robert sturm

Review of Southgate Volkswagen LP

On Monday October 19, 2020 my son was driving on t...

On Monday October 19, 2020 my son was driving on the paved road and heard grinding noise from the front driver side wheel. The speed at the time was less than 50 km/h. By the time he managed to safely stop, he heard a loud bang. After I arrived at the scene, I noticed extensive damage to the front wheel hub and rotor. We decided to call towing and let Southgate WV in Edmonton to perform further investigation of what happened. We were confident that repair will be covered by warranty or at least as an act of good customer relation, because the vehicle is three years old with 69000 km. Their explanation why this happened was that the road debris (concrete) got caught in the wheel resulting in such extensive damage to the vehicle. This is treated as an accident and such not covered by a warranty. My question to them was, how such a large piece of concrete can end up in the wheel while driving. They haven't had answer to that.
If the road debris can cause such damage, we are now concerned for the safety of the passengers in the vehicle I can t imagine what would be the result of that same occurrence while driving 100 km/h. This could be a fatal accident. when you own WV you should really be focused on road debris and avoiding them at all costs.

Update on review October 23, 11:54 AM:

I wrote the review after talking to service manager Holly Unger. We were not able to come to the agreement and that was the reason for me to wrote that review. Today I tried to call Southgate Volkswagen GM, but he is not returning my calls. I think this all shows how they care for the customers after you bought the car from them and collect their commission.

Update: October 27, 8:48 AM:

After three days and multiple calls I was finally able to talk to GM of the dealership. I expected more customer satisfaction oriented person, but it was completely opposite. They were convinced that the damage of the vehicle was caused by external object. All they were able to provide was picture of the piece of concrete on some kind of pallet jack or car lifting device. For me that is not the proof that this was even in the wheel or that this might cause the problem. I also got the impression that after filling the complaint with VW Canada and writing the review on Google, suddenly some more parts has to be replaced and final repair cost went up for four times. If you are considering buying WV please be aware of all of the above as well all other additional protections they would like to sell you, because to us, none of the additional protection was covering the repair cost, as they treated the damage as an accident.