Update: Vorderman Volkswagen sent us a check for $116 and offered apologies for taking so long in coming to a resolution for the problem. I’m satisfied with the final resolution, although I’m disappointed that it took a BBB complaint to get to this point.
I’m not going to lie; I’m a pretty picky consumer. For example, last week I embarrassed Heather by going to the service desk at Meijer and requesting $6 back for items that rang up wrong. All were probably honest mistakes and most people would’ve ignored them, if they even caught them. Overall, I’m still impressed with the new Meijer in Marion and I’ll definitely go back.
However, I can’t say the same thing about Vorderman Volkswagen in Fort Wayne. Vorderman’s VW service department seems to put profits before customers and has no interest in making service problems right. A few weeks ago, we took Heather’s 2001 Beetle to Fort Wayne (we actually required a tow the Vorderman dealership because the car died ten miles outside of Fort Wayne). It turned out the alternator wiring had gone bad and needed to be replaced. Vorderman’s made the fix and was able to do a full diagnostic. They told us we should consider more than $2000 in additional repairs.
At this point you’re probably saying to yourself that this post must be about Vorderman overcharging for their services. It’s not. Although they charged $400 to fix the wiring to the alternator, I thought their prices weren’t too out of the ordinary. Sure there’s a markup; they’re a VW dealership. They mark stuff up and you expect them to know what they’re doing. That’s fair. And we always have an option to go elsewhere for additional work on our Beetle, and that’s what we did.
We declined the additional work and made our way back to Vorderman’s in Fort Wayne on a Saturday to pick up the vehicle. The tech that oversaw the work on our vehicle, Larry, wasn’t in, but Jamie was there to take our payment and hand over our keys. At that point, I noticed that they didn’t save any parts, even though I requested on the paperwork that they save them (they said they replaced a $104 fuse panel and a $1 fuse). I questioned Jamie about this, so we checked the vehicle. They weren’t in there. He then started to cop a little bit of an attitude with me and questioned whether I actually requested that the parts be saved.
At that point, I was getting frustrated. I asked him to review the paperwork, and I, in fact, had requested the parts be saved. Jamie then said that the part may still be out back in the dumpster. I told him that if they weren’t able to present the part, I would like the $104 for the fuse panel to at least be refunded. He looked at me in bewilderment, and condescendingly asked, “Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy?”
I’m still skeptical that he didn’t actually understand why I would want the parts to be saved. That particular part contains three fuses. One (the fuse on the far left that controls the air conditioning) was obviously shorted and needed to be replaced. It was conceivable that the single $1 fuse could be swapped out without the need for replacing the panel (and, in fact, it was clear that the fuse was replaced. It looked different from the other two fuses that were not replaced in the car). However, from looks alone it was unclear to me that the panel was replaced. I’m sure Jamie at Vorderman Volkswagen understands that car dealership mechanics don’t exactly have the most sterling reputation. If I had to choose whether to trust a lawyer, a politician, or a dealership mechanic, I’d have an awfully tough choice to make.
That’s why you save parts. At that point, it was clear I wasn’t getting anywhere with Jamie (and Heather was getting embarrassed at my raised voice). I told Jamie that I would just take my business elsewhere in the future and left.
Later that same day, I received a voicemail from Jamie stating that he went dumpster diving and found the part. He asked for my address, and I called back and left a voicemail to confirm where he could send it. At that point, I was pretty happy. I thought it was a nice gesture, and had the fuse panel from Vorderman Volkswagen arrived without incident, I would’ve been a happy camper.
However, the story doesn’t end there. Early in the week, Larry left me a message that the part was on its way via a shipping service. We received the fuse panel, with the Vorderman return address, a couple days later. It was the right part number. It was, in fact, from a VW Beetle (or perhaps a Jetta or another vehicle that uses the same part number). And there was a fuse burned into the slot where we obviously had a new fuse in our car. However, there was also a fuse burned into the second of three slots, a fuse that was not replaced in our car. Additionally, the fuses were a darker green than the panel that would’ve been in our car.
Vorderman’s sent us a part that wasn’t from our car; it should’ve been obvious to Jamie, who found the part in the Vorderman dumpster. It should’ve been obvious to Larry who would’ve shipped the part from Vorderman VW. However, they either had no clue what work had been done on our car, or were trying to mislead us and sent it anyway.
I called Larry at Vorderman VW the next day to express my disappointment. He apologized, although he didn’t seem surprised that they had sent the wrong part. He claimed there were four other vehicles in at the same time with the same problem. He asked if there was anything he could do to make it right. I told him that the apology that he provided was the first step and requested that we be refunded the $104 for the fuse panel. He told me he would see what he could do and would get back to me.
A week later I still hadn’t heard back from Larry and called and left him a message. He called me back and told me that he had passed along my information to the Service Manager, Heath, and he would get in touch with me. The ironic thing was that Heath was the one with whom I left a message for Larry.
The following day, Heath and I were able to connect over the phone. I explained the story to him, noting that I was disappointed with the attitude I received from Jamie and that it was obvious I had been sent a part that didn’t come from our car. He seemed a little surprised that Larry claimed there were four other vehicles in at the same time with the same problem and Heath asked if I was 100% sure the part didn’t come from our vehicle. I told him I was, and I reiterated my request for $104 to be refunded. Like Jamie, Heath didn’t seem to understand why I would request that, and I tried to explain again that it wasn’t clear the part was replaced, and it certainly looked fishy when they sent me a part from someone else’s vehicle. Like Larry, Heath told me he would see what he could do and would get back to me.
That was nearly five days ago, and I haven’t heard anything. At this point, it seems clear to me that Vorderman Volkswagen is not interested in making the situation right. Did they replace the fuse panel? Maybe, but I wouldn’t bet any money on it, especially after they tried to pawn off a part from someone else’s vehicle on us. And now that I’ve received attitude from a Vorderman employee, and been told twice that they’d follow up and they didn’t, I’d assume that they aren’t interested in working with me further.
Hopefully those reading this post will refrain from working with shady Vorderman Volkswagen in the future. At this point, they’re probably beyond the point where they can make the situation right with me. I guess that’s why you should always be nice to someone with a blog.
My brother-in-law’s, Shannon Lowe’s, viewing was on Monday, and when we all arrived, we were surprised to see a new tattoo on his left arm: a red and black nautical star. Shannon had mentioned to Heather and me a couple weeks earlier that he’d always wanted one, but none of us had any idea that he got it on the Thursday before he was killed.
