I'm taking my xk8 back to the dealer to gripe, moan and generally complain. Here is the reason.
This year in mid January I took the car in for a squalling noise. The dealer diagonosed the problem to the bearing on the idler pully. I authorized the repair. In July I took the car to the dealer for a flush and fill of the radiator. I got a call from the dealer advising me the serpintine belt was beginning to come apart and that I would need to replace it. I said okay but to check the alignment of all the pully's because the belt was fine in january wen they replaced the idler pully. I was under the hood this weekend to replace both radiator hoses and noticed the belt theyhad put on the car was a NAPA belt not a jag belt that I was billed for. The other problem was this belt too was beginning to fray on the radiator side. Upon further investigation with the car running the belt was tracking on the outer rim, radiator side, of the idler which was replaced in January. I took the car to Jag this morning and pointed all of this out to the service writer who does all of my appointments, and his comment was suprisingly not what I expected. My appointment is tomorrow am. What I want them to do is to either replace the idler, or shim the idler, and get a credit for the belt I had to buy along with the labor to install the belt.

My whole premise is that the improper installation of the idler caused the original serpintine belt to deteriorate which caused me to purchase the replacement. Not to mention I received a NAPA belt not a JAG belt. I have no problem with the NAPA belt had I have been told they were substituting the belt because of what ever the reason.

What would you do?

 

daddyo, does the receipt say "Jag belt, part #......" or does it just say "Belt". If the receipt says Jag belt and they put something else on the car, then they are liable for the new belt as they did not install what was stated as being replaced. If the dealership wants to push the issue, then explain that you will be contacting the BBB to discuss with them how you were quoted as getting XXX parts and was so noted on the receipt, but you got YYY parts, especially if the difference in price is significant. Normally this will get their attention, especially if you kindly notify them that you are intending to submit a letter to the editor. While I am not saying that people that drive Jags read the letter to the editors more, but I bet we read them more than other groups of people.

 

I too would explain the poor idler pulley install contributed to the fraying serpentine and ask to replace again, on their dime, in addition to a refund on the prior belt purchase. I agree with thermo, if its a jaguar part, it will specifically be listed.

 

I'd drive to Ohio for better service.

 

These are the part numbers on my invoice. The description on the belt does not specifically say Jag belt it just says belt. But any other part I have ever gotten from this dealership has always been in a jag box, as I always ask for the old part to be left in the car if possible. But that does not mean they could have but the old part in a new jag box. To much of a hassle if you ask me. Too much of a gamble on their part, not to keep it above board.

Idler part # C2C37064
Belt # NCA2211AC

I called NAPA to get their part number for this belt just to see if it was even close to the number on the invoice and it was not. I was questioning the part number in my head only because it began with a "N".
I had a Goodyear Gatorback on there prior to the repair, and have the same brand on three other cars and never had a problem with the Gatorback.

Cost over the counter for the NAPA was 64.00 I was charged 139.00. I know full well that they did not pay 64.00 for the NAPA belt. They will pay dealer price which is below all the jobber price structures. So they probable payed 30.00 to 40.00 for the belt.

 

I went jAGPARTS.COM and entered the NCA2211AC on their OEM part number search and it came up as the serpintine drive belt. Not that that means anything they could be cross referencing the OEM number in their database. Anyone know if this is Jag's number for this belt?

 

it is the correct part reference

 

Hey Daddyo007,

Are you sure the pulleys are out of alignment and belt was properly installed back in January? It usually is a little difficult to have pulleys be square enough to run a belt that long without throwing it. It is not difficult to get them to run quite a while with new belt with last notch of belt riding on the edge guide intstead of where it is supposed to. Checking the alignment is a good idea but they probably would have to work at it to get it out of alignment.

I am a big fan of OEM but last time I checked NAPA used Gates as the supplier to make their belts Gates are generally well regarded. Goodyear Gatorback is also well regarded but a little odd looking.
I have no idea who makes Jag belts but I think the service schedule says 150,000 miles. I would not trust any belt that long but I think that is probably longer than the aftermarket warranty.

What would I do?
First, let them know it does not sit right with you so they have the opportunity to get it right. Ask them to replace it with brand that makes you comfortable, check the pulley alignment or fess up to installing the belt wrong. I would request an extension of warranty on that work, including the new belt. Odds are they will go along with it as a customer service issue.

If not, If the car will make it, I think I would also take a nice drive to Ohio. I just drove similar distance right past a local dealer not more than ten miles away as the relationship with the close guy was just not there.

