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Review 10/22/2010
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DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THIS DEALER. D Rating by the Better Business Bureau which means, "We have enough concerns about this company (for example, their offer, customer complaints, advertising, etc.) that we recommend caution in doing business with it."
I submitted a formal complaint with the BBB on these guys as, in my opinion, they attempted to fraud me out of money by replacing parts that are still in my vehicle and working flawlessly today. Here is my letter to the dealer. It was responded to with excuses. A scaled down version went to the bbb. Land Rover of Newport Beach responded with more excuses. Nobody can explain why they put a fuse in a spot designed to make my car not drivable. Very sad experience.
September 10, 2010
Land Rover Newport Beach
2101 Dove Street
Newport Beach, CA 92660
Subject: Does Land Rover Newport Beach commit fraud against their customers?
CC: Scott Paul
Mr. Bennington,
My name is Wayne Weber and I am a current owner of a 2004 Range Rover HSE. Recently, I visited your dealership to get a new battery for my remote key. I could have never imagined something so simple turning into the train wreck I am about to describe.
On July 26, 2010 I purchased a key battery from your service department. Invoice attached. The very nice and helpful man in parts explained to me the importance of quickly replacing the battery to avoid syncing issues. He also asked how long that battery had been dead in which I responded 3 days. He stated that the sync may have already been goofed up and I may have to come back if the key does not work. He was right. Though the light to my key came on, it was very much inactive. Furthermore, the locks inside the vehicle would not operate either. I immediately brought it into the dealership to be looked at.
On July 28th I arrived at the location on Dove St. to drop my vehicle off. I was greeted by Glenn Weitz who asked if I had an appointment. He was very annoyed that I did not and explained that in the future I really need to have one. Regardless, he took in my car and said he would call me when he knew what was wrong.
That day Glenn called with an estimate for $800 to replace a faulty Body Controller Module (see estimate). I was very confused why a dead key battery would cause a piece of hardware to fail. Formerly being in the software business, I knew it did not work that way. The dead battery caused a software issue. Software issues rarely cause the failure of a hardware component. Being that I do not replace my computers hard drive every time my mouse battery dies, I decided it was best to pick up the car.
On August 6th I dropped my vehicle off at Trinity European in Huntington Beach. There, they were able to reset the software and make the entire system work flawlessly. The “Body Controller Module” worked and is still working today. This was done in one and one half hour with a cost of $104 labor (invoice attached) to me. At that moment I had written your dealership and service department off as incompetent and planned to simply tell a few friends about it and leave it at that. I was wrong.
Within a few minutes of having the vehicle, I noticed that the LED on the dash read “select neutral” when I put the car from park into drive or reverse. Upon moving the vehicle the LED switched to a “slow down” message. Back to Trinity who after a few moments determined that a fuse was inserted into a spot solely reserved for TRANSPORT/towing the vehicle. A spot where Trinity’s owner and technicians know is NOT ever to be used unless really towing the vehicle. The reason is that if you go ahead and select neutral as instructed, after 10-15 seconds the vehicle locks itself in neutral which would obviously leave my wife or me stranded wherever this happened. Trinity removed the fuse and the car is now working flawlessly.
Two things are crystal clear to me:
1. Land Rover Newport Beach’s service department gave an incorrect diagnosis in order to replace a part that did not need to be replaced.
2. After declining this work over the phone and stating that I have a problem “believing” this problem is hardware related; it’s my opinion and that of other auto professionals that my vehicle was sabotaged by Land Rover Newport Beach. I can only guess that this was done to mess up everything and cause me to bring the vehicle back. Or most likely have it towed back at my expense. At that time you would have said, “See you needed a Body Controller Module” or something else at an extreme cost. I am only guessing. Perhaps someone can give me a better explanation of why someone would insert that fuse where it was inserted.
As I stated I had written this off after issue 1. The compounding of this issue by number 2 makes me unable to do that. It is my opinion that I was going to be a victim of fraud and would have been scammed by your service department for money. It is also my opinion that this is not the first nor last time this has happened at Land Rover Newport Beach. It was too well orchestrated to be the first and only time.
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