Disappointing service at Audi Arcadia in Pretoria

<p>On Friday morning around 8 am I took my car in for a 75 000 kilometers service at Audi Arcadia in Pretoria, a 2012 Audi A4 that I had bought in 2014 with about 70 kilometers. When I booked the car in for service on Wednesday I had communicated the issues that I was currently experiencing with the car, including, amongst others, a stiff clutch, possible warn out bearings and brake disks.</p> <p>For the whole day I did not receive any communication from the dealership regarding the status of the service for my car until I decide to call them around 4 pm to enquire. It was then that was I told by Christopher (the service consultant who received my car in the morning) that he had been trying to reach me and that the car will only be ready by 5:30 pm if I decided to collect it today. However, he preferred that I collect on Saturday morning if I did not mind.</p> <p>Since I did not want them to rush through the job, I agreed for Saturday. Then I told him that I will need transport to get home (about 35 kms from Pretoria) and asked about a courtesy car. He told me that in this situation I would receive one but unfortunately they were only in use. Then I asked about the shuttle, he told me that it only covered a radius of 20 kms. But I insisted on one since there was no curtsey car. He then told me the last driver went to Silverton and would not be able to come back for me because after that delivery he will be knocking off.</p> <p>Then I said in that case, I will collect my car today. He went to check on the car and told me that the technician was still assembling the clutch and will not be done today as the work shop closes by 6 pm. So now I did not have my car nor a courtesy car or a shuttle for that matter. Now I had no transport and was carrying a laptop with sensitive information from work.</p> <p>This was disappointing and indicative of bad planning on the part of the dealership. As changing a clutch could take a while and this was already communicated on Wednesday to the dealership when the car was booked in, it should have anticipated the need for a courtesy car for the client and planned for adequate resources. In fact, the dealership has all the information on clients that could possibly require a courtesy car based on the bookings that are received prior to the actual service.</p> <p>For a big dealership like Audi Arcadia and a premium brand like Audi this kind of service is not acceptable. In fact, if this goes unchecked, it will certainly hamper the growth of the brand in SA. Audi should intervene to ensure that such deplorable service is kept at a minimum or eliminated if possible. I am certainly not impressed.</p>