'I've got much more important things to worry about than your car.'

As you can imagine, by this time we were getting a bit fed up at having to keep taking our 'new' car back to the garage for repairs. So we thought we'd try and talk to the manager and explain that we were not happy.

Monday 20 November 2006
We phoned Fife Mitsubishi to complain that the scratch on the paintwork had not been repaired and tell them about the cracked windscreen, which we thought probably happened when the dashboard was being replaced. We were told to bring the car in so the mechanic could assess the crack in the windscreen. We also arranged to speak to the senior member of staff (Alan Walker, manager). My husband drove to Cupar in the afternoon and showed the mechanic the windscreen, and he realised that it was not caused by an impact or accident. The garage agreed to replace the windscreen without charge.

My husband also spoke with Alan Walker to tell him that we felt we had been sold a substandard car and that we were not very happy with the after-sales service we had received so far.

At this point I think it would be interesting to look at what Fife Mitsubishi say about their after-sales service on their website:

We recognise that, as our customer, you are the most important aspect of our business and our success depends upon our ability to provide you with outstanding levels of lifetime care. We also hope that the level of service you receive at our dealership contributes to the enjoyment you may expect from buying and owning a Mitsubishi.

I have to say that this is not quite our experience! During the brief conversation he had with Alan Walker, my husband was made to feel that he was in the way and Alan was really not interested at all in the difficulties we had experienced, to quote 'I've got much more important things to worry about than your car.'

Bit of a constrast between this attitude and the website quote, don't you think?

However, as I said he did finally agreed to replace the windscreen free of charge but would not even entertain the idea of compensation for our time and costs for journeys to and from the garage to repair problems that should not have been present in the car when we bought it.

We were given a time for getting the windscreen repaired (23 November) and it was suggested that the scratched paintwork could be repaired at the next service as time would have to be booked for this with the bodyshop.

Another round trip of 38 miles.