up front.

Pete
 
@Tourershine I mentioned it to the salesman when I first seen the van and he seemed sure that most of them would buff out. At first I believed him but 2 attempts later the van is no different. The manager seems to think touching up will be acceptable. In regards to the few marks on the key surround his words were "you want me to spray the full door, just for that?" My reply "if that is what it will take to fix it, then yes" Replacing the surround would probably be cheaper. He has only agreed to spray the front bumper so I doubt the rest will not be up to standard when I come to pick the van up.
 
@Tourershine I mentioned it to the salesman when I first seen the van and he seemed sure that most of them would buff out. At first I believed him but 2 attempts later the van is no different. The manager seems to think touching up will be acceptable. In regards to the few marks on the key surround his words were "you want me to spray the full door, just for that?" My reply "if that is what it will take to fix it, then yes" Replacing the surround would probably be cheaper. He has only agreed to spray the front bumper so I doubt the rest will not be up to standard when I come to pick the van up.

Your biggest issue is any paintwork will be an absolute nightmare to match up with Silver, and sometimes the painted panel can look worse than the small amount of scratches. I feel for you mate, and can only imagine how gutted you are at the moment.

My guess is if you offered them the option to reduce the price, or put all the damaged panels right, they will opt for the price reduction.
 
On the 25th April I went into this dealership to purchase a van. The van I had my eyes on was actually at the VW van centre in Glasgow. It was 2nd hand but quite new van on a 18 plate with just under 14000 miles on the clock. I signed for it on the Saturday 27th and was told the van would be brought down from Glasgow early in the week. Ok that is fine for me.

It got to Tuesday and I received a call from somebody at the van centre and I was thinking they were letting me know the van had arrived. It wasn't for that reason, it was a guy calling for me to pay my deposit. I passed over the details and the deposit was paid. Excellent another step forward to owning my own Transporter. The guy then asked me if the salesman had spoke to me to tell me when the van would be brought down? I said the salesman assured me the van would be here early this week so I was hoping it might have been here by now. He said ok I will get Alan to call you and let you know what is happening.

The following day I was told the van was still in Glasgow as the wrong van had been picked up and brought to the Newcastle dealership. Not quite sure how this mistake happened but ok I can accept mistakes do happen. Another day passes and it gets to tea time so I called up to ask what was happening and what stage we were at? To my surprise, the van was still in Glasgow. I was happy up until this point but now I was getting annoyed at the situation. I said if the van isn't here by the weekend then I would not be going ahead with the purchase. I couldn't believe the van was only 170 miles away but it was still in Glasgow 1 week later.

I received a phone call the following day to say my van had eventually arrived and it would be ready to collect the next day, on Saturday 4th May. At this point I was very happy again and didn't really care that the communication from the guys at the van centre had been very poor.

I arrived at the van centre on Saturday morning to complete the transaction and hand over my car. As I pulled into the car park I noticed my van parked up so I went to inspect it before I went inside the showroom. To my amazement it was full of scratches with marks and scrapes on numerous parts of the vehicle. Many of them looked like they would easily buff out, but the front bumper looked like it had been scrubbed with a brillo pad. Driver side sill had quite a large area where it had clearly been scraped and lost a lot of the paintwork. As soon as I spoke to the salesman I mentioned all of the scratches and scrapes but he assured me they would be rectified for me. He said it hadn't been cleaned up properly because of my anticipation to receive the vehicle quickly (even though it arrived late). So it would need to come back in and be buffed and valeted inside and out. Ok that is fine then I can drive my van over the bank holiday weekend and it can go back in on Tuesday to eventually come back to me in a satisfactory standard on the Friday 10th May. I took the van back in on the Tuesday and was told I would get a rental van from them for free until the work was completed. I was happy to do so but I was not happy about the £750 excess they had put on it in case of accident or even a scratch for that matter. I only needed to use the van to drive a few miles to work and back each so I signed for it even though I thought the excess was quite high, considering the circumstances.

