DragonAuto.Works 

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Mar 19, 2020

Whilst we understand this customers dissatisfaction, the cause of his complaint was not avoidable by us. To clarify this customer had a service last year with no issues. He rang us late on a Friday to ask for a copy of a MOT certificate as he could not tax his vehicle. We checked the record and advised that no MOT test had been booked with us or charged for by us. At which point the customer realised his car had run out of MOT test last October. Naturally this was a problem for him and we agreed to take the car in after the weekend (Monday) to organise the test. The test centre we use were already fully booked but agreed to squeeze the test in on an emergency spare test slot. The customer then advised that his dash was reporting that the brakes needed doing. Naturally this would be a failure on the MOT test so he asked for this to be sorted prior to the test as well. Both sets of pads had triggered and were overdue on the CBS data. When stripping down the rears we found the calipers were sticky and the discs needed replacing due to terrible inner disc surfaces (not visible from front of discs). We therefore replaced the discs and pads on the rear. When fitting the front pads there didn't appear to be any problems and the discs appeared visually serviceable. Due to the issues with the rears we overran and the MOT centre could no longer complete the test that day. They agreed to do it the following day instead again on an emergency basis as they were fully booked. We left the car with them but there was an issue with emissions and they had to do the test the next day again. Obviously this is out of our hands since we do not do MOT testing ourselves. When they put the car on the brake rollers for the test they found an imbalance on the front brakes and failed the car in accordance with test requirements. The customer requested that we sort this out and get the car MOT roadworthy. The service adviser clearly stated that this sort of imbalance is usually caused by either caliper or disc issues and that these may need to be replaced with new parts. It was stated that calipers tend to be expensive and that we would try stripping down, cleaning and rebuilding before replacing if we could. That afternoon we stripped the front brakes off, performed a run out test on the discs and found a warp unsuitable for brake disc skimming so we replaced them and serviced the calipers. We managed to get the car back to the mot centre at 4:55pm for its retest which it then passed. Customer was contacted with the good news and the paperwork was sent to him that evening with a second invoice for the MOT repairs including the new discs fitted. Customer decided it was a bit late to arrange collection that night so it was left we would do the handover the following morning. When the customer was contacted next day with an offer to deliver the vehicle to him (free of charge service we offer locally) he suddenly stated that he did not feel he should have to pay for the MOT repairs as he felt we had not adequately advised him that there would be any extra costs. Our customer service agent has said she felt she was quite clear about the likelihood of needing extra parts to get the car to pass and cannot understand how this could have been misconstrued when she went on about how much calipers might cost. We cannot imagine why anyone would think that there wouldn't be a charge for parts and repairs if a car fails its MOT test and needs extra work beyond the original remit to then pass. Yes he had an unexpected extra bill but it was hardly of our making that his car had such poor condition brakes that the discs needed replacing same as it is hardly our fault he let his MOT expire for five months!

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Jan 10, 2020

With respect to all customers we would like to remind you that we are a SMALL independent workshop. We do not have 20 work bays and a host of technicians stood around doing nothing. We are always extremely busy and whilst we are happy to try and accommodate people and fit things in where possible sometimes it does involve some flexibility on the customer’s part! Unfortunately we did have an argument with this customer, our side of the story is below, we would as ever urge customers to read feedback and responses and make a judgement for yourself. We always explain our reasons and our feedback profile is an honest one so if you do agree with him, we may not be the garage for you! This individual has been a customer of ours twice. Once in 2017 when his timing chain started to fail and we replaced it for him and then recently when he rang us out of the blue to say that an engine management light was on and the car was running badly with a strong smell of burning oil. Despite being fully booked we agreed to do a same day assessment and see if we could help him. We even provided a free courtesy car for the day. When we assessed the car we discovered an oil leak from the oil filler neck seal which was dropping oil onto the exhaust and we repaired this with a new seal. We then cleaned the oil spillage and retested the vehicle, with further tests it became apparent that the there was a problem with the turbocharger and a blocked diesel particulate filter as a result. Our diagnostic and repair of the small leak took two hours labour (which costs £110). At this point we contacted him and advised of the issues we had identified, the repairs we had done during the diagnostic and recommended that the turbocharger be replaced. He requested a written estimate for the cheapest solution to resolve this issue. We sourced a cheaper supplier of the turbocharger where it would be a reconditioned part. The pricing for this turbocharger to be installed and the dpf cleaned was emailed to the customer and he accepted the estimate. We ordered the part expecting it to arrive within a couple of days however the exact variant was out of stock and it took over a week to arrive with us. Understandably we had other jobs to do (being fully booked when the car arrived) and we had to carry on with those whilst waiting for the part. As soon as the part and a technician were free we installed the new turbocharger and performed the engine flush and dpf chemical clean. On the day we had advised that the car would be ready, the customer decided to turn up and wait for the vehicle in our reception rather than either wait for us to call him and say that the car was ready or take us up on our offer to deliver the vehicle to his house on the way home and collect the courtesy car (which he had use of for the entire time we had his vehicle). When the car was ready and the paperwork presented, the customer then complained about having to wait and then proceeded to complain that we had not told him that there was any charge for the original diagnostic work and repairs to the filler neck. He stated he had "assumed that this was free since we were getting to do the repairs to the turbocharger". We would like to make it quite clear here for the record (as is also stated on our website) we do charge for diagnostics, in fact we charge for all labour time required on your car. If this is not suitable for you as a customer, please do seek an alternative garage who offers this. What is also worth noting is that this customer did not pay for his diagnostic work and repairs to the filler neck, he only paid for the turbocharger works leaving us out of pocket and to be honest we are relieved to hear that he does not intend to use us again. If you expect workmanship for free, please don't use us. We work hard in our small independent workshop and our technicians have spent years developing the skills and expertise on the brands we specialise in, they don't expect the effort they put in to be disrespected. We are not a charity, all of our staff work to earn money to pay their bills, we expect to be paid for what we do and don't think that this is an unreasonable expectation.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Nov 12, 2019