There are things to worry about and so little time to not lose hair over the small stuff. How much is that lost time on the beach worth, compared to any consumer or legal action over change in brand of belt?

Regards,
Steven (1avguy)

 

The brand of belt is a none issue at his point. But because the new belt is not tracking properly across the new pulley I am getting edge wear and the belt has less than 200 miles on it. The whole of the situation is not getting what I paid for. And as you have confirmed the part number was that of an OEM part. As Thermo said earlier they have misrepresented themselves by billing me for the OEM but supplied an aftermarket. We'll see what tomorrow brings. To answer your question about the installation of the idler, the dealer did the install on that as well. In my mind that is a part that should require no alignment. That is unless the idler was manufactured incorrectly or it could be the NAPA belt does not meet the OEM spec. Either way it should be as simple as take the old one off and put on the new one. I can't imagine how you could align any of the multiple surfaces the belt travels around. That is why you have engineer's to figure all of that stuff out. But i'll put my calipers to the test and measure the belt width vs the idler. If I had to guess it looks like all the movement the idler needs is about 1/8" tops. About the thickness of a washer. But I do not know if it was suppose to have a spacer of not. Again we'll see tomorrow. I just need to convince them this all is on their dime to correct.

 

Hey 007,

I pulled out a bunch of invoices to answer your question with, but I see you are not on line. Before I write a Jaguar Journal on this subject, I'd like to know what this statement from your first post means...I did not read anything in your posts that clarifies it:

"I took the car to Jag this morning and pointed all of this out to the service writer who does all of my appointments, and his comment was suprisingly not what I expected."

So what was his comment?

 

I am assuming for the purposes of my response that the issue is not simply that the work provided by the dealership was less than desirable or that you have been duped into paying large sums of money that may cause irreparable financial harm. Rather, I am assuming that the issues, as you see them, are that: (1) there exists an obvious problem; (2) the dealer and its service department have demonstrated a lack of interest or concern for the obvious problem (I'm also curious what the service writer said that was not what you expected); (3) they also cheated you, lied about it, and refuse to correct it. Does that about cover it?

Personally, I tend to be pretty laid back and fairly tolerant of mistakes, incompetence, and even bad attitudes. I may not spend my money there anymore, but I rarely raise too much of a fuss. But I really hate cheaters and liars. It seems to me, though, that the question is not really what would we do, nor is it what should you do. The question is, what options are available to you, so you can decide what you will do based on the most information at hand.

Here are your options as I see them:

Option 1: do nothing, go somewhere else where your business and your customer loyalty are more highly regarded and honesty and fairness are foundations of the business as opposed to merely signs on the door or goals less worthy of attainment than instant cash flow. Ohio, maybe? Maybe find a beach to lay on. My favorite, but it lacks a sense of payback and justice.

Option 2: H20's suggestion is pretty good. Sit down with the service writer and his immediate supervisor and explain the problem and see what they do. If their response is still inappropriate and unsatisfying, keep going up the chain of command. Eventually you will get to a person who thinks not with their wallet, but with their investment account. They do not get commissions; they get a salary and bonus. Dumb crap like selling a Jag belt but installing a cheaper substitute may put money in a commissioned employee's pocket now, but it will starve Mr. Salary & Bonus' investment account in the long run. Your goal is to find the person who knows this and recognizes the dumb crap instantly. Find Mr. Salary & Bonus (often aka Mr. Owner) and you will get your problem resolved, maybe even with some freebies and some ***-kissing thrown in or good measure.

Option 3: Thermo's advice is also a good option worthy of consideration. Threats of exposure are often great motivators. Unfortunately, once threats are employed, there is rarely an opportunity to salvage the relationship and you will ultimately be back to option 1 anyway. While sunlight is the best disinfectant, every disinfectant is corrosive to some degree. I would suggest using it sparingly.