Friday arrives and I see my van in the car park again so I go to inspect it before I hand over the keys for the rental van. To my horror the van didn't look much different than before. The scratches were all still there and the front bumper certainly didn't look it had been touched. I was beginning to wonder if the van had even seen a buffer machine, it just looked like it had been semi cleaned. I say semi because after a valet inside and out, the van wasn't fully cleaned inside and the outside looked like it had a quick wash and rinse. Definitely not the standard I had received in my previous 2 vehicle purchases from VW Lookers. But lets not make it about the valeting job as personally I dont really care as I can do that myself anyway. The big issue is the scratches. The salesman, the manager and 2 other salesmen went out to inspect the van, I dont know why it took a squad of them but they all went out and I stayed in the showroom, at this point quite irate at was going on. This was 1 of the largest purchases I have made and had dreamed of owning a Transporter for many years. Sadly it was at this point my regrets started to set in and was in a position I thought would never be possible. Do I really want to go ahead with this? I was not sure.

I told the salesman I would like to voice my concerns to the manager as I felt it was unacceptable to try and pass the van off to me as satisfactory standard not once, but twice now. Both the salesman and manager sat in his office while I explained the problem and they both agreed they had received the van from Glasgow in unacceptable condition. So why did they think it was acceptable to pass it to the customer in the same condition, twice.
The salesman then claimed he had given me £600 worth of freebies, as this was some kind of way for me to accept the condition of my van? I hope not. I told him I do not care about the freebies and this is not what this is all about. Plus he gave me 2nd hand floor mats as the first apology for the state of the van and then the 2nd time he gave me a car cleaning kit, apparently worth £300 so not sure where the £600 comes from. But again I do not care so much about this at this point, not because I am ungrateful. Far from it. All I wanted is my van in an acceptable condition for me to drive away happy. Which any customer who spends £22,000 on a vehicle should. I thought the chat went ok and I was still annoyed by the time I left and do not think they dealt with it in a professional manner, as nothing was noted. It was all word of mouth. How would he be able to clean it up properly if we hadn't went round and logged each of the discrepancies on the van. They had failed to do so twice before so I was not confident that my issues would all be dealt with.

I went back into the van centre this morning and I spoke to the manager and asked him to come outside to inspect my vehicle. Apparently other than the front bumper and the driver sill the rest of the van is in acceptable condition. When I signed for the van the salesman said any issues will be charged back to the original dealership. They had already agreed that the van was received in a poor state.

The manager then proceeded to accuse me of being unreasonable. Really? Customer spends over 20k on vehicle and is still not any further forward after almost 3 weeks of what was supposed to be possibly the best purchase of my life. I feel like he didn't care too much about the incidents because it seemed like any cost would come from them so he was trying to convince me that is was acceptable. He claimed to say the van which is only 1 year old with only 14000 on the clock was acceptable in the current condition because it was 2nd hand (other than the bumper and sill which he already agreed to fix)

Here is just some of the photos I have managed to get. They do not do it justice at all and look far worse by eye. I accept any 2nd hand vehicle may come with some scratches but I have managed to find at least 35 separate locations which could have easily been sorted out by now. Most of it I assume would buffer out but there are some deeper scratches that they do not seem to want to sort out. They are due to pick the van up on Monday and have it back to me by Wednesday in what should be the satisfactory conclusion to this poor process but my conversation with the manager this morning has put more doubt in my mind than before that I will eventually be a happy Transporter owner by Wednesday. I suppose come Wednesday it will be deal or no deal. I cant handle any more pitiful attempts to apologise. Each 1 has less substance each time it is used. up until now I have 4 apologies but am zero steps forward to being happy with my purchase.

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Could you hand it back With the reason being it isn’t as described to you when you agreed to purchase it and you think that you have given them ample opportunities to rectify the problem.
They have agreed that the vehicle wasn’t to standard from Scotland but I suppose the argument is what is an acceptable standard.
I have 2 cans from them a T6 and s 1 year old crafter you do have to push them a lot to get things sorted and it’s massively frustrating and stressful but stand your ground. Hope you get thins sorted either way.
 
I am trying to understand the chronological order of this - you paid a main dealer a deposit for a vehicle you have never seen?

Have to above aside - I would have walked away on first sight, there are lots of vans out there and I don’t think that is the one for you.

That’s a work vehicle not what you need.

Sorry for being blunt but reading your story your treatment is wrong for the money you’ve paid
 
@Tourershine Yes pretty gutted at the moment but I remain optimistic that this mess will eventually be sorted out. I did mention that the van I purchased was not the same value as what I actually received so what did he plan on doing about it. He said I was being unreasonable again. I almost lost it at that point but I kept calm and let him know that it was indeed him that was being unreasonable and that these problems will be a deal breaker. He was keen to cancel the deal at this point but I said that it not likely to happen. If that happens it will be on my say so and the only options for us now are to either fix the vehicle to acceptable condition or give me a different vehicle of equivalent or greater value. He said he would not be giving me anything of more value and that it would be like for like swap. I said that is fine I wasn't expecting that. I was just letting him know that they were the only acceptable solutions.

