This isn’t a post for my friends and regular readers, but something I want to have online as a testament in case anyone wants to search for accounts about dealing with AAA, Carmax service (at least here in Indianapolis) or Tom Wood Volkswagen.
So now that we’ve had a little time to calm down and gain some perspective, I’ll fill in the gaps of our little experience that we dealt with three companies… AAA, Carmax, and Tom Wood Volkswagen (a local Indy VW dealership).
So we do have the car back, but it took a day shy of 3 weeks to get it. That’s 20 days for you all keeping score… The final things fixed were a water pump and thermostat.
Now for the involved parties. If I were a teacher grading this experience… I’d give AAA an A+… Carmax an F… Tom Wood VW a D…
AAA was johnny on the spot arriving earlier than quoted, and delivered the car to Carmax quickly with all the right signatures and customer service to back it up.
Carmax misplaced the car… Couldn’t diagnose / repair the car… Couldn’t communicate when there was news… Over communicated when there wasn’t news… Withheld a rental for 13 days… And didn’t hold the VW dealership accountable for their screw ups.
Tom Wood VW… Since I haven’t blogged about them, I’ll give a bit of history. I’ve had many dealings with other Tom Wood dealerships. Sometimes really good – sometimes really bad – and everything in-between. As far as the VW dealership, I almost got my Jetta TDi there, but the sales didn’t seem that eager to get me the options I wanted when another local dealer had it in stock and better financing. I did help my mother buy her Passat there, but she lives and has it serviced in Maine where she lives. This was our first dealing with Tom Wood VW service. I’ll admit that they are kind of in a bad spot since the closure of one of the other two VW dealerships/service centers in town (the only reason I didn’t give them an F). But that doesn’t give license to drag feet on diagnosis, agree on problem with Carmax after replacing a newish thermostat, then fix something completely different while not keeping the customer informed. This ranks up with one of the worst service experiences for a dealership, and I know it will have an impact on if I want to consider a VW in the future.
So in the end… I love AAA. Carmax had a good record in our book before this, but had really bad go of it this time. Tom Wood Volkswagen service is overwhelmed and pretty bad on top of that. It’s too bad. I really like VW’s. and Carmax was a trusted business before this.