Duke Automotive

Duke Automotive responded

Mrs Glover, I want to start off by apologizing for your recent visit, we strive to completely satisfy each and every customer. We've tried contacting you but had no response. I'm sorry about the problem you had on the phone with Rick, you somehow became disconnected. I am also sorry about the miss-communication with Rick, yet he was not your service advisor, and his team was not performing the services on your vehicle, he was unfamiliar with your particular situation. As you told Rick you would be coming to pick up the vehicle, Ashley your service advisor was informed, she notified the technician. The technician then had to go onto the VA state inspection website, fill out a rejection form, create and apply a rejection sticker. The website was slow on Wednesday, which caused this to take a bit longer than normal. Your vehicle was rejected for three conditions; the driver’s mirror, a rear tag lamp bulb, and the rear parking brakes failing to hold. In regards to the mirror, I pulled the original used car inspection report, as well as the original state inspection, and the mirror was not in this condition upon sale of vehicle, it would not have passed state inspection in this condition, and therefore would have been repaired before the vehicle was sold. Also, in regards to the rear parking brakes, those were rejected for failure to hold, a parking brake cable was never mentioned. The reason for the diagnosis charge is that the rear brakes must be taken apart all the way down to determine the cause of this condition, if my technicians had found that the parking brake could be adjusted, the charge would have been less than $99.00. The diagnosis charge covers the technicians time to do this, once the cause is determined if you decided to have the repairs completed the diagnosis charge would be applied toward the cost of the repair. Since the technician had already started the work on your vehicle, with the ok from you, he would have proceeded. All inspection facilities may charge $3.00 for a re-inspection, which must be performed within 15 days. We will gladly re-inspect your vehicle for no charge, as that is the policy of Duke Automotive as a service to our customers. If you have any other concerns, or I can assist you in any way please contact me. Richard Potts Service Manager 757-539-8777

jglover210 responded

I have read Mr. Potts' response and would like to clarify a few things. To begin with, I am going to assume he did not have the correct contact information since I have no record of the dealership having tried to call or email me. As a matter of fact, upon reading his answer, I have called twice and left my name and number and have received no call back in 4 days. So I guess my only recourse is to respond publically. If Rick and I were indeed "disconnected," why didn't Ashley or anyone else call to be sure my business was concluded? In my customer service career that is how I would have handled the situation. As a matter of fact, when my husband came in to pick up the vehicle, she called him over, took one look at the name on the paperwork, informed him that someone else would concluded his transaction and went in the back. As I mentioned in my original review, for the next 20 minutes. The reason I ended up talking to Rick instead of Ashley in the first place, was while asking her questions regarding the parking brake failure to hold she seemed not to have much working knowledge of the mechanics and was hoping someone would be able to better explain to me the neccessity of the seperate $99 diagnosis fee she clearly told me would not be applied to my repairs, and the neccessity of taking apart the entire rear brake assembly. It may be Duke's policiy to apply the fee, but she informed me it was a seperate charge so that iis what I had to believe at the time. Mr. Potts says that the there was no mention of the brake cable, as if that is somehow my responsibility. To begin with, that is false as I asked both Rick and Ashley if we could just start there in an effort to try and save the $99, and if it was at that time apparent that woudn't be enough I would have no choice but to go deeper into the problem. Either way, isn't it the technician's job to know that is the first place to begin rather than dismantling the entire brake assembly, and shouldn't even have been up to me, the customer, to know and "mention" that? That is a clear example of Duke trying to make money first, and keep return customers second. I thank him for inviting me to have my vehicle reinspected but I have already done so and it passed within a week of my initial visit. Surprisingly, this is also the first time I am hearing of a slow website, when in fact I spoke directly to the gentleman that inspected the vehicle both times, and no one ever gave me that explanation either visit. The claim that the vehicle's mirror was not in the same condition upon sale is actually a little funny to me. It was not impacted or cracked. The anti glare film was slightly discolored and the reason I know it was sold in that condition is because it was my father who purchased the vehicle from Duke in 2010, and had it inspected there before selling it to me less than 2 years ago. Of course Duke wouldn't record in their paperwork that it was sold with an imperfection. To have it replaced with that original type of glass would cost in the neighborhood of $400. I opted for the basic. And yes, there was a third reason the vehicle was rejected. I didn't mention the license plate lamp bulb as it only cost $1.47 at Napa and less than a minute worth of my time to replace that very same day. I was unaware that it was out, which is why we have inspections, and I have no complaint with that. Not once has anyone simply said that I was given wrong information, treated rudely, or apologized. I created my Dealerrater account simply because of this experience and Mr. Potts' response clearly shows that the dealership still feels no responsibility for how the situation was handled. One call, one sincere apology, and I would have taken this review down or never have written it in the first place.