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[willster]

hi ,recently had a front spring fitted by CP servicing,a freind of someone on this forum. After having found out it was the incorrect spring (two green and a blue,as apposed to two green and a voilet. I endevered to get a refund and contacted CP servicing who told me repeatedly i was wrong and the correct spring was indeed marked with a blue dash. Eventually after 5 calls to different Audi dealers to prove the incorrect spring had been fitted ,and over a week later,they admitted fault. I humbly only asked for a re-fund of the part cost and said i would have a go at replacing it with the right spring myself,and didnt ask for a full re-fund. I was told i could have a re-fund of the spring cost if and when i returned the incorrrect spring they had fitted! To me this is unacceptable. I declined their offer,and decided to write this post warning others. Does anyone agree this offer is unacceptable? I would have returned the spring if they wold have given me a re-fund first and relied on my good will to return the spring.

I hope this thread doesnt dissapear,due to one of the moderators links with CP servicing. As i beleive its my right to tell others of my bad experience .I am now £100 out of pocket and have an incorrect spring on my car to deal with .

[stuart]

I think what you have been told is "standard procedure" for almost all Companies, including the one I work for.

If you allow them to remove the incorrect part, and fit the correct one, then you should not be charged, as they have admitted the mistake, and offered to rectify the error. If a customer wishes to either do the work themselves, or have another garage do the work, then the customer should pay for a replacement in the first instance, then a refund is given when the incorrect part is returned.

I work in the motor trade, and this applies to warranty items as well.

I think they are being fair by offering a refund when the part is back with them.

Ps.. I am not assosiated with, or a friend off this person... in fact I have no idea who he is, or which moderator is a friend.

Stuart

[willster]

fair comment stuart,but cp servicing did not offer to rectify by replacing with the correct part.I am now stuck with the incorrect spring now,this would have been the ideal for me,as i fear i may struggle doing it myself.I by no means wish to do it myself. thanks for your input though .

[RickT]

Will..

First of all, let’s get the facts out in the open..

You brought your car into the garage and advise that the front left spring was too high.

The spring was checked and chassis number taken.... Part ordered directly from Audi at trade price cost to you (no mark up on parts, as you know from your invoice) and Audi supplied the incorrect part by mistake. (However you seem to think that Audi would not be able to supply an incorrect part following on from your email comments,)

You was not repeatly told that the part you had was incorrect... you was told that the situation was under investigation.

You only made contact after 3 months that the part which was fitted was incorrect.

After your first contact, it was 5-8 working days, (due to Holidays like I advised you) it was then when confirmation from Audi was received that the incorrect part was supplied the re-fund was offered to you for the part.

Communication regarding this matter has been via email on a day to day / other day basis once further information was received to you.

Once the facts where know from Audi and that the part was incorrect a full refund for the part was offered to you upon return of the part as you stated you was to fit another spring and the part was to be returned directly to Audi.

The re-fund was offered to you around 4/5 days ago and it has only been today you got back in touch declining the re-fund. (The part was around £45 + vat)

As you stated you were going to fit the part yourself, there was no reason to offer to fit the incorrect part with the new part.

In regards to your email you sent me referring to your mission of slander regarding your experience, please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss further.

As you have decided to go public with your thoughts, you will have no objections if I or you would like to post all the emails showing the level of customer service you have received regarding what has occurred (removing all personal information..)

In Summary... you were offered the re-fund of the part upon receiving it back as you had decided to fit the new part yourself of which you declined. you have also not requested a full refund for the work which was carried out.

Overall, there is nothing else that could of been done in this matter apart from a refund for the part as you had already purchased the new parts.

Cheers

Rick

[willster]

I think it goes without saying i would have preffered a free of charge swap of the part! this at no point was offered and i dont think it would have been supplied. I knew that so only asked for a part cost, re-fund .As for you asking for the spring back,i beleive i should have ben able to keep this to in part re-coup my losses and make a day off work to replace the spring myself a little more tolerable ,not so CP servicing can re-coup theres! i would have most likely sent it back begrudgengly after a re-fund out of good will . But you wanted the re-fund first.How did i know the re-fund was going to come? As for my emails,stick whatever you want on the forum.

Oh and in regards to the 3months before i made contact ,i see this as irrelevant. I only realised the incorrect part had been fitted when i decided to order one for the other side and it was different.

