Grandons

Popped in today to get my thermostat done and in fairness they were top class. Had plenty time to give and everything was very professional. I know some people had different experiences but credit where its due anyways.

Originally Posted by qawsed

Popped in today to get my thermostat done and in fairness they were top class. Had plenty time to give and everything was very professional. I know some people had different experiences but credit where its due anyways.

i'd concur with that, had 2 cars from them, had them both serviced there when in cork and recently had the fiat serviced there. i think they are expensive but to be fair i have never had to return because of any problem

I will never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever did I say ever go there with even a push bike.

I was insulted the last time I was there, trying to buy my Dad some Alfa Romeo goodies and was looking at a Spider. Then outta no where pops Martin and was talking to me all grand etc. Seemd sound then I was leaving he was shouts in front of a full dealership one of them wheels are worth more than your car. I looked and shook my head and walked out the door will never spend a cent in there again.

Ya thats out of order alright. I was dealing with Ray in the service department and he spent around half an hour with me and the car listening to the noise from the engine. Thought they were very good. Couldn't comment on the sales side really!

To be fair, Grandons where great back in 2000 the had an English fella named Nigel quite possibly the best Alfa mechanic other than the lads in The Sweep. Give the sweep anything and they will fix and find it in no time same could have said for Nigel the man was a legend when it came to spotting problems with engines and anything Alfa Romeo shame they ever lost him. You could once say that about Grandons but to be fair we gave up using them in feb 2003 when they did the first service on the 147 and took it for a 10 mile test drive for whatever reason I dunno but you certainly don't need to take a car for a test drive after a service.

But they may have changed but I will never bring any of my Alfa's there and I don't think the old fella will either.

Ah ya thats fair enough. Just going on today I might give them a shot. Went out of their way when they didn't have to! I still have to get this bloody engine noise nailed for definate. They thought it was probably a tensioner and I'll prob drop down to Bandon soon to see what they think. Luv these Alfas!

Just a "little!" note about grandons.
1. First car bought from them was a 6 month old 146 Junior.

Car was in grandons on a number of occasions not too many but when i handed the car in i wud have say 4 problems.... when the car came back it wud have 2 fixed and another 4 problems.....this went on and on for 2 years until i bought my brand new 147 1.6 sportivo.

Driving out from the garage on the purchase day my petrol gauge did not work but thought maybe just a glitch!

In the life of that car 12 months the car was in the garage 26 times (i have all the letters etc to prove this) I travelled quite a bit then and put 12000 miles (12034 to be exact!) on their cars... as it was warrenty they were obliged ..

In october of 2002 I had the car in for a 24000 mile service and also another piece of warranty work. On saturday of the same week i checked the oil level and lo and behold there was no oil in the sump and i dont mean some on the dipstick . NONE

i bought oil to fill the sump and on monday took another days leave and dropped the car to Grandons.... They were told not to touch it just to diagnose the problem!!!!!

On the wednesday when I didnt hear from them I rang and the warranty guy , a chap I think called pennington ( maybe wrong) stated that they had found the problem ... they had forgotten to put back a valve seal

I then traded this car in and bought a 2.0 litre sportivo....

First problem was a creak from the steering rack .... Foreman in grandons said it was normal ? decided then to get a second opinion and brought the car to the sweep in waterford as i had heard their mechanic was knowledgeble..... Their was no hesitation the rack was replaced that week under warrenty no question ...

Since Oct 2002 I have gone to the sweep...........

They have never ever not diagnosed a problem.... If i hand the car to them I have never ever had to return as they do what they say on the tin..........
Just a point to confirm this.

I had a slight misfire in the car but it was very intermittent....They did not throw parts at the car but thier mechanic found that one of the spark plug leads had a slight bit of corrosion on one side and in extreme circs would cause a slight misfire... Now thats what i call a good mechanic...

I did tell you it would be a small post

Now Im glad Grandons has been good to you here but be carefull ... imho if you gave them a pushbike they would blow a tyre on it and then replace the saddle

Wow! I was warned you didn't have the best experiences with them! Sorry to hear that. Only had the one experience with them today and it was very positive but sur thats dealers for ya!

sorry gawsed did go on a bit there is more but that is the abbreviated version

Bought my 147 in Grandons in 2004 and had the servicing etc done there for 2 years. In fairness to them they weren't bad, never charged me for a curtesy car while being serviced even though theres a sign on the counter giving prices for curtesy cars.

First main problem was the warning lights coming on in the dash and speedo stopped working, they first replaced the ABS unit thinking that was the problem. That didn't work so they replaced the ECU and everything has worked fine since.

The reason I stopped going to them - Was getting the variator replaced during the second service and happened to ask as I was dropping the car in that morning whether they were going to replace the pulleys/tensioners while they were changing the timing belt. Receptionist asked the service manager and he told me that the timing belt wasn't going to be replaced as it only had 24000 on it was going to be put back on after the variator was replaced. Needless to say a bit of a heated discussion (mainly on my side) ensued after this. Now I'm not a mechanic but I know for damm sure that a timing belt goes straight into the bin as soon as it comes off regardless of how many miles is on it. A quick trip to Bandon had the variator and timing belt kit done under warranty without any fuss.

Oh, and the idiots put my car through there old car wash (the one with the rope brushes) and it took the weekend of polishing to get all the scratches out of it. If it hadn't been raining when I picked it up I'd have seen the scratches and made them polish them out.

It's that type of thing that make them bad imo. A main dealer should be doing these things to keep the reputation of the cars someway better than they are percieved in Ireland.

they charged me a fiver for windscreen fluid.... I filled up the fluid on the drive to the freakin garage???

