James Delancey

Review of Pugi Volkswagen

After a lengthy post about another dealership, I c...

After a lengthy post about another dealership, I can say that Pugi, where we purchased a 2016 VW GTI that upon final delivery to us had a noticeable scratch on the driver side door and was buffed for 2 hours to no avail, continued the level they left off with.

My wife called to make a service appointment this morning at 8am with check engine light needing diagnosing, and they had no openings.

Yet I was able to make an appointment online just moments later through their web-based service for a 10am appointment.

Back to my wife s attempt to make an appointment- she was asked the typical questions: name, vehicle make and model and whether it had been serviced there. She replied no service had been done there, but it is where the car was purchased. For some reason the conversation carried on about them not having any record of her or me in their system-as if it mattered-we are calling to make a service appointment.

Hindsight is 20/20 so I realize now that when my wife explained the problem had already been looked at, repaired at another dealer, yet the problem had returned. Well they don t want a mystery problem another dealer couldn t solve so that s most likely why the service advisor decided they didn t want to take the appointment.

However we weren t looking for a second opinion for the repair. It was a matter of geography. My wife works in the suburbs a few days and downtown a few days. Today she happened to be headed to the suburbs so she wanted to drop the car off and have the repair done while she was at work. We were told as long as the check engine light was not flashing, it was safe to drive, so she brought it in.

They discover the oil filler cap is cracked on the threads causing a vacuum leak which is giving the engine management system some trouble. They make the assumption and probably a correct one, that the recent oil change service(a week earlier) done by the city dealer was where this occurred.

Their concern now is that warranty will not cover is and she can either take it back to the city dealer or pay $400 for the repairs. Well my wife s not a moron so she asks why they can t be reimbursed by the city dealer and have the job done so she can have her vehicle back and we can move on.

The dealer is contact with the city dealer who wants photographic evidence of the oil cap(what? You don t trust another dealership?) and as of late the the city dealer is authorizing the work to be done but now it s almost closing time for the shop and another day without the vehicle.

Time wasted, stressful experience again with Pugi. Last time was when we bought the car and waited 5+ hours for competitive financing when we walked in the door with a blank check.
But that s the name of the game. Waste your time until you give in.

Go into a bank sometime for a mortgage, they will tell you in 20 minutes: your credit score and whether you qualify, how much for and at what rate. Seems strange that you can get an answer on your own computer faster than a dealership finance department that literally does this as their job.

Still searching for a quality dealership for our GTI. Anyone out there know one?