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MG ZR ZS ZT Technical - MG After Sales Service

Is there anyone else out there who is pissed off at being treated so badly by MG Rover dealers when work needs to be done under the warrenty. The ZR 160 is great but MG Rover.....

ps I have the MG ROVER service directors address if anyone is interested.
Stan

No.... what's your particular problem? Check any car website and you'll find someone (or more) who is pissed off with their particular marque's brands of service or warranty treatment ....
John McFeely

In general we have been pleased with the dealers response to warrenty problems, a hic up with our bootlid but we feel that was more of an MGR problem. Carnellian in Shrewsbury are the dealers. 15k service on Tuesday, ouch. We have still never received our video camera though, did anybody???? We were informed several times that we would receive it. Anyway, we've had enough moaning over small points as the car is basically excellent fun.
Nik & Anita

Experience with the F suggests that some dealers are unbelievably good, some unbelievably bad, and most somewhere in between. There is a dealer guide often referred to in the F archives, but then again, I suppose you're tied to the one you bought it from.
David Bainbridge

>>>>I suppose you're tied to the one you bought it from
===not at all, warranty claims can be processed and dealt with by any dealer; the only problem that affects most people is one of geographic convenience....
David

What's warranty work? Am I missing some benefit of Rover ownership - please help!
Patrick Beet

David, Berkshire,

More than likely I am wrong, but I thought that a few years ago, the first year's warranty was with MGR and so should be honoured at any dealer but the next two years were from the selling dealer and so you were tied to them?

I may well be talking rubbish, as I imported both of our MG's, so we only got the MGR bit of the warranty (was one year in 1991, but went up to two years by EU edict in 1992).

David
David Bainbridge

good point David - I wasn't thinking of extended. However, dealers don't actually offer these on their own account do they ? Surely they are simply dressed up insurance warranties, similar to those offered with used cars, therefore most garages can do the work and process a claim. You can even do the work and claim yourself I believe.
David

The Warranty work Im having done is simple stuff that is only due to the low build quality you get with MG Rover. My issue is not the problems Ive had but with the way the local dealer in southampton has dealt with it. All warrenty issues are paid for by MGR so whay sould this be an issue? They were very good when the car was serviced and I was paying. Its taken eight months to sort a faulty seat out that if investigated properly in the forst placed could have easily been resolved at less cost to the struggling MGR. Perhaps MGR should pay more attention to the quality work its dealers are doing are reward those that do well (and tell us about them too).
Stan

Under the old BMW regime, I think Rover picked up the tab of all warranty work with some check that the dealers were not taking via visits from the Rover engineer. Thus Rover felt direct financaial pain for shoddy build quality.

Under the MGR banner I understand that they have reverted to the (bad?) old process of each dealer having an "allowance" for warranty work. The less the dealer spends on warranty the more cash he has in the till to spend on high living and loose women.

The good news is that Rover has a fix on the cost of warranty, the bad news is the dealer is powerfully incentivised to deny warranty work or do it quickly and badly. Rover also has less reason to focus on "quality".

Our personal experiece is that our new 97 F did have some rough edges in the build area and did show the old BL/Rover commitment to cheap parts but as been reliable.

Our new Rover 200 (99) had no built faults and was totally reliable but still displayed too many Rover commitments to the use of cheap parts.

Our 75 Estate (02) is on a different planet in terms of quality and never ceases to delight in the attention to detail and quality of material and was only slightly more expensive than the F......

Cheers

Patrick
Patrick Beet

I wrote not taking the piss and the posting comes out with not taking...

This is a test to see if the system does remove t h e p i s s

Cheers

Patrick
Patrick Beet

Dear MG Club

The reason I have decided to come to you, is you see if anyone has had the problems that I have had with Rover MG. The story I have I quite amusing to the outsider however is not to me, please give it a go. In November 2002 I bought a MGZT 190+ (On the road price £22,500) without a doubt a nice looking car, especially in black.

My story starts with the dealership I bought the car from In Bolton, Burnden Park MG Rover. When the car was delivered it came with a TRACKER. I paid the money to get the TRANCKER enabled and drove the car away.

A few week later I moved down to Portsmouth with my Job and this is where the problems started. Firstly a annoying rattle developed on the dashboard. In the car goes, under Warranty for repairs on the dashboard and also to fix the cars annoying tendancy to pull to the left. Back came the car, dashboard fixed, still pulled to the left. I was told that the tracking was in limits however the pull to the left 'MAY GO AWAY' OK Mr MG Rover but if it does'nt I'll be bringing it back, well of course it did'nt.

