6 weeks for a radio.

6 weeks and 1 day after Gateway Peugeot took my radio out of the car as it wasn’t getting a signal, the replacement has finally been fitted. The excuses for the delay ranged from “Peugeot will not send a replacement out until the old one is received” (which was the first excuse for a couple of weeks), then I got “They have to be shipped from abroad” (I could walk “abroad” and back again in 6 weeks). Finally last Wednesday I told them to have one fitted by the end of the week and was told that “we will have to contact Peugeot head office to get that authorised” so I told them they’d better hurry up and do it. I also complained to the head office last Friday @4.36pm (a week ago) via their online website contact page as there was no contact phone number supplied. Monday at 11.51 I got a reply acknowledging receipt of my email. 3pm it was given a case reference. So it looks like it takes 3 hours for emails to travel between departments in Peugeot.Yesterday (Thursday) at 6pm I got the reply “Thank you for your email dated 15th March. May I first of all say how sorry I was to learn of your disappointment with your vehicle and apologise for the delay in reply. Indeed, it is always a cause for concern should any customer express disappointment with eitherour product or the service that our dealer network provides. I should explain however, that although we are of course, interested in the overall operations of authorised dealers, they do operate independently and are therefore, responsible in their own right for their day to day trading activities. I am sure that in view of the aforesaid information, you will appreciate why it is difficult for us to comment in detail at this time and therefore, I have sent copy of your letter to Gateway Motor Co. for further investigation. You should expect to hear from myself in due course with the outcome of my investigation. In the meantime, I would like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention. Yours sincerely, Aina Ogunade-Paul Custoemr Care Manager”
So basically the company can trade under the Peugeot name, they can sell Peugeot cars (and only Peugeot), goods need to be authorised by Peugeot but they are totally independent and Head Office can’t do anything about it.

The only good side of things is that I didn’t have to order some bright paper and a pen to create a sign for the window saying “If you buy a car from this Gateway Peugeot dealer you may end up waiting 6 weeks for spare parts and have a car in the garage at frequent intervals – Beware!” and then park the car outside the showroom.

Incidentally the first song I heard on the Radio was Shania Twain’s I’m gonna get you good which has some weird misheard lyrics