@James1000 Yes stupidly I paid the deposit before I seen the vehicle. This is the first van I have ever purchased but have bought my VW cars from Lookers At the Silverlink for quite a few years, so naively I trusted these guys to deliver. My past experiences with the VW at the Silverlink has been amazing. Never had a problem in all of the years I used their services and have bought 3 cars from them in the past. All 3 times they went above and beyond to ensure everything was perfect. Any problems were sorted immediately without question. I know they are different departments but stupidly I trusted them to deliver all the same. This van being only 1 year old I guess I underestimated how different a van purchase can be from a car. I kind of expected it to be in almost perfect condition. Minus the regular stone chip or 2 you may get along the way or the odd ding or 2 inside where workers may have been heavy handed.

@Dave F I can hand the vehicle back in and walk away or I can swap the vehicle as long as it is within 30 days of purchase due to the right to exchange policy. At present and after reading the replies here, I am thinking about exchanging to a different vehicle and a different colour from silver, which was initially my preferred choice.
 
This makes me wonder about what direction to go in now and I would love to hear what you guys would do at this point. I am away from home from Monday to Wednesday so at present I am awaiting for the van to be picked up on Monday morning from my mothers and expect to receive it back on Wednesday afternoon.

- Would you let them pick it up and hope that when you return on Wednesday that all of the issues are sorted?
(Baring in mind the manager has basically already said he will not be fully spraying all of the areas that I complained about. The 2 doors I am pretty certain will not be touched. These were what he said I was mainly being unreasonable about and specifically mentioned touching up the drivers door handle. I Still cant believe after all of these issues the manager of the dealership had the audacity to accuse me of being unreasonable on more than 1 occasion :mad:)

- Would you use the right to exchange policy and swap for a van that you are happy with? (This is my preferred choice at present)

- Would you hand the van back and walk away from the dealership altogether?

I would love to hear your opinions and what your next route would be if you had to deal with this situation.
 
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I would walk away from that van, and possibly the dealer. It all gets too complicated with quality of repairs, finding an exchange vehicle etc etc.
Start again, and go and find a van that you can see before putting a deposit down.

Pete
 
I think in reality a main dealer is exactly that. They sell vehicles that they either have in stock, in which case it's more straight forward as you can see it in the flesh. Or, they sell a vehicle that's in group elsewhere. These are often sold without seeing for obvious reasons.
I've had several off group purchases and all are sold on the promise that they will have the full dealership inspection, and anything that's outside of their standard 'used vehicle' promises, like kerbed alloys, dents or big scrapes, will be rectified at the dealers cost. These costs are factored into the sale, and would of been noted when the dealer either took the vehicle as a PX, or it was one they'd had handed back after the end of a finance deal. This damage is then deducted off the price they allowed the previous owner. It's all pretty standard practice and not overly complicated, and most of the damage you can see should be documented somewhere.

Your current issues are potentially not the fault of the salesman, because he can only offer what he's been told, and as a salesman I guess they make a decision if this one sale is worth the time he needs to spend to make the situation right, or just revoke the deal and sell 'your' T6 to someone who might not notice the issues you have. It makes no difference to the salesman if you buy that T6, or they just keep it as stock, because someone will buy it, and it's not his money tied up.

I've had dealings in depth with VW over the last few months. This is on a different level, and it's a warranty issue, not a sales one, but i've learnt a lot about the standard practices, and how hands are often tied from above. The guy i'm dealing with is totally open and honest, and it's amazing how restricted he is when it comes to putting his name to a job. His approach is to under promise and warn of the potential outcome, which works perfectly for me, and gives me the choice knowing I might not be happy with the end result, but at the least i'm made aware of this by him.

Reading the above response by your salesman, I doubt you are going to walk away from this totally satisfied either way. You might find an equivalent T6 with less issues, or it might be worse. The same applies if you go to another dealer.
Personally if it was the vehicle I wanted, and it meant I didn't have to start all over, i'd push the dealership for some compromise, be it free services, the foglight panels supplied FOC, even if you fit them yourself, a full tank of fuel, and so on. Then if you are really fussed with the paintwork, get a local bodyshop to take a look. You might find it's not as expensive as you think.
 
