In 2000, I purchased my very first new car. EVER! I was 43 years old, the kids were grown and I wanted to do this on my own. Using the internet, I searched VW dealerships in my area that might have a green beetle and ended up at Fiore Volkswagen in Warwick, Rhode Island. Although there were a couple of minor electrical issues in the first couple of months (doors not opening when they should have; trunk would open, then driver door wouldnt unlock), Fiore made good on the first couple of problems that arose and I was a happy camper.
Approximately 6 months after I purchased the vehicle, someone at my place of employment bumped it without owning up to it. It was a minor scrape on the front end without a dent of any kind. I asked Fiore if they could paint it because I thought the paint match might be difficult for a non-VW body shop. When I picked the car up, they charged us over $500. for the job, which we were told was a paint job of the entire front bumper. When my husband checked the car, they painted only the scratched spot because the remainder of the bumper still had the usual wear and tear nicks on it. When he confronted the body shop manager, he admitted that only the spot had been painted and we were refunded the balance of the money.
After the 15,000 mile check-up (the car was less than 2 years old), I drove the vehicle home and thought everything was fine. That day, my husband called me outside to take a closer look at the underside of the rocker panels, only to see that they had been crushed. Fiores VW CERTIFIED MECHANICS had put the beetle on the lift incorrectly and crushed them nearly flat! After a telephone conversation, we brought the car to Fiore so that we could all take a look at it. The service manager agreed that their lift had done the damage. They made an appointment to have the appropriate body work done. I telephoned VW customer service (which is an oxymoron, if you ask me, because throughout all of this, all they succeeded in doing was trying to placate me) to complain that my new car was now damaged goods through no fault of my own. They provided a case number to my problem and that was that.
When my husband and I showed up at Fiore to view the body work, we were appalled. The rocker panels looked like stucco (not the orange peel kind of texture that they originally looked like) and body filler had been used to fill out the panels because underneath, they were still hollow. We were promised that Fiore would now order new rocker panels, cut out the old ones and install the new. In the interim, I contacted the RI Auto Dealers Association and an attorney as well. I also found out that the rocker panels were welded to the unibody construction and that to cut into the unibody would compromise the safety of the vehicle. I stopped in unexpectedly to visit the dealerships general manager, Ron Fiore, to discuss the problem and asked what else he might be able to do for me. The next day, he told me he had a brand new (2002) green turbo beetle that had just come in and that he would be willing to give me fair market value for the 2000 (prior to the damage) and I could finance the difference. The lawyer informed me that this was probably the best I could have hoped for.
A short while later, I drove off with the new beetle and, once again, I was a relatively happy camper.
This past week, my beetle hit the 10,000 mile mark and I was faced with the awful decision of returning to that dealership again, or starting over again at a new dealership. I mistakenly decided to go back to Fiore, thinking that Fiore had made things right.
I checked the car over carefully (or so I thought) before leaving the dealership and everything appeared fine. I did notice that the mileage was off (by 6 miles) and that the passenger heated seat was up to the maximum 5 setting. Strange considering no one had been in that seat for weeks. When I got home, once again my husband noticed that there was a dent in the driver side rocker panel. Nowhere near as bad as the first time. As a matter of fact, you cant see it from the side of the car. You have to look underneath. But the damage is there. Yesterday, we called VW customer service and Ron Fiore to discuss the problem. At first, Ron Fiore didnt want to help and even alluded to the possibility that we did the damage ourselves! He later offered to have his body shop repair the damage. And today, we received a call from the Fiore service manager saying What can we do to make this right? We can look at it and you can have the service done elsewhere at our expense. So we wonder, what happened between yesterday and today? Yesterday we were thorns in the dealerships side and today they want to fix everything? I dont understand. We have a case number and are trying to rectify the problem, but Ill NEVER go back to that dealership again. Im going to take my car while its still in one piece and keep it close to home.
I am only expressing this to you because, as many on this site have expressed, I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER VOLKSWAGEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING BUYING A VOLKSWAGEN, PLEASE TALK TO OTHER OWNERS, DO YOUR HOMEWORK, FIND OUT ABOUT SERVICE ISSUES IN YOUR AREA. Many VW dealers are not who they pretend to be. They do not provide quality service by certified mechanics. And if they ARE certified, then I certainly would like to see what that certification must require, because if you cannot properly raise a vehicle on a lift without damaging it BEFORE you have even done the work, then that certification must not be worth the paper its printed on. Additionally, Volkswagen Customer Care does two things in an incident like my own. 1) They listen 2) They assign you a case number. AND THAT IS ALL THEY DO. They informed me that any issue you have with the dealer, you will have to rectify on your own because Volkswagen and the dealership are separate entities. I bought in to the whole creative VW hype too. And all it brought me was dissatisfaction.
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