Originally Posted by bobdonny

they charged me a fiver for windscreen fluid.... I filled up the fluid on the drive to the freakin garage???

Ya that sounds like the Grandon's I know allright.

Its good that they have Peugeot dealership coz they know nothing about our cars imho

Have very positive and negative experiences from Grandons. First went in to look at one of their 147s and 156s. The sales man (Michael or Mike i believe) laughed at me and basically said get out, u can't buy this car. Went back again wit reinforcements as i'd fallen for the 156 and spoke to Ken Grandon and was very impressed and bought the 04 156 that day but was promised original radio, NCT cert and few other things like manual and so on, I just had to call in next monday when the parts manager Noel came back from hols. 6 weeks later i have received none of those things and am now being charged 260euro for the radio. Since then i have found the back air con vent is broken they fixed that free of charge, the crap ass radio some idiot stuck in it doesn't work, they did fix that free of charge and now my driver door handle has broken and they are currently ordering that for me who knows if they'll charge me!!! In the 6 weeks i've owned the car I've been there abt 3 times a week..... this can't continue and i imagine i wil not buy another car from them again as they are one of the most expensive places to buy any car in Ireland just check carzone!!!!! Also last visit there i had that Mike guy say to me as i stood next to a Fiat Bravo, "thats the car u should have bought girlie" and walked away laughing..... A**holes!!!!

They really are a bunch of a fools to be honest. Are you young by any chance?? Because I have had the same experience myself as you can see above.

That lunacy for the radio. Why you want a standard one?? You can buy a nice Alpine for that money??

To be honest didn't want to pay anything for a radio, I PRESUMED it would come with a car. Just want the thing thats in it to go away n figure the original one would suit the car. First impressions of it is nice cos its nice screen n stuff but its shocking to use n its a pretty old model of MP4 player. Doesn't suit the car at all.
Ya im 22 so embarassingly had to bring my father wit me for them to take me seriously!
Really ruining the whole great feeling of buying the car.

Btw whats the alpine like?
Sorry im a newbie!!!

Alpine have a big range of headunits I have one in my car. Ahh ya I'm the same age they had the same kinda of attitude to me there too.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y12...f/Image014.jpg

That's mine.

I bought my first ever new car (€54k) on the 31st of Jan 2008 - after I told them to wait until Feb for tax reasons. In fairness they included the form that I could take to the garda station so I wouldn't get stuck for the tax - My inconvenience their sales targets!

First thing - Although advertised as being in the car (and still advertised on their in-store brochure) the car didn't have cruise control. After trying to get out of it they eventually offered two years free servicing. Fair enough.

There were a few niggles wrong with my car, but because I live nearly 60 miles away from them it was a few months before I got back to their garage. I booked a day to go to their garage and when I turned up on the day the service guy I arranged time with wasn't there and they didn't have a record of me being due to call - In fairness to them they pretty much saw me straight away. Although it took way longer than it should have to fix what they did.

The next day I was booked in to get a tyre changed in a garage closer to me (side wall punctured in a pot hole!) . He was shocked at the state of my two front tyres. They were worn unevenly - Very badly. On the inside the tyre was like a slick F1 tyre and obviously very dangerous - This after approx 5k miles. (these are €320 tyres btw) and he thought there was something seriously wrong with the steering.

I phoned Grandons back and told them my tale of woe. They said, that’s right we’ve got the photos. I was taken aback and I didn’t realise what he was saying and I was confused. I thought he was mixing me up with someone else and I said that didn’t make sense. He turns to someone in the background who says ‘I took the F’ing pictures myself what is he saying…’ At this point I was put on hold!
Service guy comes back on and says he will email me the pictures. In my innocence I’m still confused. Then I get pictures of my worn tyres and a picture of my clock. It finally dawned on me that Grandon’s knew there was a serious problem with my tyres/steering and never told me!!! At this point I was ready to chew the phone, but I’m too much of a professional to let them grind me down.

THAT service guy said he’d order two new tyres for me - That’s me happy and theyd look at the steering. However, I phone up a week later after getting no call back to be told that service guy had left the company. Now, over a week later this guy wanted to see the tyre I’d got replaced (Needless to say they tyre is gone) and the photos (their photos remember) aren’t good enough for the FIAT warranty guy who wants to see the tyres and car.

I’ve been booked into see the warranty guy about a month after originally bringing this to their attention. Another month of my car’s steering being FUBAR.

Now, the way I see it I’m giving them enough rope - because if they think I’m going to say ‘right so’ if the FIAT warranty guy says ‘I can’t see one tyre so I can’t help you with that one’ then they are in for a surprise.

Now, I will say that the current service guy seems to be trying to get my car looked at closer to home. One point in their favour.

However, I’m in my mid 30’s, a car lover, and a person who will most likely change my car going forward at least every three years. And I do like the 159 TI as a car. My next car will most certainly be a Brera type car - why don’t Grandon’s want me to buy from them ever again?!? Because as it stands I’d be a fool to trust them again.

Sorry for the rant, I had intended to write a brief synopsis, but then it just flowed…

Sorry to hear your woes Smcgiff. But I recommend The Sweep personally myself to go and buy a car off them instead of Grandons Anytime I have been in their and they have a new Alfa or FIAT they always let me take it out for a spinto see what it is like. Their service manager is great knows the cars through and through. I know it's a trek to Waterford but worth it.

Thanks Damien,

BTW, where were you 6 months ago!