never again MAIN DEALER!!

[dem maser]

i took my car back to hr owen yesterday to get the hoses replaced a job they told me is 1hr long, so i waited, 1 become 4hrs, anyway he came back to me with its not the hoses in the end its still leaking so must be the radiator
A quote of £900 followed, with him saying they wil eat the hoses job they did as a gesture, im not happy will def not be going back there again as when my car went in for service it was excellent then since its been leaking

 

[lozcb]

Hi Dem , you must be gutted to say the least , worth a quick pm to Conaero all will be revealed , could possibly l be worth a new radiator to you if you have a digital camera handy

regards loz

 

[Parisien]

Dem/Loz...isn't there an issue with trying to drain the radiator, if you aint careful you can break off the little valve thingy....maybe wise to look at that on inspection!


P

 

[dem maser]

what you suggesting loz

 

[conaero]

Dem, first off, you have a 3200 AC from memory, yes?

Now, have you had the cambelt done recently? The reason I ask is that the upper and lower hose flanges are weak and crack. When a cambelt is done on the 3200 you should remove the radiator, and in the real world nobody does. They loosen the mountings and pull it to one side, that stresses the flanges, they crack, then you need a new rad.

If you have not had the cambelt done, I would expect that when the hoses were fitted, they pulled it and wiggled it till it broke.

You can just have it brazed for about £20, so if it is leaking from the hose flanges, I would go back and demand they take the radiator out and get it repaired and then put it back in FOC!

If its not the flanges, then I am afraid there is not a lot you can do. I know Eurospares have some rads for a few hundred, so that would be my first port of call or you could always take it to a rad specialist and have it recored, but the Eurospares route sounds like the best one to me.

Good luck

 

[lozcb]

Bet he's under that bonnet now quicker than lightning , oh and digital camera in hand heheh


regards loz

 

[urbanmaser]

Dem am I right in saying that you never let them fix a new rad and they never charged you for the new hoses????? If there was a leak before you went then it would be fair to say that they did nothing to cause the leak????? If they are now claiming it is the rad which is the problem get another opinion but they should not charge you a penny for the hoses if it was a wrong diagnosis.

 

[conaero]

The rad on Eurospares is £368 very reasonable.

God knows where the £500 labour to change it was magic'd up from its a 2 hr job!

I would go and have a right moan if its already been done!

http://www.eurospares.co.uk/partsListing.asp?M=3&Mo=697&A=1&B=41475&S=&ID4=1698111

 

[rob4wd]

had my rad recored last year but in hindsight now would buy new. recoring was just over £300 and you've got a fair bit of down time. also these rads are basically two separate ones mounted together.they are also an extremely tight fit. if after recoring they are not assembled together absolutely perfectly they are a ***** to reinstall in their location.

the eurospares price isn't too excessive for what is a fair chunk of engineering.

regards

rob

 

[dem maser]

thanx guys, conaero your right the car went to them 3 weeks ago for service cambelt change, then a day later i noticed all my coolant was on the floor so belled them back for them to tell me they will change the hoses for me but ultimately after a long wait it was the rad, not happy at all i felt gutted on tue nite

 

[conaero]

thanx guys, conaero your right the car went to them 3 weeks ago for service cambelt change, then a day later i noticed all my coolant was on the floor so belled them back for them to tell me they will change the hoses for me but ultimately after a long wait it was the rad, not happy at all i felt gutted on tue nite

Seriously, that is what caused your rad to break, its well known and not a fluke!

Mike Roberts told me that, give him a call, **** be happy to chat to you about it.

 

[Parisien]

Seriously, that is what caused your rad to break, its well known and not a fluke!

The awful thing is guys, HR Owen with all its experience should have known this weakness and taken due care, it appears they didn't.....SIN no 1, SIN no 2 they then didn't diagnose their own damage to your car, SIN no 3 - they failed to put their hands up when first challenged to rectify free of charge and offer you a discount etc on the next bit of work( if ever after this?!), finally by allowing all of this to happen, they've committed the worst SIN of by having allowed their reputation to be damaged in having it questioned on a public messgae forum!

Enuf said!

P

 

[Predator]

WOW, not much I can add to this but it certainly sounds like the cause. Things like this are my worse nightmare. It's the sort of thing that would have me so angry, I wouldn't be able to sleep for days. It doesn't take much, lol!

I hope they do the right thing by you and your Maser and finally correct their mistake, FOC!

Good luck and keep us posted.

John

 

[urbanmaser]

Dem, I don't know who you are dealing with at HR Owen but I have a pretty good relationship with their service manager. I am not saying it will yield the result you are looking for but to date I have found him very helpful.

Why not try contacting him??? Sometimes a softly softly approach will get better results than a full blown attack. Let me know if I can help. email me: admin@urbantropics.co.uk

Tony Vaccaro
Service Manager
H.R. Owen Sports Cars
Tel:020 8978 3600

 

[conaero]

Agreed, they might be willing to accept that they caused it, then again they may not, but agreed with UrabanMasser, have a little dialog and see if you can come to a descent resolve.

 

[alfamaserman]

Recoring is **** in my experience - tried to do that on one of my classics [not Maserati] sometime ago. Poor workmanship covered in paint and it didn't fit properly.
As has been said above - get a genuine one.

 

[dem maser]

i phoned them and told them my findings and the result was good
They have fixed and actuator sensor that caused an error light to stay on they also fixed my grille which had a nasty ding in it then they added the maserati badges i wanted on the side of the fuel cap with an engine steam clean so that to me shows how wrong they were

 

[dem maser]

ill be picking car up tomorrow wil let you know how i found it, thanx guys

 

[conaero]

Well done Dem, I take it your quite liking the new forum then?

Glad to of been assistance.

 

[urbanmaser]

Dem it is good to hear that HR Owen have accepted responsibilty and have made suitable ammends and it would be great if we could hear how the car is now running.

Whilst they cannot turn the clock back to have saved you all this grief, having a dealer accept responsibilty and to compensate accordingly in the end has to be a million times better than having a dealer who catagorically refuses to accept any responsibilty no matter what, as has been some of our past experiences which we will not go into.

As you maybe aware I bought a Gransport last year and had various warranty related problems. I went to a few dealers who seemed uninterested in helpng me resolve the issues.

HR Owen was recommended to me by one of my business clients who has a 4200. I went there half expecting to get the brush off, but to my surprise I found they were really sympathetic and spent much time and energy helping me to get these issues resolved under warranty.

As I have said in a previous posting I dealt with Tony Vaccaro, the Service Manager, and have found that he will always go the extra mile to help.

I think maybe you were unfortunate to have started off on the wrong foot and hit problems which would have tried the patience of even the most hardened member. This once again begs the question is there such a thing as a dealer who will perform 100% all of the time and I think the honest answer is NO. What is important is that when an error occurs that a dealer, whether a main dealer or an indie, will stand by their client once the error has been pointed out to them. In your particular case, the regretable part of this saga is that they did not see the error in the first instance and it took visits to the forums to gain enough ammunition to go back to them.

Perhaps one has to build a relationship with a dealer, which is something I think I have achieved with Tony. How my car performs after the extensive work it has undergone, remains to be seen as the car is still with HR Owen, but having the security and peace of mind that your dealer will stand by you in the event of a complaint, is for me a big bonus.

I don't know whether you would ever go back to HR Owen again and nobody could blame you if you decided not to, but one thing is for sure that the next time you will be known to them and perhaps a little more care will be exercised......RELATIONSHP BUILDING.

Anyways mate hope all this has a happy ending