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So I was refraining from posting this because I wanted to get the full details first...
On the 9th of July I was driving to work (30 miles on the motorway) when I heard a high pitch whine that at first I thought was coming through the stereo. The pitched varied a little with speed. I pressed on but as I got nearer to work, the noise got lower in pitch and louder. By the time I reached the main gate, it was loud enough to be heard outside as the security guard asked what I'd done to my car. Not good.
I parked up and returned an hour later to see whether it had gone, but turning the car on and depressing the accelerator caused the car to make the same noise, even before it had moved off the parking brake. The noise was not unlike a drill turning at low speed in a brick wall. As I was stationary but it was happening anyway, I thought this must be the motor spinning up the ring gear in the planetary gear box and was most likely a bearing failure on that axle.
Thinking that it needed urgent attention, I called the My Ampera line and reported that the car needed to be flat-bedded back to Bournemouth. This is when I was told that I had no breakdown cover and would need to cover it myself.
Now I reminded the nice lady that I was expecting a call back on some issues that were unresolved from the annual service over a month previously. Because of this, she agreed Vauxhall would cover the cost of the transport on this occasion, so I should get the car recovered.
I had a funeral the next day and was busy at work before this, so I called a local company who quoted £220 for 50 miles. Ridiculous. Then I called the Vauxhall breakdown line to see if I could reactivate it and get the car lifted, but that is just the AA. They put me back on to Vauxhall customer services who in turn put me back on to the My Ampera line! I explained about the £220 and was told to just go ahead and get that in the circumstances, but I thought I'd call the AA directly to see if I could join on the spot. They wanted £229 for a year's membership and to transport the car, so I went with that.
I asked the AA to send a flat bed and not bother with a patrol van, but of course a patrol van turned up anyway. He took one listen of the car and immediately called for a flat bed... That turned up an hour later and it was the original local company :roll:
It's not good having your car flat bedded at lunch time when everyone is around to see it...
I went home on the train.
Anyway, the car disappeared and I heard nothing further until after the funeral the next day. I would have thought that a courtesy call from the dealer to say it arrived would have been in order. FAIL 1.
On the Thursday I got a call out of the blue from my local Enterprise [car hire] branch to say a car was arranged for me. Could I get it that day? I said I could get back for 6pm but I was told if I got it that day it would be a Corsa 1.2. No way did I want one of them again, so I asked for an Astra at the very least.
I was on the train on the Friday, so I went in on Saturday morning to get the car. A dirty Astra 1.4 was waiting for me. The guy I was dealing with in the branch seemed to know all about my case (for some reason) and said that I was the second local Ampera owner they'd had in for a hire car in two weeks. Not sure why he needed to know this, seems like a breach of privacy. FAIL 2.
I was told that Vauxhall were covering the car but there was a £500 damage excess. I could cancel that for £9.99 a day. I didn't. I had the hire car for two days but at this point I had no idea how long the Ampera was in for. Why the hell should I have to cover the excess on a warranty courtesy car? FAIL 3. [BTW if I'd signed for that, I would have ended up being taken for over £200 in waiver fees...]
At this point I'd heard nothing more from the dealer and it occured to me that the Astra would go off-hire midday on Monday while I was at work, so I attempted to call the dealer to find out what was going on and if they could extend the hire. No one was there who could help. FAIL 4.
On Sunday I had to take the Astra to the SoCEV meet up. That went down well with the Leaf owners...
Monday came along and I got a call back to say they had no more news. My car was being stripped down. I called the My Ampera helpline to get the Astra hire extended.
Late Tuesday I called the dealer but got told the same story. A week had passed by now. I got the impression the guy was being shirty with me for calling again, but as I was having to call them I wanted to know what was going on because I was totally in the dark otherwise.
On Wednesday I chased the news via the My Ampera helpline. Eventually the dealer called and I was told that it was a bearing (only a week since I said I thought it was that) and it was going to be at least 7 days to fix. I called back My Ampera to say that I had been given an update. I asked for an Ampera if this was going to take a while, but was told that as all courtesy cars are done through Enterprise and they have no Amperas, this isn't possible. Well, Grant Thomas had just the day before had an Ampera for a 4 day test drive and that was 3 miles up the road and just finished. "Sorry but we can't." FAIL 5.
I mentioned that it was costing me £14 in petrol a day and was told that they would cover the petrol.