[RickT]

I think it goes without saying i would have preffered a free of charge swap of the part! this at no point was offered and i dont think it would have been supplied. I knew that so only asked for a part cost, re-fund .As for you asking for the spring back,i beleive i should have ben able to keep this to in part re-coup my losses and make a day off work to replace the spring myself a little more tolerable ,not so CP servicing can re-coup theres! i would have most likely sent it back begrudgengly after a re-fund out of good will . But you wanted the re-fund first.How did i know the re-fund was going to come? As for my emails,stick whatever you want on the forum.

Hi Will.

Im keeping this simple as it has been from the start..

If you would of wanted the part fitting this could of been arranged for you no problem, all you needed to do was pick up the phone but you have perffered email contact, you have both contact numbers and this would not of been an issue.
It would of been changed for you no problem as we stated, the incorrect part was fitted.

However you purchased the new parts elsewhere and advised you are fitting these yourself giving the impression that you did not want any further invovlment.

In regards to wanting a refund before returning the part, I think we have discussed the reasons for this.

A full refund for the part has been offered which you have declined.

This matter is now closed in my eyes as we have offered what we can to you and there is no point continuing this debate here.

If you would like to discuss this further, please call "the middle man" me or CP Servicing

Thank you.

[C P Servicing]

Hi Will,

First of I would like to apologise that you feel you have not received the level of service you would of expected.
May I take the opportunity to explain what has occurred rather than via a third Party.

Upon inspection of your vehicle you advised that the front left spring ride height appeared to be too high.
I documented your registration plate and chassis number to source the parts for you direct from Audi while noting the existing spring on front right of the car.

When I ordered the part for you I advised Audi of your chassis number and advised the springs which were currently on the car. I then purchased the spring which I was advised was the correct spring for your car and had no reason to believe it was incorrect.

Approximately 3 months later you made contact with Rick via email advising that the spring was incorrect. Rick spoke with me and advised the situation while I was currently away on holiday. Rick advised you that i was on holiday and it would be 5 days before i returned where i was able to investigate this for you.

Following Investigation with Audi, it was confirmed that the part which they had supplied was incorrect.

At this moment in time you had advised that you had purchased 2 new springs from another Audi dealership and were to fit these yourself and requested a full refund for the part only. (this was in an email format via Rick.)

At this stage, as you had requested a refund for the part only, I offered you a refund for the part as I had expected you would of carried out the work and the spring was off the car in exchange for the part.
Following the offer of a refund you advised that you was dissatisfied that i had not offered to refund you the cost of the part without you returning to part back to myself.

At this stage you sent an email again on to Rick advising that the computer’s at Audi cannot be wrong and its not possible for the part to be supplied incorrectly if the chassis number had been provided. Unfortunately mistakes do happen and it was human error in this instance by Audi. If I was in any doubt that the part which was supplied was incorrect for obvious reasons this would not of been fitted but i had no reason to believe it was incorrect.

In your final email to Rick you stated that the level of service was unacceptable, after Rick has reviewed the emails he has sent you over the last 15 days from your first contact ( 5/6 where I was on holiday) and in total there has been 8 emails updates sent to you, of which 6 days in total have been waiting for your reply.

In your final email to Rick you expressed how you was going to publicly expose your dealings with CP Servicing as unacceptable, the best approach for this matter would of been just to give me a call as soon as you were aware of the issue or emailed myself via my website rather than involving a third party where we would of been able to come to some arrangement.
Unfortunately i do not have your contact number due to not keeping customer’s personal information on file and therefore was unable to contact you.

The offer is still available to you if you wish to return the part for a full-refund.
Finally i would like to again apologies for the misunderstanding and you are more than welcome to contact me offline via my email where i will respond with a contact number where we can discuss on a one to one basis rather than online.

Best Regards

Chris.

[NickPicks]

I'll junp in with my opinion - Sorry if it's not wanted, but it's an open forum:

It sounds to me like CP Servicing have been reasonable.

In my opinion, what the customer should have done on realising that the wrong part had been fitted is to contact CP, and ask them to rectify the problem. They then should have taken the car back, removed the incorrect spring and fitted the correct one (without charging the customer).
Since the problem was caused by Audi supplying the wrong part, CP should have claimed any extra labour costs from them (Good luck on that!)

I'm not sure if this is what the law expects, but it's what I'd expect from a customer service point of view.

If you choose to replace the incorrect part yourself, then the offer of a full refund on the part sounds reasonable to me, but I don't know of any parts supplier who will give a refund on a part until you actually return it.