Most of you are likely already familiar with issues contained in this post, but for folks not "in the know" I hope they can take something away from my recent experience.

I love my car. I want to do right by it and have it checked out by actual Jaguar technicians when I'm unable to address the issue. Jaguar owners can appreciate when I say that not many shops are familiar with, or will actually work on this particular brand. For many car owners it's important to them to have a relationship with their mechanic, a trusting relationship. It helps customers feel like they're not being taken advantage of, or being misled and charged for work that is unnecessary. It also feels good to know that your car is being cared for by people specially trained to work on it. It's darn near a sense of pride for me. I'm fortunate to drive an uncommon car and I enjoy taking good care of it.

This last weekend, I took my car in for an oil change and VA safety inspection at a local dealership. Many of you will cringe that I took in my car to be inspected at a dealership. You're probably thinking, "of course they're going to find some problems". After the inspection the boy at the counter says that there is a problem with my headlights. He says that the headlights are not level and pose a safety concern. I said ok, and asked if they tried adjusting them with the manual adjusters on each headlight assembly. He says yes, but the adjusters are both broken. He quoted me a repair of $1500 for two new headlight assemblies.

Not quite the outcome I was expecting at 10am on a Saturday. Knowing this is an issue on our cars, I told him to hold off and I would look at them myself. They failed my inspection and I drove home. When I got home I took out my tools, opened the hood (bonnet, for you Jag purists) and in about 10 minutes had successfully adjusted the level of the headlight beams. Nothing was broken. I took the car down the road to a local shop for another inspection where it passed.

Now, I really do believe in the goodness of people. Maybe it's a fault, maybe not. One of two things happened that day; 1) they outright lied to me, or 2) the technician was too darn lazy to actually check the adjustment mechanism. Either way, there's absolutely no way the customer should have been given a bill for $1500 for a repair that was completely unnecessary.

I'm so very disappointed in this shop. I've taken my car to them for service before and really do want to have a good relationship, but this last experience did some permanent damage.

In the end, it all turned out well. Thanks to this forum, I was aware of the adjuster issue and didn't freak out too much when I was quoted the $1500.

My intention isn't to pick on the dealership. That just happened to be my experience. Second opinions are a good thing, please do your due diligence.

 

Good post, thanks for taking the time to write it up and share.

 

'Second opinions' are always a good thing, or a second set of eyes at least. My Ministerial Angel of Domestic Bliss had an intermittent air bag warning light on her Honda. Off to the dealer she went only for them to be unable to find anything wrong and no codes stored in memory. The mechanic took it for a test drive where, once again, no faults. His only observation was a momentary spike in the alternator output to 17V.

The service writer took all this to mean that the air bag light was somehow connected to the alternator output (?!) and recommended a new unit at over $700. This is an eleven year old Civic, BTW.

My Angel, being of pure Scottish blood, knows the value of a penny and also knows gobbledygook when she hears it after living with me for so many years.

She declined the dealer's offer and brought the car home. I've monitored the alternator output voltage for the past month or so and if there's been any more voltage spikes, they're too fleeting for my instruments to record. If it turns out that the unit is failing, I can easily get a rebuild for under a $100.

The flashing airbag light? Turns out by reading the Honda forums (almost as good this forum) it's a common fault and is traced to an electrical issue with the seat belt buckle, covered by warranty. Nothing to do with the alternator. Arrrgggh.

 

I wish I had the time to see about fabricating some components of certain Jag parts...headlight lens especially. There's no reason that the entire headlight has to be replaced because of a cracked lens....and I imagine many would gladly pay for a lens that would fit perfectly.

 

I too have a 2005 X-Type and with a headlight that had the mounts break.
I fixed them myself with only somewhat satisfactory results.
The thread is here;
https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/x...t-issue-72601/

Go down to my posting, it is the one with all the pictures.

The problem is that two critical part was made from defective plastic.
When new it must have been OK but aged rapidly. They became very
brittle. The parts would easily break holding them in my hand.

I repaired mine as best as I could. I may have to take it apart again
if some more of it breaks. There is a guy on eBay that makes replacement
parts that I may try if necessary.

The dealer may not be at fault. The headlights are not repairable by
the dealer. I can see them costing $500 to $700 each so your quote
may not be out of line given the parts cost.

Look at this;
It is not clear if they are new or used.

Sorry for the bad news,
Pete.

 

Either they were lying or they *assumed* the adjusters were broken....what with it being a common issue and all. But, either way, if you had said "yes" you would've spent $1500 needlessly.