On the Friday I was called and told they'd ordered the bearing in but needed an O ring. Still another 7 days. Later that night we went to the cinema to see The World's End. That was just rubbing salt in the wounds. They can spare dozens of cars for ridiculous product placement but not for their own customers. FAIL 6.
On Tuesday I was called to say they had the bearing fitted but "technical [in Germany] won't let us reassemble it without the O ring". I should hope so too! There's two 400 Volt motors in there which could get very wet in the rain... At least another 5 days for the O ring. FAIL 7.
Later that week I was told that the car would be ready on Monday. I sent an email to My Ampera reminding them of the other things left over from the service in May. This meant that the car would now be ready on the following Wednesday.
I was away during that week, so I finally got the car back on the Friday. That was over 3 weeks since it was sent to the garage. A week to diagnose the issue and then a week's delay to order a second component that I think should have been ordered in parallel. FAIL 8.
I asked the service manager if he could give me the failed part or at least photos of the damage, because I wanted assurance that this would not happen again. I was told that this wasn't possible, but in fact the new bearing that was sent was a different design to the original. That suggests GM knows the original design has an issue.
When the car did come back I noticed a divergence between the lifetime MPG and the "Trip A" MPG, that I have run from the start, of over 3 MPG. I am not sure what has caused this.
There is still the issue of DAB switching to FM if you turn the car off and on within a few minutes (petrol station, cash machine timescale). That was a bug I'd asked to get fixed but clearly the latest software that was loaded last week doesn't fix it. FAIL 9.
My first trip was to drive to Cornwall. There is now more mechanical whine that is coming from the drivetrain during slow down or regen. It's not as bad as when it failed before, but it is like that which I heard at the start of the fateful journey. I'm monitoring it and hope it lasts for the 250 miles back to home. FAIL 10.
Overall I'm not impressed. It's clear that the My Ampera line is not as good as when Trevor was in charge (what happened to him?). I would expect to get informed regularly on what is going on with something like this, rather than having to chase it myself.
I am also concerned that if I can have a big mechanical failure at 19,000 miles, will this happen again? Will it happen out of warranty, because I imagine that this was not cheap for Vauxhall to fix. What was the other car off the road for, I wonder? As this was the second unscheduled visit to the garage since I got the car, I'm starting to wonder about reliability big time...
On the 9th of July I was driving to work (30 miles on the motorway) when I heard a high pitch whine that at first I thought was coming through the stereo. The pitched varied a little with speed. I pressed on but as I got nearer to work, the noise got lower in pitch and louder. By the time I reached the main gate, it was loud enough to be heard outside as the security guard asked what I'd done to my car. Not good.
I parked up and returned an hour later to see whether it had gone, but turning the car on and depressing the accelerator caused the car to make the same noise, even before it had moved off the parking brake. The noise was not unlike a drill turning at low speed in a brick wall. As I was stationary but it was happening anyway, I thought this must be the motor spinning up the ring gear in the planetary gear box and was most likely a bearing failure on that axle.
Thinking that it needed urgent attention, I called the My Ampera line and reported that the car needed to be flat-bedded back to Bournemouth. This is when I was told that I had no breakdown cover and would need to cover it myself.
Now I reminded the nice lady that I was expecting a call back on some issues that were unresolved from the annual service over a month previously. Because of this, she agreed Vauxhall would cover the cost of the transport on this occasion, so I should get the car recovered.
I had a funeral the next day and was busy at work before this, so I called a local company who quoted £220 for 50 miles. Ridiculous. Then I called the Vauxhall breakdown line to see if I could reactivate it and get the car lifted, but that is just the AA. They put me back on to Vauxhall customer services who in turn put me back on to the My Ampera line! I explained about the £220 and was told to just go ahead and get that in the circumstances, but I thought I'd call the AA directly to see if I could join on the spot. They wanted £229 for a year's membership and to transport the car, so I went with that.
I asked the AA to send a flat bed and not bother with a patrol van, but of course a patrol van turned up anyway. He took one listen of the car and immediately called for a flat bed... That turned up an hour later and it was the original local company :roll:
It's not good having your car flat bedded at lunch time when everyone is around to see it...
I went home on the train.
Anyway, the car disappeared and I heard nothing further until after the funeral the next day. I would have thought that a courtesy call from the dealer to say it arrived would have been in order. FAIL 1.