@Tourershine Yes pretty gutted at the moment but I remain optimistic that this mess will eventually be sorted out. I did mention that the van I purchased was not the same value as what I actually received so what did he plan on doing about it. He said I was being unreasonable again. I almost lost it at that point but I kept calm and let him know that it was indeed him that was being unreasonable and that these problems will be a deal breaker. He was keen to cancel the deal at this point but I said that it not likely to happen. If that happens it will be on my say so and the only options for us now are to either fix the vehicle to acceptable condition or give me a different vehicle of equivalent or greater value. He said he would not be giving me anything of more value and that it would be like for like swap. I said that is fine I wasn't expecting that. I was just letting him know that they were the only acceptable solutions.

@James1000 Yes stupidly I paid the deposit before I seen the vehicle. This is the first van I have ever purchased but have bought my VW cars from Lookers At the Silverlink for quite a few years, so naively I trusted these guys to deliver. My past experiences with the VW at the Silverlink has been amazing. Never had a problem in all of the years I used their services and have bought 3 cars from them in the past. All 3 times they went above and beyond to ensure everything was perfect. Any problems were sorted immediately without question. I know they are different departments but stupidly I trusted them to deliver all the same. This van being only 1 year old I guess I underestimated how different a van purchase can be from a car. I kind of expected it to be in almost perfect condition. Minus the regular stone chip or 2 you may get along the way or the odd ding or 2 inside where workers may have been heavy handed.

@Dave F I can hand the vehicle back in and walk away or I can swap the vehicle as long as it is within 30 days of purchase due to the right to exchange policy. At present and after reading the replies here, I am thinking about exchanging to a different vehicle and a different colour from silver, which was initially my preferred choice.

It Doesn’t sound like it’s the one for you I think if it was me I would exchange it for a that you can inspect before agreeing to take. I believe once you are unhappy with anything unless you can live with it you will always be disappointed and it will annoy you.
 
If there is an option to walk away - WALK AWAY
Walk away now, especially if he has already given you that option as if they 'fix it' and your are still not happy with the result you could be on a sticky wicket and the option to walk might not be so easy.
 
I had a similar issue when looking to purchase my Van, except it was JCT600 who delivered me a sub par vehicle, and lookers in Newcastle who ended up supplying me with the van I eventually bought (which I love).

Lesson I learned from my ordeal. NEVER buy a vehicle you have not inspected and test driven, no matter how good it looks in the pics, or how reputable the people selling it. It’s just not worth it.

I hunted for the right van for months, and eventually spotted a T5.1 T30 at JCT600 in Hull in the exact spec I had been looking for. I called them up and it was a “long time customer who had traded it in on a new T6. FSH with VW... etc, etc”. It looked immaculate in the pics. I was told I had to pay a deposit over the phone to secure it or they would sell it from under me as I could only get there in 4 days time. I felt I had no reason to doubt the van was a good one so went ahead, and that wa me the start of the nightmare. Mistake number one.

I got there after travelling down by train and taxi. Immediately after laying eyes on the van it looked nothing like the pics or videos they had sent. The bonnet was covered in stone chips, and paint work wasn’t nearly as good as described. I had come a long way and paid a deposit so decided to just keep going (mistake number 2 as I should have just walked away right then).

They said I could take it for a test drive so went for a drive around the industrial estate where they are based, and to be fair the van felt perfectly fine. Never really got it out of third, but the drive didn’t throw up any mechanical issues. One thing that did catch my eye however is that the van was supposed to have been single ownership, and had apparently been owned by an electrician. On driving the vehicle however the Bluetooth was constantly hunting for a list of about 5 or 6 recognised phones, all belonging to people with different names. I realised that “single owner electrician” actually meant “company vehicle owned by an electrician but driven daily by a long list of staff who aren’t actually responsible for the vehicle”. Once again I should have backed out then, but was so deep now I just wanted to get out of there with the van.

Got back to the office, paid the balance £18800.00 and set off on the three hour drive home. As soon as I hit the motorway I regretted my decision. The van would drift across lanes, and the steering had a noticeable slack spot when turning from one direction to the other. Cruising at 70mph it was very hard to control, and I was constantly trying to compensate for the drifting one way or the other. It was clear that the steering rack was worn and needed replacing. By now I had also put £80.00 diesel in to get back home as well.

