Reading this thread really boils my blood. I am a car sales person (please don’t hold it against me) and I have to deal with things like this all the time. I don’t sell VW but have worked with enough brands to know what’s happening to you.
To understand your awful treatment it is worth understanding how a dealership works these days. Although when you go into the dealership it appears that we are all one happy family each department is viewed as a separate business -Sales, "Service" and parts. We are each targeted separate budgets. A dealerships business plan is that the sales department will run at a loss, the service department will make money and the parts department will be the cherry on top. Individuals are targeted on profit - although the image dealerships like to give is customer satisfaction etc etc the reality is its all about the profit. The service manager will not want to help you because they will be viewing the whole situation with their department in mind - he/she will not even have bothered to look at the bigger picture. They will be unaware if you have ever bought a car from them or how much business you have put the dealerships way in parts revenue. They will have only looked at the history of the car that’s got a problem with it. If VW have said that they are unwilling to help out the service department will have to pay for everything out of their bottom line - which the service manager will get paid on. It sounds like the person who deals with warranty has not done you justice as having an aftermarket stereo is in no way connected to the heater. The only way I can think that may be an issue at all is if the loom was cut to fit the aftermarket stereo? Even if it was that shouldn’t be an issue but simply used as an excuse not to help. Iv worked with a service department that tried to charge a customer of mine £300 to fit a light bulb!! I would doubt you will get help from this service department without kicking up a fuss - you should not have to do this but unfortunately this is how you’re going to get any assistance.
There is one person in a dealership that can help, this is the dealer principle (DP). This person oversees the Sales, Service and Parts department and will be looking at the bigger picture. I would suggest you request a meeting with this person - say it’s about how you have been treated by a member of their team. Be insistent that you need to do this face to face as they will try and sort it out over the phone. Most dealer principles will be concerned with a customer who feels like they have been mistreated. Bring to the meeting any documents of previous transactions with the company and after showing how loyal you have been to the business (8k in parts and two cars) explain what’s happened and more importantly how you have been treated and been made to feel. Customer retention is a major thing at the moment so the DP will want to sort things out. When you have your conversation with VW Customer services they will contact the dealership anyway to see why you have been treated this way and probably have given the DP some grief for it. The DP will want to sort something out for you.
Ultimately this is a know fault and documented on VOSA – regardless if they claim to have fixed it previously its rather apparent it was not done to a satisfactory standard. You and you passengers could have been seriously injured or worse!!!
I hope this is of use to you and if you think I can help any further PM me you number and I’ll give you a call.
Please remember not all dealerships are the same and there are some out there that actually do give a monkeys about customers and continued business.
I would not think that giving the sales team hand jobs would go down too well, but you never know
