Raw Deal: Getting Jackie’s dream car resprayed turned into a long nightmare

AS everyone knows, owning a car costs money. Lots of money.

You are constantly paying out for fuel, taxes, maintenance and all those ongoing upkeep expenses that arise.

So when something goes wrong that isn’t your fault, and someone else promises to pay to have it fixed, it’s a godsend.

Or, at least, it should be.

The crux of the matter is actually getting the promised repair done.

In 2014, Jackie Silburn, of Carnoustie in Angus, bought her dream car, a red Mercedes SLK. She got it from Arnold Clark Mercedes-Benz in Kings Cross Road, Dundee.

Jackie paid cash outright and was very pleased with her car. It is, by any measure, a desirable model and looked great in an eye-catching red.

Jackie cherished her car until January this year when a stone chip meant she had to have the windscreen replaced. When the new one went in it was briefly taped in place at the top and Jackie was advised to leave the tape in place for a little while.

When she did, to her horror, some of the bodywork paint came off with it.

She immediately got in touch with the firm who replaced the windscreen, but they said they’d never heard of such a thing happening before. They reckoned the car must have been resprayed at some point in the past.

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Jackie went back to Arnold Clark in Dundee and asked what had happened.

She was told that there had been manufacture problems with Mercedes cars this shade of red and they were to again be resprayed under warranty.

She was informed that there was a backlog and that it would be April before her car could be done.

That was three months away, but Jackie resolved to be patient.

It turned out she had to be extremely patient. April came and went with no date given for when Jackie’s car was to be returned to its former glory.

She phoned several times and went back to the showroom to inquire. The staff kept saying it would be “very soon” and she was “next on the list”. But it didn’t happen.

Jackie was rather disgruntled. She contacted Raw Deal at the end of July, saying: “I worked hard to be able to afford the car of my dreams and hoped that having spent so much at a reputable dealer that I would have a nice car and be able to expect good customer service.

“This is the worst service I have had from a car dealer. I thought customer care was about keeping the customer happy.”

Raw Deal got in touch with head office.

A spokesman told us: “It looks like we had an invalid email address.

“We were a bit concerned that Mrs Silburn hadn’t heard from the branch especially as it copied us in to the email with the dates they’d sent her.”

Jackie was a little sceptical about this, but pleased that, at last, there seemed to be action.

However, it still took another few months to arrange a date for the respray and there was another surprise waiting.

The car had to be returned to Germany to have the job done.

So it was away for three weeks and only returned to Jackie at the start of December, almost a year after the windscreen tape created the problem.

Raw Deal is always happy to step in and get things going.

But we shouldn’t have to do this, customers of all companies – whether buying a car or a chocolate bar – should be treated as valuable and important.

This should happen after the sale has gone through as well as at the point of purchase.

And it should happen every single time.

Got a consumer problem? The Sunday Post’s Raw Deal team can help