riving to work this morning was a bit of a drama. I was driving along my regular route, came to a round about and the car stalls. I get it re-started, it stalls again….btw did I mention it’s an automatic? Start the car again, pump the gas and manage to get it moving, I could feel it was about to stall again so I drove it around the round about and back down the hill so that I could get out of the traffic and find somewhere to pull over.
Once I managed to pull off the main road and came to a stop I dug around in the car’s manual to work out which service light was blinking at me. Lucky me, it was the Engine Management system light. I tried starting the car again, still no luck.
Being that the car was less than 7 days old, yes that is correct….7 days old!, I rang the dealer I bought it from, John Patrick Prestige Cars in Port Macquarie, to find out what was going on. They immediately suggested I ring Peugeot’s ‘Roadside Assistance’ team to get it taken care of “quickly”.
Peugeot Australia’s roadside assistance, like many other brands, is operated by a 3rd party company named Mondial Assistance who couldn’t find my car in the system at all. Not by the registration number, the VIN, business name, dealer name, my name, nothing….. Fortunately they believed me enough to log some details and from their they booked a tow truck to come and pick the car up.
About an hour later the towie arrives, he’s a pretty nice guy and goes through a bunch of little ‘tricks’ he said sometimes work’s on the Peugeots. They didn’t help at all, so off to Regal Motors in Newcastle which is the nearest Peugeot repair centre to me.
A little later in the morning I ring Regal Motors in Newcastle, and after being transferred to the service department find out that they’ve definitely received my car in but they don’t know when they’ll be able to look at it as they have a few mechanics off sick.
y now I’m pretty peeved as I’m getting nowhere fast. I decided to give the dealer, John Patrick Prestige Cars, a call and speak to their service manager. He tells me that I should ring Peugeot’s ‘Roadside Assistance’ as they should be able to organise the service for me, he also said they should be able to sort out a loan car.
The girl I spoke to at Peugeot ‘Roadside Assistance’ tells me that it’s the dealers issue to sort out and that they only provide loan cars when you break down outside 100km from your home. She suggested I get back on to the dealer and give them a bit of a serve.
Back to the dealer I go… The service guy from the dealership I bought the Peugeot from wants to know who I was talking to at Peugeot ‘Roadside Assistance’, as I think he wanted to finally get to the bottom of the “whose responsibility is it” issue….but I couldn’t remember her name so he was left trying to sort something out with Regal Motors because by now I was very peeved and told them that I really needed this sorted out.
And that’s where I’m up to now… Still no closer to a loan car, still no closer to knowing what’s wrong with my car, still no closer to any damn answers.
Update: just heard back from John Patrick Prestige Cars service manager that Regal Motors is working on my car today. They don’t know what’s wrong with it but they reckon it’ll be fixed this afternoon. I love their confidence!
Update: apparently the ‘fuel sender’ has failed. Should be replaced first thing in the morning, along with the fuel filter, so hopefully I should have the Pug back around lunch time tomorrow.