Option 4: Like I said before, I hate cheaters and liars. Indeed, just today I had a short conversation with a member of this forum about the duality of the term "value." You should expect financial value and ethical values from the businesses you give your money to. I think you should get what you pay for, or else you don't pay. While I would seriously consider this option either as a last resort for use only if you have a particular principle you feel you must stand firm on regardless of the time, cost, benefit, etc. and no other option has achieved the desired result, or as a one-shot only, never coming back to this dealership anyway, I mean business kind of threat. You are in Kentucky? Kentucky Revised Statutes Consumer Protection Act, section 367.170 in particular, provides some true muscle to your threat. While the BBB and publication threats can be effective, they are often dismissed because the costs are not readily ascertainable. But the CPA has a much different effect, if used properly. The CPA has a couple of interesting parts, and you would need to consult a lawyer in Kentucky if you actually want to pursue it, but it can be used as just a threat even if you don't plan to use it. What the CPA says is that you can sue for deceptive, unfair, dishonest business practices that have caused you some financial harm. Even better, it allows for the Attorney General to crawl up the dealership's butt and assess criminal penalties. Here is what you do. If the dealership will not recognize and correct the fault, both mechanically and financially, you lay down the groundwork. First, explain how much it sucks to pay for something you did not get and which you were expressly told you were getting. Second, throw in this example (which will not make sense to anyone but you until later): "You don't think it would be a good deal to make a hundred bucks if it cost you $2000 to make it, would you? What if it cost you $10,000 to earn a hunded bucks? Third, get them to acknowledge that they understand: (1) you are accusing them of acting dishonestly, unfairly, and intentionally cheating you; (2) that it is not a matter of cost to you, but a matter of principle; (3) you believe they have probably done the same dishonest crap to a bunch of other customers. About this time they will be really pissed or they will be desperately trying to get you out of the door. Then, hit them with the law: "You understand that if I walk out the door without my money back and my car repaired, I will be filing a lawsuit under the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act? You understand that I will not only seek a full refund, but also attorneys fees and punitive damages, and you will have to pay a lawyer to defend that lawsuit, not to mention to protect you from the Attorney General's office? Oh yeah, did I forget to mention that just filing that lawsuit triggers an investigation by the Kentucky Attorney General's office, who will assess fines for each and every fraudulent and unfair deal they find, starting with every NAPA belt you installed for the price of a Jag belt? You understand that the Attorney General will fine you $2000 per violation, and $10,000 for every violation involving a person 60 years old or older? So, is my hundred bucks worth all that? Nope. Then what are you going to do for me?" I've never used this little tactic, but it is good to keep in your hip pocket for times like this when there is written evidence of intentional fraud. And make sure you call it fraud, they hate that.

Hope you pick the right option and that they admit they screwed up and own up to the consequences. Regardless, good luck!

 

Other than price gouging for the cost of the belt, I believe I know exactly what happened and it ain't the dealer's fault. Not much sense going into detail now that the resolution will be the next post from the customer.

 

You recieved good advice from very qualified people. I would have done the work myself in the first place. Look at all of the time and aggrevation you have endured already............... If you could change the hoses you probably could have done the idler youself as well and saved a ton of money in the process. What was the comment anyway????

 

This was going to be posted for 007, but apparently his car is in the shop. I put it up earlier on another thread, and for the sake of continuity I'll add it here in case anyone else has similar issues:

I think the guy with the belt problem actually has a pulley problem, I'm sure he'll report back so we will see the final outcome. The original idler and tensioner pulley on his engine were plastic: when the bearing would sieze, it would burn the pulley off. The supercession was to a Fomoco idler pulley that was steel and had shoulders on it...but the factory belt would not lay flat on the pulley between the shoulders, they were too narrow.

The first one I got, I swore it was wrong. Two different dealer sources sent me the same thing during '07-'08, it was like somebody went crawling through the shelves at Ford until they found it and said "Here, send them this one. It oughtta work".

Now the idler pulley has been superceded again to a smooth steel wheel, same as the pulley on the tensioner assembly. The directive as I have been told is to replace both, along with the later NCA2211DA (slightly longer) belt. But I agree with you about the belt issue in general, I always use factory belts whenever possible for ease of fitment and reliability. Same is true for an awful lot of other components, I have lots of stories about suspension parts.

Bob, I agree with you: it's 15 min. to change the idler and the belt, if they charge him labor for this visit they are stealing again. They should warranty the pulley and the labor and eat the belt, done deal.

 

The service writer commented that they would have to get the car in to check it out to make sure the problems was as I described. I asked about why I got a NAPA belt and his comment was that he could not give me an answer why I got the NAPA belt other than that the mechanics will sometimes just tell the parts counterman to just get me the part so I can finish this job. That comment was not word for word but you get the jist of what is meant.

After hearing this from the service writer I knew there was no reason to persue the issue with him. I made an appointment to get the car in.

I got the car back last night. They did infact replace the NAPA belt with a new belt NCA2211AC. The also replaced the idle with a different part number this time. I received a C2C37064 idler pully. The explaination I received for this change was that the original one installed was the on the the schematics called for but the this one was also shown as an available option to the original.

