At what point would others begin a complaint process that may or may not burn the bridge for me with my local Jag dealer. My problem is the next nearest place for service/warranty work is over two hours away. This last service experience is proving to be a bitter pill to swallow. I was contacted by the salesman who originally sold me the car last July and said "he heard I had a bad experience and that the management's changing and thing will be better in the future." I sent a long detailed email back to him explaining my frustrations and nothing... no phone call, no email, not even as much as an apology... just "things will be better in the future. I spent over $1800 at this last visit, bought my XF cash and also have another XJ8 still under warranty...

Just hoping for some input because I really like these cars and don't want to switch brands simply because of poor service...

 

No matter how justified or tempting it may appear to be there just is no percentage in burning bridges with any supplier. I always remember that well treated employees nearly always try to do a good job for their customers. Management is almost always responsible for poor performance. The big exception is union shops where union management are old school obstructionists. I try to preserve my relationships with the people whenever I can. It is pleasantly surprising how much you can get out of good employees working for bad management. Also, sometimes the employees move and you can follow them. Finally, management does change and often the same employees stay on.

 

Coming from a dealership that was (and still is) poorly managed, I can only say that the guys behind the wall are usually the ones that care. There is not a car that came through that got my full attention and treated better than my own. Jaguar is going through a transition and the bad dealers will get weeded out because they won't be able to keep up with a younger crowd. As far as burning a bridge, I would not worry about them. They have proven that they show no interest in keeping your business. Best of luck.

 

BlackX300VDP,

Is there a dealership that you recommend in your area? I'm on the Maryland/Delaware line.

 

This is also my philosophy and sometimes it bites me in the butt... some seem to think kindness = weakness. My concern is there is not another Jag dealership within a reasonable distance for me to use for service... mainly recalls, warranty stuff and TSB issues so what you're saying is what I need to do if I'm sticking with Jaguar. I have owned three different brands of vehicles and so far two of them go out of their way to assure a positive experience... who would have thought Jaguar wouldn't?


Thanks for your thoughts... and it's becoming blaringly obvious that I cannot trust this dealership with my business unless something is done and quickly. I know the work that finished my car couldn't have been done by a qualified mechanic... what I think is, the service manager got my message late on Friday and scrambled to get my car "back together" because he's been sitting on his hands for the past 10 days... I would tell him that there's no hurry when he called about work needed and when he saw yet another weekend coming up he found anyone he could to re-assemble the car... I really wasn't pushing for the car back when I left the last message either... all I wanted was a courtesy update...

 

Considering the location of dealerships for you to get to, I can only recommend Union Park for warranty work. I worked there for a number of years before the "new" one opened in West Chester. I still consider myself friends with one of the Jag techs at Union Park. I don't have a lot of faith in West Chester.
The group I now work with at Land Rover Wilmington really understand customer service. I would say, if you needed non warranty work to bring it over to Land Rover Wilmington. Other than the delay in getting parts, we have all the information and bulletins and diagnostic equipment that a Jaguar dealer has, but that is your call. I have not heard much about Annapolis. I might recommend Jaguar West Columbia but a good friend just left there (on his own) so I am not sure how it is down there. That may be too far for you anyway.


I had to edit this. I didn't change anything i said earlier but I have thought about it more. Everybody's experience will be different. I know one of the guys and Union Park. I like him. I think he would work hard for a customer. I know one of the guys in West Chester. I like him as well. I know he would work hard for a customer. With that said, I think that once you have a concern that is beyond the scope of the tech and the writer and has to escalate to management, you will find drastically different outcomes at all dealers. Some care, some don't.
I can only hope that one day Jaguar and Land Rover in Wilmington can be combined.

 

To clarify, were previous service visits satisfactory?

Cheers
DD

 

Every time I went there is was a rellatively good experience... the only quirk would be the amount of time it took to get a call-back when a message was left. This is way out of character for them and it's irking me with every hour that passes without so much as a follow-up phone call or email... I sent a polite, detailled email Sunday night and as of 8:00 this morning... nothing in return.