On the Thursday I got a call out of the blue from my local Enterprise [car hire] branch to say a car was arranged for me. Could I get it that day? I said I could get back for 6pm but I was told if I got it that day it would be a Corsa 1.2. No way did I want one of them again, so I asked for an Astra at the very least.
I was on the train on the Friday, so I went in on Saturday morning to get the car. A dirty Astra 1.4 was waiting for me. The guy I was dealing with in the branch seemed to know all about my case (for some reason) and said that I was the second local Ampera owner they'd had in for a hire car in two weeks. Not sure why he needed to know this, seems like a breach of privacy. FAIL 2.
I was told that Vauxhall were covering the car but there was a £500 damage excess. I could cancel that for £9.99 a day. I didn't. I had the hire car for two days but at this point I had no idea how long the Ampera was in for. Why the hell should I have to cover the excess on a warranty courtesy car? FAIL 3. [BTW if I'd signed for that, I would have ended up being taken for over £200 in waiver fees...]
At this point I'd heard nothing more from the dealer and it occured to me that the Astra would go off-hire midday on Monday while I was at work, so I attempted to call the dealer to find out what was going on and if they could extend the hire. No one was there who could help. FAIL 4.
On Sunday I had to take the Astra to the SoCEV meet up. That went down well with the Leaf owners...
Monday came along and I got a call back to say they had no more news. My car was being stripped down. I called the My Ampera helpline to get the Astra hire extended.
Late Tuesday I called the dealer but got told the same story. A week had passed by now. I got the impression the guy was being shirty with me for calling again, but as I was having to call them I wanted to know what was going on because I was totally in the dark otherwise.
On Wednesday I chased the news via the My Ampera helpline. Eventually the dealer called and I was told that it was a bearing (only a week since I said I thought it was that) and it was going to be at least 7 days to fix. I called back My Ampera to say that I had been given an update. I asked for an Ampera if this was going to take a while, but was told that as all courtesy cars are done through Enterprise and they have no Amperas, this isn't possible. Well, Grant Thomas had just the day before had an Ampera for a 4 day test drive and that was 3 miles up the road and just finished. "Sorry but we can't." FAIL 5.
I mentioned that it was costing me £14 in petrol a day and was told that they would cover the petrol.
On the Friday I was called and told they'd ordered the bearing in but needed an O ring. Still another 7 days. Later that night we went to the cinema to see The World's End. That was just rubbing salt in the wounds. They can spare dozens of cars for ridiculous product placement but not for their own customers. FAIL 6.
On Tuesday I was called to say they had the bearing fitted but "technical [in Germany] won't let us reassemble it without the O ring". I should hope so too! There's two 400 Volt motors in there which could get very wet in the rain... At least another 5 days for the O ring. FAIL 7.
Later that week I was told that the car would be ready on Monday. I sent an email to My Ampera reminding them of the other things left over from the service in May. This meant that the car would now be ready on the following Wednesday.
I was away during that week, so I finally got the car back on the Friday. That was over 3 weeks since it was sent to the garage. A week to diagnose the issue and then a week's delay to order a second component that I think should have been ordered in parallel. FAIL 8.
I asked the service manager if he could give me the failed part or at least photos of the damage, because I wanted assurance that this would not happen again. I was told that this wasn't possible, but in fact the new bearing that was sent was a different design to the original. That suggests GM knows the original design has an issue.
When the car did come back I noticed a divergence between the lifetime MPG and the "Trip A" MPG, that I have run from the start, of over 3 MPG. I am not sure what has caused this.
There is still the issue of DAB switching to FM if you turn the car off and on within a few minutes (petrol station, cash machine timescale). That was a bug I'd asked to get fixed but clearly the latest software that was loaded last week doesn't fix it. FAIL 9.
My first trip was to drive to Cornwall. There is now more mechanical whine that is coming from the drivetrain during slow down or regen. It's not as bad as when it failed before, but it is like that which I heard at the start of the fateful journey. I'm monitoring it and hope it lasts for the 250 miles back to home. FAIL 10.
Overall I'm not impressed. It's clear that the My Ampera line is not as good as when Trevor was in charge (what happened to him?). I would expect to get informed regularly on what is going on with something like this, rather than having to chase it myself.
I am also concerned that if I can have a big mechanical failure at 19,000 miles, will this happen again? Will it happen out of warranty, because I imagine that this was not cheap for Vauxhall to fix. What was the other car off the road for, I wonder? As this was the second unscheduled visit to the garage since I got the car, I'm starting to wonder about reliability big time...