All of this was handled without any charge to me. They wrote the whole thing up as warranty and covered all of the charges.

Once I got home I inspected the two said parts. The belt was indeed a Jag belt mfg. by Roulunds in the EU. The pulley was of a totally different design. Where the one removed actually had a channel shaped like this I\_____/I > The new one is smooth all of the way across the top. Something I wish i had paid attention to see what was originally on the car. But this new smooth one appears to be a better design and more forgiving as far as the ailgnment goes. The old NAPA belt did track fine around the entire setup until it hit channeled pulley. While true the new one takes the precision required to keep all of this in align, the new one will allow for a controlled track thru the whole set up.

When I asked him about wheather this pulley caused the original deterioration of the GATORBACK I got the blank stare and a comment to the tune of there was no way to know for sure.

At this point the extra headache of going further was not worth the reward.

 

Again thank you all very much for your insight. I had a few personal issues to attend to yesterday, as well as car issues and was unable to post last evening.

Needless to say I was loaded for bear but did not have to even raise a stink.

I too do not like liars and cheats, and have found that being calm will more times than not get me the results I'm after.

Hey I'm just a guy who likes to tinker and am know way as knowlagable as the rest of you all. While I could have done all of this work myself January on snow in the cold, it was not something I chose not to get into at the time.

But it is comforting knowing there is help available out there for the asking.

Here is to shaking all of your hands online.

 

Happy to hear that it all worked out as it should in the end. Its a shame that they don't always work out that way in the beginning, but that is often out of your control. I agree that this could have been avoided by DIY. But, that it can be done cheaper and faster with fewer headaches is no justification for any dealer or other shop to handle the situation as poorly as it appears this one was handled. I think this could also have been avoided by the dealer being knowledge and honest from the beginning. For those who cannot or choose not to do repairs themselves, regardless of the reasons, knowledge and honesty in a repair shop is a necessity. It should never be a given that the dealer or shop is either stupid or crooked, because there are a bunch of good ones out there. This may be a good example of how one problem, an error in the ordering process or a lack of knowledge, lead to a variety of conclusions that were equally in error, including my own. I am glad to hear that this dealer made it right, even if they started off on the wrong path. I'm also glad to know that I can find pulleys with shoulders, or shoulderless, which is an important option depending on how you wish your pulleys to be dressed for the evening. To be honest, I prefer my pulleys a little more redneck, but its hard to find a pulley with the sleeves cut-off.

 

We appreciate the followup daddy-o, and I too am glad the dealer service did right by you. I may be hesitant in the future, but if you feel you established some sort of 'repoire' with your service guy, I may be inclined to give them another chance to do your next repair (and may it be way way down the road). Once a relationship is built...they remember you, often they will make a little extra effort to make sure you are satisfied...toss in a freebie here and there, etc.

SoTX, i can't believe you managed to compare pulleys to rednecks. Since you did, well done.

 

And if you read my post, you will realize that this issue would not have been avoided by DIY repair, it wasn't the dealer's fault, and other people with the same problem will know why it occurred. The dealership corrected Jaguar's error, and you were made whole without any consequence. As for the NAPA belt, specify "Factory parts only" on your next visit, and be patient if additional down time is the result.

 

I didn't get that from the earlier post, at least not completely. I understand the history you provided, but I misunderstood the current events part. I took it that the correct pulley was now available and that the dealer should have installed it. Thus, the dealer either wasn't honest or knowledgeable, or just made a mistake in ordering the part. But, having now re-read your post and the others, I am reminded that the pulley repair occurred many months ago, when the part was maybe not yet superceded, thus not the dealer's fault.

My point re DIY repairs relates more to the dealer's handling of the problem, as opposed to the problem itself. Wrong pulley may still have been installed, but 007 would not have had to deal with the issue of receiving less expensive parts than what he was charged. I have no problem with getting a NAPA belt instead of factory, so long as I know about it. Nor do I have a problem with the shop substituting for the reason that it is available today when the factory belt isn't, again, so long as I am told about it and given the option. In other words, when you do it yourself, nobody to blame but the mechanic. I am neither knowledgeable or honest when I do it myself, and it usually shows. To the extent the pulley issue was beyond the dealer's control, then I respectfully retract that portion of my prior post. Thanks for clearing that up. A good example of why I do not recommend threatening to sue unless absolutely necessary.