Went to Arnold Clark, first and last time!
 

The C70 had a very slow leak in one tyre so they said they would do a free dunk test to see what up with it, so booked it in. This morning however the roof sensor that had been randomly claiming the roof was open decided to play up and so when i got there i asked if they could have alook at it and if they could have look to see about a rubbing sound from the rear wheels. Sure they say but itll be £100 for each just for us to diagnose the problem.

I figured as im here, fine.

So they decide to do the wheel first and to hear the rubbing rather than open the windows they put the roof down. When they get back the roof wont go back up.

They call me to say well, to manually do the roof now will be an extra £300 to diagnose.

I said, no because the issue is a sensor and you decided to put the roof down after being told there was an issue with the sensors why should i pay extra to undo what you did.

Thus i got the car back, paid them £200 for having diagnosing absolutely nothing at all, literally all they did was put the roof down then go for a short drive in it.

Promptly drove car to normal garage and roof closed with no issues.

It was my first time taking the car to Arnold Clark and having heard horror stories about them, now i understand.

Volvo Edinburgh is park of the John Clark Group based in Aberdeen, they have Volvo in Dundee as well. Arnold Clark is Glasgow based with Volvo in Stirling, Inverness and Aberdeen. I don’t know anything else about John Clark, but even though Arnold started out in the 1950’s is still going strong in spite of many stories of people ‘never going back there’.

There are countless people 'never going back there', but don't forget, there's one born every minute.

Plenty of fresh meat around for Arnold Shark ;-)

well in much of central scotland its hard to avoid them, especially for buying a car, in stirling i think maybe 80 percent of the different car dealerships are Arnold clark

Are there any specialists you can use instead?

yes and thats where i went back, and why id not used AC before

My oldest daughter's x boyfriend is a tech with a-sharks some of the stories he has told just show the greed. One in particular sums it up.
A female customer had been at Asda and had managed to lose her keys and had the vehicle recovered to the stealers. They quoted her £1500+ to change all the locks and supply reprogrammed keys bearing in mind this car was only 2 years old.
Yes we all know proof of ownership and proof of ID = keys done from the data they have but why do a £200-300 when you can rip someone off. While he was doing his pre work inspection he found her keys on the roof obscured by the roof rails / bars and showed them to his service manager. And the service manager basically supplied 2 new keys and told him to bin her keys which had her house keys on the ring. Then billed for whole job
Greed and no respect for customers would sum this up the other one that surprised me was the service managers must try to get 12 billable hours for every 8 hours a tech works
Not saying they are all like that but this one is

Some people wont agree with this, but my advice is never give a shopping list of issues for a main dealer to investigate unless you want to be disappointed with the outcome and get ripped off.

If you give someone 5 problems to solve, chances are they are going to be less focused on all 5 than if you give them only 1 problem to solve.

I've had 3 new Volvos from Arnold Clark in Inverness over recent years and can honestly say I've never had any problems with them over the years.

Sorry to hear you've been having some issues with them.

I worked with Arnold Clark for a few years and between various brands, Volvo included and whilst the company itself can be a bit militant... it's really down to the individual be it the service manager, the receptionist, the tech. The techs I had were superb - a master tech of 30yrs+ experience and at least another four guys all pushing 20yrs+ experience with Volvo. Even the newer guys were great as they were working with guys who knew the product inside out.

Unfortunately if you get your "general" technician with minimal brand specific experience or one that's a bit fed up in the role matched with a service desk who want their pound of flesh... it can be a rather grim experience. Ultimately I left as their "get the cash today, bugger tomorrow" ethos didn't sit well with me. Cars would be health checked and the issues costed and then it was pretty much expected to upsell everything on the list and if you didn't, it was the Spanish inquisition. I refused to tell customers they "needed" discs and pads when theirs were 60% worn and instead, advised that yes they probably won't last till next service but they certainly didn't need doing today. That didn't sit well with the powers of be and I left and ultimately left the trade.

As an aside, Strathmore in Perth are very well regarded by many within the Volvo circle and certainly the times I've used them, they've been superb. They're still family owned (I believe) and seem to have retained their old school, treat the customer well and secure a long term relationship ethos. My last visit was for a software update and they did the pre-requisite health check and picked up a few things, 4C shocks included but nothing was urgent and nothing was forced upon me. I t was more like friendly advice with no pressure.

An excellent dealer IMO