I'd take 'em to task on this. Not that you need to rant and rave (you certanly don't sound like the ranting and raving type to begin with) but, really, the dealer needs to know what's going on.

Cheers
DD

 

Sorry to rear a bad experience with your local dealer but good thing it turned out well, happy ending
This is why these forums are mainly for and I appreciate your sincerity talking about awesomeness of these forums in your message
Happy driving

 

I'd love to contact someone, either at the dealership or at corporate Jaguar, if I felt it'd make a difference/impact. I did leave a negative review on Yelp (my first ever review) which contained a few other issues that I did not include in my original post. The staff, in particular, are quite unprofessional. At any length, I'm not sure what good it would do to contact a supervisor. It seems the culture of that place is just what it is, bad.

Maybe someone on this forum could point me in a direction so that my issue is given consideration and might result in some good for future customers?

Oh, and I was quite hot when I realized what had happened. I let the expletives fly, baby.

 

Hard to say at this point if it'll make any difference. I'd begin with speaking to dealer management. The nature of the response you get there may well guide the nature of further action, should you decide to continue on.





There are many ways to be unprofessional. Laziness. lack of training/knowledge. Indifference. Dishonesty. Gross incompetence. All bad but some worse than others.





The best benefit for future customers is for you to speak to dealer management. Even if the culture of the business is generally poor I have doubts that management actively promotes either flagrant dishonesty or gross laziness/incompetence from the service shop.

The only way to find out how deep the poor culture of the dealership goes is to speak to them. But....it's quite possible you'll do some good.

Cheers
DD

 

I think very few people today even know where to check the oil so I believe dealerships have become comfortable that they can tell a customer absolutely anything and the customer is more likely than not to just accept their diagnosis and pay up. I've heard lots of stories worse than this one. Seems a shame you can't trust car dealers but you have two choices. You could always take the car, even if you have to tow it, to a second or even third mechanic and see if they come up with a different diagnosis, but I suppose they could all be crooked or inept or both. Better is to learn at least some basics about how cars work, get a copy of the service manual for your car, search some forums like the OP did and then even if you can't fix it yourself, at least its a lot harder to take advantage of an educated person.

 

I was just going to post that exact point. You have to look at the dealerships target customer. They are not consertivie minded when it comes to spending money. If they were, they would not buy a Jaguar. Dealerships cater to that client, not to those of us who work on our car becuase our funds are unlimited or we look to save a couple of hundred dollars.

Dealerships are in the business of selling new cars. That is where most of the money is. How many people that buy a $100,000 new car will go out and change there own headllight bulb when it goes out to save $100?

 

I understand your point, but would disagree with your blanket statement that all Jaguar customers are "not consertivie minded with it comes to spending money" (sic). And I am sure there are plenty of people in this world who drive $100K vehicles who like to tinker with them simply because they enjoy it.

I think you miss the heart of the post; it's more of a relationship thing than a money thing. I'd prefer not to feel, or have the notion, that I was being taken advantage of whether it's over $5 or $5,000. And I think that is something that future viewers of this forum might find of value, hence the post.

It may be that I inherently distrust people, which is why I decided to check the lights myself. Or, I just like to check out things for myself. I don't really know. All I know is that something was rotten in the state of Virginia that day and I expressed my frustration in an attempt to help others. I truly hope that this is just an honest mistake on the dealership's part but there's always that shade of doubt, you know?

It's all good though. My lights are still good and I've moved on.

 

I am curious which dealership you're referring to as you already know my experience with the two in NOVA has been horrible.

I took my car in for the transmission issue last week and instead of finding out what's wrong with it, they gave me a list of other unrelated things I should get repaired. You'll laugh, but they told me my headlight adjuster was broken as well and quoted me $944 for just ONE headlight replacement. They listed the part as costing $644, which JPLV lists as $490 (selling it for $360). I honestly don't understand how the state regulators allow dealers to legally overcharge by almost 25% over MSRP.

This is not even the worst part of the story. They BROKE my brake fluid reservoir cap I guess while trying to find something wrong with the car in an attempt to make money and they said, the fluid was soooooooo contaminated, it had turned blue. It's blue you bloody idiots because it's ATE Super Blue fluid. I know they broke the cap because just the night before I removed and cleaned the washer nozzles.

So yes, I despise Jaguar dealers. I only say Jaguar because when it comes to my wife's Mercedes, we get nothing but AMAZING service.

 

Man, sorry to hear a similar story. I don't want to bash them too much, but it was Rosenthal. The real bummer is that I've worked with them before on a few things and they were pretty good to me. But there always seemed to be something lurking underneath the surface...it's like Harvey Dent flipping that coin at each visit (if you follow my reference), you take a chance on the level of service you receive. Why can't it be consistently excellent?