Thank you for taking the time to leave us a review. We are delighted to have been able to help you get the fair compensation you deserved. Hope to see you again sometime.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Oct 10, 2019

Thank you for taking the time to give us a review, much appreciated.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Oct 9, 2019

Many thanks for taking the time to leave this review, much appreciated

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Oct 9, 2019

Thank you for taking the time to leave a review, we appreciate it and hope to do business with you again

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Aug 27, 2019

We are always saddened to hear that someone hasn’t had a good customer experience and are sorry for any disappointment. Our mistake was agreeing to accommodate a service for the customer on a Friday afternoon at the last minute because that’s what suited him.

With respect to all customers we would like to remind you that we are a SMALL independent workshop. We do not have 20 work bays and a host of technicians stood around doing nothing. We are always extremely busy and whilst we are happy to try and accommodate people and fit things in where possible sometimes it does involve some flexibility on the customer’s part!

This customer arrived at about 1:30pm and had to take his bike off the bike rack before we could start work. We read the key data (with our genuine BMW tooling) and as there were some error messages logged, we carried out the code scan whilst the customer waited to check that there weren’t any problems.

When the key data was read there were THREE service schedules due; Std Scope, Oil & Microfilter, Vehicle Check and Brake Fluid. We would expect this to take about 2.5hrs. The customer was advised that he would receive a phone call when the car was ready. He was also told that we are open until 6pm for collections.

Unsurprisingly on a Friday before a bank holiday the telephone lines were somewhat busy with updating and arranging completion of vehicles. To clarify, due to current leave allowances (it is the school holidays) there is only ONE person to answer the phones (we are only a SMALL enterprise) so if she is already on the phone you cannot get through.

We received a facebook message at 16:01 (how was a 2.5hr service going to be ready when we only got to start it shortly after 2pm?) and this was replied to instantly to advise that the vehicle was still on the lift and that we would call as soon as it was ready.

Customer appeared in the reception to wait shortly after this message so naturally the car wasn’t ready. Indeed, the customer was advised that we were currently getting the brakes bled properly. Servicing takes however long it takes for the job to be done properly so if you don’t expect to have to wait it needs to be planned differently as we will not compromise our standards to rush the job out the door.

We got the brakes bled and the process finished for about 6pm and having reviewed the computer log this morning we can see that the technician did perform the write service data function correctly, so it should’ve appeared correctly. Clearly there was a computer glitch likely on the vehicles data drive that prevented the information saving.

To clarify the customer is referring to the option on some BMWs for the online service history to be displayed on the IDrive. This does not affect the Online Service Record in any way. This is written to the car separately from the Online Service Record entry and the key data which were all correctly showing. It can be updated anytime and is simply a reflection of the online service record once the download is performed.

Mr Williams states he rung multiple times, our call log data tells us he rung 5 times between 18:25 and 18:30 on Friday night. Unsurprisingly we had locked up and gone home by then. Then the next morning (Saturday of a bank holiday) he rung 8 times between 09:50 and 09.54 which wouldn’t have been answered as the workshop was closed. He had also sent a Facebook message which one of the technicians who monitors the page saw and messaged the customer service advisor to let her know. When she had received his message, she then rang the customer at about 10:30. The customer advised that his IDrive wasn’t reflecting the service. The advisor said she wasn’t working but could be there in half an hour or so to plug the car in and sort it out, but this apparently wasn’t suitable as he was out mountain biking and couldn’t be available until later in the day. The advisor did suggest that perhaps since it was only the IDrive data and not really an issue with the car this could be done anytime next week after the bank holiday when the garage was open again (no doubt this was considered a rude suggestion but obviously our staff do have lives outside of work especially on bank holiday weekends) but this apparently also wasn’t convenient so an arrangement was made for the advisor to attend at 4pm especially.

The data was written again by the service advisor whilst her four children (including 9mth old twins waited in the car) so she was apparently in a bit of a rush and may have seemed abrupt, we are not surprised by this to be honest.

