Dealer service and warranty > Reviews (5)

A quick note on my recent experience with Witherspoon VW - a service centre for VW and Audi vehicles based in Sighthill Industrial Estate, Edinburgh.

Around two weeks ago a put my Audi A4 in for a basic service. In addition, the car was pulling to one side and there was a 'judder' on braking and I asked that these two problems be fixed at the same time.

Witherspoon charged around £150 for a 4 wheel alignmentin addition to the service cost. They said had cured the pulling and the 'judder'. Car was clean and hoovered so all good so far...

...until I drove it when I discovered that the car was still pulling quite markedly to the same side (even against road camber) and the 'judder' still existed. I duly booked the car back in for them to have another look.

After Witherspoon had examined/test driven the car again they said that the problem might be the anti roll bar bushes and might be the rear discs and they would suggest replacing both at a cost of around £500. I said that I was not going to undertake to replace these parts on the off-chance that it would cure the problems and unless they could be certain about the cause of the problem I would retrieve my car.

After further (polite) exchanges I was not confident in their ability to cure the problems so I went to retrieve my car. Witherspoon charged me £60 for looking at the car the second time (including a spurious £6 "environmental charge"). I pointed out that I had asked them to fix these problems at the time of the first service and they had failed to diagnose and fix them.

Their response was that they had only charged me for a portion of the technician's time in examining my car for the second time and "if you like we will charge you for all of his time".

So - poor service in failing to diagnose the problem first time round and very rude and aggressive attitude when I questioned the second examination fee - beware.