Date:         Sat, 13 Apr 1996 23:42:07 -0700
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From:         wlund@bart.ccis.com (Lund)
Subject:      Volkswagen of American: not my friend

Well hear goes my tale of woe.
Eight months ago the sliding door on my 85 Westy began to not close all the
way.  The safety catch kept the door from popping open, but you created a
mini wind tunnel inside the van at 65 mph.  I called VoA to see if there was
a recall.  No they said; end of conversation.  Four week ago I am online,
and thanks to Joel Walker, I see the NTSB Safety recall for my van door.  I
copy it, run down to my "friendly" VW dealer(Antelope Valley-Palmdale, CA)
and talk to the service department representative(Jose) about the recall.
"What's your VIN #", he asked me.  He takes my number and disapears for
about five minutes.  He comes back and tells me, "there is no recall on your
vehicle."  "But what about this NTSB recall I have here?"  The service
representative tells me that he checked the VIN against their computer and
nothing came up.  I ask for the number to VW zone manager.  Jose tells me he
doesn't have it.
>From there, I walk around the corner to the parts department(they know me
well) and ask one of the guy for the Volkswagen customer service number.
Dan, the parts man, walks back and gets the number from Jose in the service
department.  My next step: Call VoA again.  I talk to Eric, a customer
service representative and he tells me that "yes, my van did have a recall
for the sliding door. He goes on to state that the "fix" had already been
done once, but that if, the replacement componets failed again, VoA would
replace them at VWs expense.  I asked him again, about this and he
recomfirmed that VW would replace the parts at their expense.  Eric of VoA,
instructs me to call the dealer and tell them my van is covered under a "NR"
recall.  I call the dealer and talk to Jose again.  He tells me that they
will not preform any work on my van until someone from VoA call the dealer
and approves the labor expense.  I try to get the Jose to call VoA, but he
tell me it is my responsibility to do so.  Eric of VoA is contacted again.
I explain the situation to him and he tells me that he will get VoA approval
to do the work and he will contact the dealer for me.  (By this time,
I asked him to call another area VW dealer because of the "helpful manor" of
the first dealer).  Three days go by and I call Eric of VoA again.  Rather
than telling me that he has contacted the dealership, he tells me that he
has discussed the situation with his supervisor, Ms. Giffin and that VW will
not authorize any service on my van since the recall work had already been
done once before.  I ask to talk to Ms Giffin (into the voice mailbox I go).
Two days latter I talk with Ms. Giffin about the promises that VoA made to
me about getting the repairs done on the van.  Ms Giffins states that the
promise of service on a vehicle is contrary to established VoA policy and
that the Customer Service Rep(Eric) would not have said these things to me.
I ask to speak to her supervisor.  She states that since the matter is
decided at her level, there is no one I can apeal to.  She offers to have me
set up an appointment at the dealer (at my expense) and she stteds that it
is a 90% probabilty that VoA would not be responsible for replacing any
defective parts.

Well there is my story of woe.

My confidence and respect for VoA is zero.  This whole mess could have been
avoided if the VoA rep would have stated in the first conversatation that 1:
VW would not replace the defective parts or 2: VW would replace the
defective parts at there expense.

I have owned five VW vehicles in the past five years... well there is other
car makers out there that want my business too.