 

Wife's Tech - my experience of the local Jag dealer is pretty much the same as yours. Never have I got the feeling that they are there to serve the customer. The Jag dealer is on the same lot as the Land Rover dealer (same owner and management) and shortly after buying my car, the Jag side closed their service department. Now I have to wait over a month to get an appointment. There are two other Jag dealers in Houston - both owned by Sonic, as is nearly every other high end Euro dealer, so it is not like I can really take my business elsewhere, even if I switched to BMW or Porsche! Very frustrating, I wish Jag would put more pressure on their dealers - they are ruining the brand for many.

 

BlackX300VDP,

Thank you for your invaluable input. I actually purchased my XF SC at West Chester and I haven't had any complaints yet as far as them doing any warranty work, and (knock on wood) I haven't had any major issues with my car so far, even though it's a (09MY) first year car. It's just that it is about 80 miles one way from where I live, so I was looking for something closer. I do know where Union Park is located and I'm also familiar with Land Rover Wilmington (I'm still under warranty though) on Kirkwood Highway which is only about a 35 minute drive for me. I haven't been able to get any input on Jaguar of Hunt Valley which isn't too far in the other direction.

 

I'm not too familiar with Hunt Valley, it used to be Chesapeake which is one of the older dealers in the country. I met one of the techs from there a few years ago. He was a good guy. There are definitely more Maryland dealers. If you ever need anything, shoot me a PM. I'll do my best to help.

 

I try to avoid the dealership when ever possible. Too bad Jaguar suffers in from poor percieved customer service from current owners. Jag has the line up, now they have to deliver on the ownership experience.

 

Perhaps I'm nitpicking here but I just got back after taking my car out for the first time since getting my car back last Friday but as I'm driving up the road I look at the oil change/service sticker on the top of the window... they never even changed it!! This was the original reason I took it in for its 30K service.... The rental car company has even called and asked if all went well with the rental... still nothing from Albany Jag...

 

I use Chesapeake (Hunt Valley) and I would have to say they're pretty good. There are always things to complain about WRT dealers, and they're no exception, but overall I have been happy there.

Jeff

 

After having my car back from the shop for a week my wife and I took a trip over this past weekend and what a surprise... the infotainment/nav screen locked out numerous times and I lost total use of the navigation tab. I called Jag yesterday and left a message (of course... no one ever answers their phones these days) and as of now not even a call back. I was pleasant on the phone and explained the ongoing problem clearly and politely... I am feeling as if I am coming to an impasse with the Jaguar brand and it's too bad because this is such a beautiful car and performs beyond my expectations. To me, service is everything. When you go to a five star restaurant and have a meal it doesn't matter how good the food is... it matters how the service is... and service can make/break the experience. When it comes to having to pull the proverbial teeth to get anything done is my breaking point... tomorrow I call Jaguar USA and throw them in which in essence cuts the relationship.

Any advice on how I can reset/reboot the nav/info system?

 

After the updates we performed on those systems, the recommendation was to lock the car for at least five minutes to let the system reset. Give it a shot and see what happens. If that doesn't work, do a hard reset (removed the negative cable from the battery for over a minute, the longer the better) then reconnect and reset the clock, date, windows, start it and let it idle for 60 seconds without touching the go pedal. Sometimes the five minute reset worked. Many times the hard reset works. Best wishes, I'm sorry that you are having trouble with the system.

 

Thanks... I'll give it a try in the morning. What ever happened to cars that a person with moderate mechanical ability could diagnose/fix? By doing the hard reset, will this also reset other applications?

 

Funny you say that. I was talking with my service manager today who knows carburetors very well whereas i don't want to know them. Fuel injection for me. I guess it's progress. As far as the reset, it won't do harm but may help other things you haven't noticed. It won't change shift points etc. as those are adaptive and must be reset with the IDS.

 

Thanks... I'll post my results tomorrow or the day after.

 

No luck... Did the hard reset and still have the same issue... sporatic outages for the infotainment screen and a complete lock-out of the navigation tab. I finally got fed up waiting for a return call from my dealership (I called Monday) and called in a pretty irritated mood demanding something be done about this ongoing issue... I also expressed my concerns about the lack of returning phone calls. I hate doing stuff like this and even more-so, hate feeling so frustrated, helpless and unimportant... this is a Jaguar afterall....

After all this I'm taking my XF up to the shop tomorrow morning and have already taken photos and video's of the screen acting up... just in case the usual happens... where you take the car to the shop and the problem doesn't appear...