Until this morning we did assume that the technician had made a mistake and he would have been reprimanded for it but having analysed the computer log we have seen that he did follow the process correctly and that there must’ve been a computer glitch.

These things can happen, and we don’t consider it to be as dramatic as implied by this customer. Seems a somewhat harsh and judgemental review under the circumstances but naturally we wish him all the best and hope he finds a suitable garage for his needs in future.

The customer did have a confusion when enquiring about prices for his servicing which we hadn't even remembered until he mentioned it above but to be fair I suppose with hindsight his response to what was actually his mistake with this confusion was in keeping with his pedantic attitude here.

To clarify the 1.5 hours would be for the Oil Service and Brake Fluid change, this would seem to relate to the customers confusion about what he actually priced up.

The customer specifically requested the Vehicle Check Inspection and was given the key data printout identifying that nothing was due, he wanted it done early.

We did advise whilst the customer was waiting that the brake bleeding was taking some extra time, we stand by it being better to take 4 hours and do it properly than take 2 hours and cut corners. The car was still on the ramp when a first enquiry was received and it was having it's brakes bled when the customer was waiting. Not too sure what alternative update there is than the facts?!

To be fair, if someone is looking for a garage that will call you every half hour with an update (i.e. the technician has just picked up a spanner, the technician has just dropped your oil, the technician has just opened the door) then we are definitely not the garage for you, we will not be calling you with an update unless (a) something is broken and needs to be fixed, (b) we've found something to up sell to you or (c) the car is ready to come home.

In relation to our telephone system it is a computerised system which puts callers into a loop rather than give an engaged tone in the hope that the advisor will be able to answer the call before they hang up.

We always welcome a variety of feedback and the honest insight it provides to customer relations. The customer's further edit merely accentuates our point and we respect his choice of a one star review, which we feel demonstrates his unrealistic expectations.

We'd like to reiterate that we do wish him all the best and hope he finds a suitable garage for his requirements going forward.

As a final response to the customers THIRD edit:

There are two sides to every story, we haven’t posted anything to portray anyone in a bad manner, we’ve simply put the other side of the coin across.

Does anyone else see the irony of a customer bemoaning that he feels we have portrayed him in a bad manner in response to him leaving a negative review because his IDrive malfunctioned and the service data didn’t save and we weren’t ecstatic to serve him out of hours on a bank holiday weekend?

Not hypocritical at all to feel that we shouldn’t say what we think from our perspective in response to his opinions.

What he calls unprofessionalism we call a sense of humour, an essential thing when dealing with customer service. If you prefer a humourless type of customer service, try the main dealer. The examples were OBVIOUSLY exaggerated to an extreme to make a point, much like the customers entire review.

The customer keeps editing his review and yes we do adjust our response to answer his comments so that all of his points can be seen to be responded to. If anyone has actually managed to stay interested long enough to read all of this, you deserve a chocolate biscuit with your cuppa.

Also, for those interested, here was the original un-edited review prior to our response:
Matthew Williams just left a new 2-star review of DragonAuto.Works:
Had service here last year too and couldnt fault them, this year however... Car booked in for service at 1330 they read off any errors there and then nice touch. Hear nothing for 3 hours try messaging and calling and given that online it states it shuts at 1700 I made my way back up at 1635. I was told that the car was still on the ramp thinking that it would be 30 minutes or so. 70 minutes after getting back to the waiting I get the car back 1815. thinking that everything would've been updated correctly I checked on the way home get a message on the iDrive saying service overdue when I got the service done 4000 miles early. Rang multiple times no answer sent messages on Facebook which they left on the read status and failed to reply to. The following morning from 930-10 I was ringing as they should've contacted me first thing given that they messed up. Very rude on the phone and made it out that they were doing me a favour coming in later that day to get it fixed when it was them that caused this fault. Yes the fault got rectified however the length of time the tone on the phones and the fact it was given back to me with the iDrive updated incorrectly leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth especially taking another hour out of my day to get it sorted on the Saturday. Yes I had initial confusion with the pricing that they were giving me before they try to reply with that but this was cleared up and I paid for brake fluid and a minor oil service.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Aug 27, 2019

We have no record of any enquiry made to us about retrofitting on the day mentioned. This individual is attempting to leave a review when he states he's not even a customer and mistakenly claims to have made an enquiry via telephone to us.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Apr 15, 2019

Thank you for making time to leave us a review

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Apr 15, 2019

Thank you for the feedback Oliver, we agree that we could use another member of staff to help with the phones and are glad that you took the time to write us a review.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Apr 15, 2019

Thanks for this Mr Noddings, we appreciate your review. Sadly we are unlikely to relocate to Swansea but hopefully we'll continue to be worth travelling to.

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Apr 12, 2019

Thank you for making time to give us a review. We are delighted that you were a happy customer and hope you will use us again

Reply from DragonAuto.Works

Apr 8, 2019

Thank you for the review Mrs Webb, we're glad we were of assistance. Your time taken to write this is much appreciated.