I turned around and went back to the dealership, and told them the issue. All of a sudden the tone in the dealership changed. I was told to go for a drive with a technician. He drove it around and said he couldnt feel anything. We got back and it was put on the lift and inspected. This took about 20 minutes and all the while there was a lot of “activity” in the sales office. Eventually the sales guy comes out with two managers, and they admit the steering rack is “slightly” worn, but they feel the level of wear is acceptable. I pushed back and said an approved used VW should never be sold with a worn steering rack, and said they need to replace it. Trying to play hard ball the sales guy said, “we won’t do that, so if you won’t take the van we will have to cancel the sale”. And in that split second I jumped in it and said cancel the sale.

He obviously had no clue I would actually go for it, and he immediately regretted putting the offer on the table. They went away for another 10 minutes and then a different two sales guys came out and asked me if I would reconsider. By then I wanted nothing to do with them or the van, and just stuck to my guns. They then said they couldn’t cancel the sale as the V5 had already been sent away. I told them a cancellation was offered and I was going to cancel. They eventually told me I had to go away, wait for the V5, post it back, and on return I would be refunded in full.

It took me all of 6 days to receive the V5 and get it back to them. And I am sure none of you will be surprised that it took 6 weeks of daily calls and stress before I even saw a penny of my money back. I’m sure none of you will also be surprised to hear that I never got my money back in full either, although by the time I got most of it back I was so relieved I just gave up on JCT600 and left it at that.

Lookers Newcastle on the other hand were a pleasure to deal with. They gave me an awesome deal on my Van, were fast and efficient, and I honestly can fault the team there.

Based on my experience I will never ever put a deposit on a second hand vehicle without seeing it again. And although I think you shouldn’t have to buy something you aren’t happy with, I also support some of the comments here that say you can’t really fault the sales people who are in your case also selling a van they haven’t seen. One persons perception of “tidy” and another’s is almost always different. It’s better to make the decision yourself and save a lot of hassle. Hopefully you get your situation sorted out and are happy with your van at the end of the day.
 
Thanks for all of your opinions. I dont entirely fault the salesman in all of this. I can only fault him for trying to hand the vehicle over to me as satisfactory, twice. Even though he and the manager agreed they received it in a poor condition and it clearly looked no different from when I had first seen it, just a little cleaner. I actually think the saleman was a decent bloke and I know his hands are tied. I have spoken to the manager on 2 occasions and can see exactly why. The manager is not very helpful at all.

@highwaycollective sorry to hear of your poor experience with your purchase. I think my lesson has definitely been learned here. It is good to hear they had treated some of you guys nicely at the van centre in Newcastle. I dont think I will be happy with the van once the work is done, so I will speak to them on Monday and if they are not going to spray the full parts that need to be done then I wont be going ahead with the purchase. I will probably then hope they can find a good enough solution within there own stock or I will just walk away empty handed and give my custom to somebody else.
 
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Thanks for all of your opinions. I dont entirely fault the salesman in all of this. I can only fault him for trying to hand the vehicle over to me as satisfactory, twice. Even though he and the manager agreed they received it in a poor condition and it clearly looked no different from when I had first seen it, just a little cleaner. I actually think the saleman was a decent bloke and I know his hands are tied. I have spoken to the manager on 2 occasions and can see exactly why. The manager is not very helpful at all.

@highwaycollective sorry to hear of your poor experience with your purchase. I think my lesson has definitely been learned here. It is good to hear they had treated some of you guys nicely at the van centre in Newcastle. I dont think I will be happy with the van once the work is done, so I will speak to them on Monday and if they are not going to spray the full parts that need to be done then I wont be going ahead with the purchase. I will probably then hope they can find a good enough solution within there own stock or I will just walk away empty handed and give my custom to somebody else.
The only issue I would have with that is if they do the re spray as you requested and you still aren’t happy it will probably make exchanging or walking away ever more problematic.
My crafter had small scratches on and I wouldn’t thank it until they were sorted after 3 weeks they still weren’t sorted so I took it on the agreements they payed £400 to my garage to sort it out.
I would also make sure most or all of the communication is done via Email as I did so it’s all in writing.
Are they also eating away at your 28 days returning policy?.
Iyou have spent a long time detailing this on the forum so I think you default aren’t happy and probably will never be with this van.
This is only my opinion but 100% exchange or walk don’t even let them try again .
 
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