Company Policy

[Hybrid8]

I have had my drivers airbag replaced on recall.

All fine until I got the hard sell & a video on what "Currie Motors" thought was wrong with my car.

And amazingly they could do all the work on the day for me as well, boy I was lucky!

Seems it is Currie Motors policy on any vehicle on recall to provide a "Free" health check on car.

Not DVSA/DVLA approved policy or it seems Toyota but standard at Currie Motors.

Well, Currie Motors have annoyed me enough to lose me as a customer for my new Yaris Cross Over.

 

[bathtub tom]

Out of interest, what did they think was wrong with your car? I'd suspect tyre pressures and tread depth needed checking, washer bottle filling, windscreen cleaning, key fob Battery............................................

[flash22]

Typical upsell, it's the service advisors, they hope to shaft the clueless

[wildtapholer]

Amazingly the wife's car went in for recall and was given a health check while there and it needed £800 spending on it for leaking aircon pipe seal(Aircon worked fine) and rust around filler cap, I went all around the car looking for this and had to get under the car to find a rusty filler pipe, It's under the car for God's sake everything goes rusty, I cleaned the rust off the pipe and repainted, job done £5 as to the leaking aircon pipe, my local garage couldn't find it.

[Hybrid8]

Well unsurprisingly they were hawking for business as my Dashcam was disconnected at the fuse box.

its taken a few days to get a garage with a slightly better customer rating to diagnose this in under 30 seconds.

Oh dear looks like Currie Motors, remember the name have definitely lost the sale of my new car!

£35k loss for annoying a brand loyal customer

 

[Hybrid8]

Did not even bother looking at the video, it annoyed me that much.

Seems its company policy to "provide" this service.

[TonyHSD]

Currie doesn’t sounds promising to me to begin with 🤣👍

[Devon Aygo]

8 hours ago, Hybrid8 said:

I have had my drivers airbag replaced on recall.

All fine until I got the hard sell & a video on what "Currie Motors" thought was wrong with my car.

And amazingly they could do all the work on the day for me as well, boy I was lucky!

Seems it is Currie Motors policy on any vehicle on recall to provide a "Free" health check on car.

Not DVSA/DVLA approved policy or it seems Toyota but standard at Currie Motors.

Well, Currie Motors have annoyed me enough to lose me as a customer for my new Yaris Cross Over.

 

A VSR or VHC ( Visual health check / Visual safety report ) is standard practice when taking you car in to any reputable maintenance/repair centre because the law says you as a consumer have a reasonable right to expect that regardless of work completed that a minimum level of inspection is done on your car whilst it is with the maintenance/repair centre, this is the result of legal cases where cars went through maintenance/repair centres and a VHC was not completed the consumer later faced issue or breakdown took the dealer to court and the court found in favour of the consumer stating that defects/issues that can be simply identified through a visual inspection should have bought to the attention of the consumer.

You should however have been made aware of the VHC and can should you wish decline the check, we would ask you to sign saying you are aware of what the VGC was and have decided to decline the check.

Most customers appreciate the free VHC and many use it as a 1/2 way check between services or before a long trip etc

At my dealer why try and take a view as to how the customer we are seeing has used use previously, if you are a long standing customer used to our services then we will provide a VHC, priced with the opportunity for repair as this is what your expecting and apparently appreciate as you are active customer, whereas when we are seeing a car for the first and especially if its an older car coming in for a recall we will explain the VHC process ( which can be declined ) if you agree to the VHC we will tell you what we have seen and unless it is serious it will be unpriced and prices will be given on request that way the customer will at least leave informed and any issues we find regardless of customer can view a video from the technician of their car and any issues we may be identifying

[Devon Aygo]

6 hours ago, Hybrid8 said:

Did not even bother looking at the video, it annoyed me that much.

Seems its company policy to "provide" this service.

The finding should be accurate, where they correct with theirs findings regardless of whether you wanted to know ?

[Cyker]

The video is probably just a generic promo video so I suspect you're not missing much; I always get texted a link that includes a video when my car gets serviced, and I open it thinking it's from the mechanic, but it always turns out to be a generic thing of what they do during a service and why you should use Toyota dealers.  

As Devon says, the VHC is something most Toyota franchises do as standard, like cleaning the car - You don't have to action anything on it (I usually don't... if I had a penny for every report of smearing wipers or loose driver's mat they gave me... well I'd have about 10p, but still!)

It's worth having, if only so you can double-check yourself, but don't rely on it as it's only a visual check and not at all in-depth.

 

[Starensis]

I bought a used car from a dealer. The VSR stated all tyres were at 5mm. I took it back 3 weeks later for some warranty work and was sent a video stating my front tyres were at 3mm. 2mm lost in 3 weeks!! Needless to say, I advised them they’d sold me a car with 3mm tread and them blamed the tech for mixing up info with another car.

Got them changed in the end. It’s an upsell strategy for the techs to make money.

[FROSTYBALLS]

The dealer I use, provide a video of the VHC, which features the car raised on a ramp, and the technician going around underneath the car, doing a visual check. This is the first action they do when the car goes in the workshop, and I've watched the video on my phone whilst in the waiting area. Never had issues raised that could be viewed as upselling.

At the end of the day, it is the customer's choice whether or not to have work done.

[Starensis]

4 minutes ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

The dealer I use, provide a video of the VHC, which features the car raised on a ramp, and the technician going around underneath the car, doing a visual check. This is the first action they do when the car goes in the workshop, and I've watched the video on my phone whilst in the waiting area. Never had issues raised that could be viewed as upselling.

At the end of the day, it is the customer's choice whether or not to have work done.

Not sure they’re completely honest though! 

[FROSTYBALLS]

4 minutes ago, Starensis said:

Not sure they’re completely honest though! 

You can say the same of any garage ....

[Starensis]

7 minutes ago, FROSTYBALLS said:

You can say the same of any garage ....

I did.

[Cyker]

@frostyballs - Who's that with?? Or is that for your hyundai stuff? I'd love the service to be filmed so I can see what happens but that's not a thing either of my nearby Toyota dealers do. The closest I get is some Dashcam footage because they leave the car on almost the whole time it's there!  

[FROSTYBALLS]

Inchcape. The Visual Health Check is videoed, the service isn't. As I said they do the VHC first, and I watch the video on my phone whilst waiting for the service to be completed. 

[wildtapholer]

They won't video the service, else you would know what little time was spent on it. All I let the Stealers do is change the oil and filter and stamp the book, then I go buy the air filter and cabin filter and sometimes the fuel filter and change them myself, and put the receits in the service book. We argued with a Main stealer about not changing the filters on the Wife's Yaris when we bought it and they said it was an interim service and didn't need doing, but by the look of the filters they had never been changed. Again I have just changed my car but this one isn't a Toyota, it's just had it's first MOT only 2 services in the book but never had a paper filter changed, had a whinge at the stealers but changed them myself.

[Hybrid8]

I was told the VHC was mandatory even on a DVLA recall & if I refused the recall work would be refused!

[FROSTYBALLS]

A visual safety check is also done on our Hyundai before any service/repair work is carried out - different dealer group to our Aygo. They supply a separate checklist rather than a video.