 

Free enterprise. The part belongs to them. They can (try to) sell if for whatever they want, or even give it to you for free it it strikes their fancy :-).

The "S" is "MSRP" means "suggested"!




Ask them for a replacement !



They've probably never heard of or seen ATE Super Blue.

Cheers
DD

 

They denied it. I'm out $18. JPLV delivering it next week.

 

If you knew X-Types like you claim to by all your posts, you would know that the brake master cylinder caps are notorious for breaking on these cars, just saying. Also the factory brake fluid color is far from being blue, so I don't blame them by any means for offering you a brake flush. If you found the headlamp for cheaper, THEN BUY IT FROM WHERE YOU FOUND IT CHEAPER. Dealers don't set the prices, the manufacture does. Yes I do know this for a fact. I worked for a Jaguar dealer for six years before moving to another place a Jag Tech.

 

Unless Jaguar subjects their dealers to some very unusual franchise requirments that I'm not aware of, a dealer can sell a part (or try to) for whatever price strikes his fancy.

The dealer buys x-y-z part from Jaguar. That part is now the dealer's property. He may have paid $100.00 for it but he can sell it to me for 2-cents (if he cares to) or $500.00 (if he thinks he can get away with it).

Now, it's often the case that the price the dealer paid for x-y-z part is already too high, relative to the perceived value of the item. That little reservoir cap (or whatever) looks like a $3.00 part to you and me but the dealer paid $15.00 to buy it from Jaguar. Naturally he'll mark it up to make a profit (if he wants to stay in business, that is) so we'll end up paying $25 or $30 for it.

But, in reality, the dealer can sell whatever it owns for whatever amount the wish. Many dealers use complex pricing matrixes on parts to stay competetive and/or customer friendly. However, is pretty well accepted that high-end expensive cars have high-end expensive parts....so pricing "sensitivity" isn't quite as common on (let's say) Jaguar parts as it might be on Chevy Impala parts.

Cheers
DD

 

Many years ago, when I was young and broke, I took my car to a service station mechanic because my air conditioning wasn't cooling properly.

I stood in the service bay and watched while he put one can of "Freon" in the AC system. Then he attached another can to the rig, but I noticed that he did not puncture the top of the can to allow the gas to flow into the system.

He proceeded to shake the can and look at the gauges as if Freon were flowing from the second can. A very convincing performance, I must say.

He finished and presented me with a bill for 2 cans of Freon at $5 each, plus $5 labor for the installation. He was a really big, rough-looking dude and I was young and naive, so I paid the bill and left, knowing full well that I had been screwed.

To say that that early experience reduced my trust in mechanics is an understatement. I still remember that incident, almost 40 years later, every time I look a mechanic in the face.

I am not a mechanic, but I do the work myself when I can. I almost always watch the work being done and always get a second opinion for expensive repairs.
Vector

 

Personally I do all my maintenance myself on both of my Jags. So far this has worked out OK for me. The only time I had one to a dealer was just after buying the X-Type and I took it in just for a checkup. Since it was driving great and I had a complete maintenance record since it left the factory I didn't expect too much to be wrong. Well I knew I needed a new battery because the original had a leak. They came up with a fairly long and very expensive list of things they said were wrong and should be fixed soon. The battery had leaked on the wiring harness for the transmission and they said the transmission needed to be replaced $3700+. They also said the rear brakes needed to be done $525+. They oil pan was leaking $2100+. All this plus other odds and ends to complete the work the total was $6000+/-. I only had them replace the battery since it was leaking, that and the checkup came to over $300.
I haven't replaced the transmission since there never was any thing wrong with it. The problem was the wiring harness connection under the battery and I just cleaned it up with baking soda and water, dried it off and sprayed it with clear lacquer then covered it with a good coating of clear silicone. I also haven't done anything with the oil pan other than cleaning around it and wiping some sealer on the gasket area. It's not a real leak mostly a seepage and only a few drops ever show up on garage floor once in a while, some well placed kitty litter takes care of that. The rear brakes I did myself for $95.
I still use this dealer for some small inexpensive parts as their parts department isn't that bad but the service department seems to be like a separate company.
Oh ya, my left side auto leveling mechanics quit working but I was able to manually adjust it the right one still does the auto thing. So i'm satisfied with it just makes the left one stationary like most other cars.
If I would have been you after I did the manual adjustment and passed inspection I would have gone back to that dealer for a followup inspection just for the head lights. Just to see what they would say the second time.