AUTO MAGIC SOMERSET WEST FRANCHISEE IS ABRASIVE AND ADMITS TO USING PIRATE PARTS

During the course of April 2021, my father-in-law had an accident with his vehicle and the damage was to the left hand side of the vehicle. The vehicle was sent to Auto Magic, Somerset West for repairs.

Due to the fact that my father-in-law was extremely ill at the time, my husband took the vehicle in to Auto Magic and also collected the vehicle when the repairs were complete.

Sadly, my father-in-law passed away on 21 May 2021 and the executor has been busy winding up the estate. Together with this, the car was recently transferred into my husband’s name.

I noticed some time ago that the button inside the vehicle on the left front passenger side that allows one to adjust the mirror, was not working, however, due to my father-in-law being in and out of hospital and being critically ill, we did not have the time to take the vehicle back to the panel beaters for them to repair it. In addition, the left front door handle is also not working and we are unable to open the door from the outside. Both the mirror and the door handle were supposedly repaired by Auto Magic, Somerset West.

I called Auto Magic, Somerset West on Monday afternoon, 18/10/2021 and spoke to a lady by the name of Claire. I advised Claire of these problems and she said that I should bring the vehicle back to Auto Magic, Somerset West as there is a 12 month guarantee on their repairs. I took the vehicle back to Auto Magic on Tuesday morning, 19/10/2021 around 08:15. Approximately 15:15 on Tuesday 19/10/2021, Claire called me and advised me that they were having a problem repairing the door handle and would need to keep the vehicle another day.

On the afternoon of 20/10/2021, I called Auto Magic around 14:14 and spoke with Claire who advised me that she would check up on what was happening with the repairs of the vehicle and revert back to me. At 14:46, I received a call from a person by the name of Sakkie who advised me that the insurance company had told them to use “generic” parts and NOT original VW parts, and it appears that the generic part only has a 3 month warranty. On collecting the vehicle yesterday afternoon, 20/10/2021, I found that not only was the door handle not fixed, but neither was any repair work carried out to the button for the mirror on the front left hand side of the vehicle so I have a serious concern around the quality of repairs which Auto Magic does and as a result, I am going to advise the insurance company that they should not do any further business with Auto Magic as it is a company that does sloppy repairs and refuses to honour their 12 month warranty.

In addition, not only do Auto Magic lie to their customers, but they also use pirate parts in their repair of the vehicles and Sakkie basically admitted to this in my telephone conversation with him. I found Sakkie to be extremely rude and abrasive and totally lacking in any customer care.