About a week later I received a letter from tracker informing me that they had not received any payment and therefore the car was not tracked. Oh dear I decided to ring Bolton Burden Park MG Rover who I originally paid the subscription too to inform them of this latest development and to inform them also of a few more problems that had developed with the car, they included:
1. A fuel guage that indicated I had only used a quater of a tank of petrol on a 250 mile journey(intermittant)
2. Washer wiper that washed and did not wipe
3. Sterio control on the stearing wheel that controled nothing (Intermittant)
4. A cigarette lighter that disapeared into the back of the facia one day never to be seen again
5. A auto boot release that make a annoying noise but does not release the boot.

The guy in Bolton seemed shocked that these had occured and understanding my predicament booked my car in to a local garage in Portsmouth. The car goes in only the boot release is fixed. The garage refused to send me a car while my car is fixed costing £120 for a hire car.

Mean wile TRACKER still not enabled due to MG Rover not paying them.

Car goes in again this time Cigarret lighter fixed. All else ignored. They even arrange the head engineer from Rover to test drive my car to see if it really does pull to the left. The engineer agrees it pulls to the left and wants the car to go in for another set of test a week later.

Still the car is not TRACKED, three months after being bought.

The car goes in again. This time they give me a MGTF to drive arround. 'Wait a minute the fuel guage shows empty'. 'No sir it has a quater of a tank of petrol in I checked myself', 'Oh OK then' guess what two miles doen the road the car runs out of petrol, supprise suprise.

Car still not TRACKED to this date. Test come back, within limitation. Suggest you put up with it sir.

A just to finish the Drivers side window now rattles.

Have I bought a car made by a reasus monkey?. Help, has anyone IN THE WORLD HAD THESE MANY PROBLEMS. If you want the full story in detail please e-mail at vibrant1uk@aol.com The full story is even more shocking and amusing.

I'm sure nobody gives a sh*t. MG Rover don'nt I've already tried. A letter is on its way to the Chief Exec which I'm sure will get a stiff ignoring. So I'm sure you may remember my plight when you see it on Top Gear or Watchdog.
Mike Garner

Mike,

I'm sure that this is not the longest list of problems that I have heard of with an MGR car on this bulletin board, and with the exception of the pulling to the left, few of them are really terrible problems. That, of course, means that they should be relatively starightforward to sort out.

However, even with some experience of MGR's customer service (my F blew its head gasket during the parts delay fiasco last year), I am pretty astounded by the attitude of the dealers you have dealt with. Telling you that the pull to the left might 'go away' is just about the stupidest thing I've heard.

I have never had any problem with dealers getting agreement to fix things under warranty both big (head gasket and head) and small (boot catch switch a bit crap, seat adjustment mechanism sticking). And I would expect some difficulty with warranty as I imported both our MGs.

Apart from trading standards, I think that perhaps 'going public' as you suggest is all you can do. Whatever the system for apportioning responsibility between MGR and dealers, why are some dealers so crap when others are so good?
David Bainbridge

Release immediate February 4, 2003

PARTS PLEDGE FOR NEW MG AND ROVER CARS

XPart Ltd, a sister company of MG Rover Group, has announced an industry leading parts guarantee programme that will provide customers of new MG and Rover cars with peace of mind.

Should a customer's car be out of service and require parts, the MG Rover dealer or authorised repairer will quote a completion time. If this deadline is not met due to the late arrival of parts, then a special programme named Parts Pledge will be invoked and courtesy car costs funded until three days after the parts are delivered.

Commenting on the initiative, John Parkinson, managing director of XPart Ltd, said: "We, like a lot of other manufacturers, experienced parts shortages in 2002. This led to a major review of the parts process and where appropriate fundamental changes were made. Parts availability for new MG and Rover cars has now reached 95 per cent and will continue to improve. This gives us the confidence to operate such a groundbreaking initiative.

"A key business objective is to offer our customers an exceptional aftersales service. This programme will provide customers with added confidence and signals a much improved parts situation with excellent availability on current MG and Rover car ranges."


Note to Editors:
Initially for the UK market, the MG Rover Parts Pledge applies to cars purchased between 1 January 2003 and 31 December 2003. It is entirely incremental and does not replace an existing scheme.


For further information please contact:

Greg Allport, General Manager PR and Events
Telephone: + 44 (0) 121 482 5894 / + 44 (0) 7740 740445, e-mail: greg.allport@mg-rover.com
The Truth

Mike G (nice initials BTW ) - you need to be clear that your issue is with the dealer, *not* MG Rover. Especially the Tracker situation , where you acknowledge that you paid the money to the dealer, who then did not pass it on. The pulling to the left is easy for you to check - ask for a full laser 4-wheel alignment check and insist on receiving a copy of the print-out. Then you have some facts to work with. I also suggest you gather info on different dealers and change to one which comes recommended. There is more info on a dealer guide in the MGF threads.....
David

This thread was discussed between 02/02/2003 and 16/02/2003

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