Dipstick main dealers

[Simon]

Picked up the QP today from the Ferrari/Maserati main dealer where it had its 18500mile service circa £1000. Weather was terrible coming back, loads of spray on the motorway and much heavy traffic which meant I ended up doing 40-60mph in 5/6th gear most of the way. Came off at my junction, set off at a traffic light at the end of the junction and spun the back wheels in 2nd gear. A little further on after another set there is a long medium/steep hill, booted it in 3rd gear and spun the back wheels setting of the MSP. Usually don't run much in the rain so guessed a greasy surface together with my DMS remap was the culprit.

Got home, left her out to dry. Put her in the garage, turned back and noticed a stack of oil on the wet tarmac. Thinking back I saw similar next to the car where it was left waiting for me at the main dealer. Oh sh1t I thought, an oil leak possible sump plug not tightened up?

Opened the bonnet to find the dipstick only half way in place and leaning to one side. Fine oil spray all around it , looking down I could see oil pooling down inside the bodywork. My first worry was that I'd run below level and damaged the engine, checked and it was still at a reasonable spot on the dipstick. Cleaned things up however some areas are very difficult to get to. Left the car for a few hours and just moved her back, cleaned up a 1.5 inch diameter puddle of oil and moved her back. Will check in the morning to see if anymore has dropped.

Luckily the bad weather and traffic meant I drove the car back at a snails pace with little or no acceleration. If it had been dry and quiet I may have taken her close to the redline and caused all sorts of problems. Add in the fact that this was dripping oil onto my tyres it could have been a nightmare scenario.

So, you pay a main dealer £1000, they make a school boy error which could have either destroyed my engine or destroyed me due to engine oil on my tyres. I'll be contacting them first thing tomorrow. Another thought, as the oil system wasn't fully pressurised could this have had a detrimental effect on the engine?

thanks

Simon

 

[Andyk]

Should be OK if you didn't go that far.....I think they need to be giving you some thing to make up for their error...

 

[X1ons]

Good luck Simon - they should be refunding you on labour and a major apology. You pay those prices and expect a top level service.

Just glad you and the prized motor are ok!

Mark

 

[Parisien]

Indefensible.....not ever an amateur wouldn't do that.....am sure they try to fob you off and offer some totally inadequate excuse.........or will they fall over themselves offering you profuse apologises and a 50% refund as they should?

I THINK NOT THE LATTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P

 

[Woody]

Thats not on.

Being cynical, I guess thats what you get when the YTS lad services this car (showing my age there!).

I don't get how main dealers can match indipendants, price wise....the only way I can think of is using trainees to do the work. I could, of course, be very very wrong.

 

[Parisien]

They have to take a hit somehow.......but as Loz remarked, the work, time wise is maybe 30% over estimated, plus if you have an old hand doing them, easy peasy.......obviously, they bring in the odd monkey to do the critical stuff.....


P

 

[Simon]

Thanks guys but it gets worse. I've now discovered that the drivers door mirror no longer adjusts when you select reverse , they returned the car with the passengers door mirror working the wrong way around which I've corrected but the drivers door won't remember its reverve position. Spoke with the service manager who says a transporter will pick the car up on Monday as they want another technician to check the car over. This is just ridiculous.

 

[Parisien]

......fraid so....you pay a premium price for a premium service...........................and you get this.........truly awful................I'd ask to speak to the franchise dealer principal and make the earth move....


P

 

[GransportFan1]

Some people who are fortunate enough to work with an exclusive brand clearly do not appreciate it and are not committed 100%. Surely the dipstick is one of the things you always remember to check, no excuse in my opinion. I would still quite fancy completing the Maserati/Ferrari apprenticeship, i bet some right cow boys sign up and unfortunately complete the apprenticeship landing themselves a job at a dealer when they clearly are not suited.

 

[Parisien]

...lot of factors.....Adam...lead to poor service.......all it needs is for one them to be inadequate...all falls down.............................so easy to get wrong....so hard to get right.


P

 

[Simon]

The drivers seat now also rocks backwards and forwards slightly making a knocking sound, so it loose....and guess whats in the seat, the memory control unit for the seats/mirrors. Wonder what the h3ll they've been doing with my car.

 

[GransportFan1]

I suppose your right, it can be difficult to maintain a good service record.

 

[RonnieMack]

Whilst I don't know the dealership your refering to , or wish to cast aspertions about their abilities, given that you have found these things wrong I would now go over the car with a fine tooth comb!!!
Sorry you've has such a bad experience, it would make it very hard to trust them again.
Regards
Ronnie

 

[Easyplan66]

This just confims my opinion on main dealers, they just do not care about their customers, a good independent will always be more careful as they want repeat business as they rely on it. The problem with main dealers is that they will always have the attitude that you cannot go anywhere else....but we can. I am sure they are not all the same, but sometimes bigger is just not better. Many guys working on the cars will be quite young and inexperienced, however most inde guys have come from main dealers and set up on their own because that have a passion for the cars and not just out to make a pile of cash.
Moan over.....

 

[Simon]

Thanks. On closer examination it seems the floor rail that the seat sits on isn't fastened down properly, there is about 2-3mm of play in it. I'll be videoing all in HD as evidence incase they try and say they've done nothing wrong.

 

[Parisien]

Amateurs........and scam merchants......taken your money off you almost fraudulently.

P

 

[lozcb]

Thanks. On closer examination it seems the floor rail that the seat sits on isn't fastened down properly, there is about 2-3mm of play in it. I'll be videoing all in HD as evidence incase they try and say they've done nothing wrong. It seems they've removed the seat to get at the ECU's which they must have detached while the system was live as no battery reconnect was evident (although they could have pulled the fuse). I know for a fact that this particular dealer in the past has swapped parts between a donor car and a problem car to diagnose faults, I wonder if I ended up donating something for this cause?

Simon , any chance you could pm me the Dealers details just for the record


regards loz

 

[Simon]

I just tried Loz, but I get an error saying your mailbox is full. You need to delete some saved messages I think.

 

[Emtee]

Thanks. On closer examination it seems the floor rail that the seat sits on isn't fastened down properly, there is about 2-3mm of play in it. I'll be videoing all in HD as evidence incase they try and say they've done nothing wrong.

Sorry to hear of your hassle Simon. Hope you get it sorted without further grief.

What were they doing playing with a seat rail during a service?

Regarding the oil, as long as there was oil on the dipstick, the engine oil pressure should have been fine as the oil pump generates this down stream of the tank.

 

[Simon]

As soon as saw what had happened I checked the oil and its about 2/3 up on the cross hatched area of the dipstick. If they had filled her to the correct level it looks like I lost 1/3 L coming home. The dipstick on the QP (which I guess is the same for all the 4.2 cars) has two O rings about 1cm apart. They had only pushed it down as far as the first O ring and it had tipped slightly to one side with the pressure allowing oil to run down the side and spray over the coolant tank.

As for the seat rail, to remove the seat you undo the seat rails which allows the whole unit out . All the seat control ECU's can then be accessed. Checked on eurospares earlier , the seat memory ECU is a whooping £611! They've certainly a lot of answers to provide on Monday.