Stratstone Fail Again!

As some of you will remember, my Evoque was damaged in a car park incident by an unfortunate lady who was obviously blinded by it's beauty! After negotiating with the insurance company, they agreed to let me choose my own repair centre...with it being a Land Rover, I mistakenly thought that it would be best if it was repaired by a Land Rover Dealership...so, straight on to the phone at my local Stratstone Body Shop and all was well in the world...very helpful, very quick to respond, and the repairs only took 3 weeks which included the Christmas period...so, all in all, a great experience.

However, when the car was returned to me...some bits had been completed well, some bits not completed at all, a bumber assembly alignment issue has arrisen (they say it must have been like it before as the assembly can't be adjusted...it wasn't, but who cares, it's a Land Rover bought from Stratstone so sort it regardless), and some new marks and scratches have been added to the front of the car for good measure!

Car rejected and sent back...should be back to me on Tuesday, but why do I have this feeling that it will need to be rejected again!

I have sent a message to the Dealer Principle who has written back to inform me that he has no Involvement or Operational Control of the body shop...brilliant!

I tend not to publish my woes but £50k is shed load of money for me to spend on a car and I need a rant!

What I would say is that the lady on the phones at the body shop is awesome and has to some extent given me hope that there are SOME good people there! It is a shame that at a Management and Quality Control level, they are clearly lacking.

The only thing that has given me reason to cheer, is that the Insurance Company is now refusing to pay for the extended hire car duration as it is down to poor work by the Body Shop...so I'm guessing it is now costing the Body Shop somewhere in the region of £200 per day to pay for my Hire Car.

Rant over. Happy weekend!

I no its not much help but my dealer (Stratstone) use an outside body shop although your dealer should still be able to assist you in your problem as this could affect future customers.

Hi Token,

Sorry to hear about your misfortune, my car has to go in Wednesday for a new Panoramic roof (got cracked by a stone chip) and I am allready getting paranoid about the car getting damaged in the process,

Looking on the Brightside, hopefully you will soon be able to experience the fantastic driving that an Evoque offers

So it was like that from new? In my opinion thats worse than it being out of alingment after a bump. Tell the to get it sorted.

That's a shocking reply from the DP and terrible customer service. . At the very least he should want to be helpful and assist in any way he can. Ultimately he should have full accountability for the body shop they choose to use as their approved repairer

From my experience a truly good bodyshop is a very rare thing indeed.

One of the most important things you can do when handing your car over to a dealer for body work or servicing is to have them record every mark on it so they don't bicker over what was and wasn't there.

do any main dealers now have their own body shop? seems to me they are all out sourced. But the body shop works in the dealers name, therefore dealer is responsible.

Token, let's not beat around the bush, is this Stratstone Cheltenham and Gloucester and is the DP a certain Martin Thorley?

(13-01-2012 03:38pm)J77 Wrote:  I no its not much help but my dealer (Stratstone) use an outside body shop although your dealer should still be able to assist you in your problem as this could affect future customers.

Which could be the reason why the DP could not interveine!

I would allways recomend going to a bodyshop that is recomended by a friend or forum members. Generally the best are small independants (a bit like valeters tbh). They are often family businesses etc and care about their reputation.The bodyshop I use is just this and I cancelled an insurance policy a couple of years ago because they ammended their terms and conditions to say if you use a non approved bodyshop the excess is increased by £200. I politely told where to shove it

(13-01-2012 05:24pm)defender_uk Wrote:  do any main dealers now have their own body shop? seems to me they are all out sourced. But the body shop works in the dealers name, therefore dealer is responsible.

I agree it's their subcontractor, therefore dealer is responsible!

Cheers for the reply guys.

Mark_n...no, there isn't a bodyshop at Chelt/Glos branch so not related to them.