I will try and keep my long story as short as possible!
We brought our US VW Routan minivan over from the US back in 2009 and at the time we imported it into Germany. Since in Germany you have to have yellow/orange blinker lights, some conversion work was done in the electrical. Our former reverse lights were turned into the blinkers and a reverse light and a fog light was mounted to the bottom of our rear bumper.
Last month, something faulted in this system and the right rear blinker light was constantly burning (but not blinking). This of course caused the battery to run down when it was parked from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning.
I took the car into my garage (we use a Chrysler dealer as the Routan is a Chrysler underneath the hood) for repair. After some investigative work, they suggested we return the car to its original configuration, that while a red blinker light isn't preferred here, it is allowed. They said this would most certainly be the cheaper route. We decided since we were going to have the car in for this electrical work, we would get a rearview camera system installed at the same time. The guy said he knew of a great deal on a system that he would get for us and we thought - great!
So, the electrical work got done but the camera never arrived so 2 weeks later we brought the car back for the installation of the camera. This was this past Monday. We picked the car up on Tuesday - when the guy called my husband he didn't want to tell him what the costs were as they were so high - he wanted to explain in person. Not a good sign, especially for Switzerland :eek:
Husband went to pick up the car and was told there were so many hours of work involved (over 4000 CHF worth) and that they gave us a deal and all our work would be 3200 CHF. This is to repair a broken rear blinker in an admittedly convoluted electrical system, install a rear view camera (I think this was on the order of 600-700 quoted before hard), and balance the tires.
Now, my problem is, I see how this is NO way cheaper than if they had kept the re-wired system and just gotten a new relay or sensor or whatever would have been required. It seems to me they got in the work, it was harder than they thought and they spent soooo many hours on it.
At that point, shouldn't they have called and said it was going to be a lot more or considered going the other route? Unfortunately, we didn't get a quote up front and I know in the future I will do so, so please take it easy on me. :o
Finally, we hate the camera system they installed, and hate doesn't really describe it, not strong enough of an emotion - tiny screen, wobbly mount, can't really see it from where I sit in the driver's seat and where it is mounted on the windscreen without squinting or leaning forward, and because it is a wireless system the picture flickers. Also, the camera itself is mounted at the top of the back of the car, to the left of our break light. Not only is this unsightly (IMO), it is not a central location and it gives a weird perspective behind you as it isn't straight back, but rather down from the top, if that makes sense.
I called them to tell the guy I am 100% unhappy with the camera situation. Again, we trusted him when he said he had a great system that was available and didn't question further. We have since looked it up, the camera is available for 100 at Amazon.de and because it is a wireless solution (although at the time he told us about it he said it was bluetooth, which to me meant more sophisticated, which it obviously is not) the installation should have been much easier, the way I understand it. The guy wasn't there yesterday so we arranged that I will go in tomorrow morning to talk to him about it.
Do I have any hope that anything gets resolved in my favor - they take out the camera and install something I want at no extra cost and maybe reduce some of the other bill? 3200 chuffs is a load of cash, and I also feel like they didn't handle it professionally.
Am I being a whiny expat (note, this is a rhetorical question :D)
ps - sorry for not being concise, but wanted to try and give as much info from the beginning to make things more clear!
We brought our US VW Routan minivan over from the US back in 2009 and at the time we imported it into Germany. Since in Germany you have to have yellow/orange blinker lights, some conversion work was done in the electrical. Our former reverse lights were turned into the blinkers and a reverse light and a fog light was mounted to the bottom of our rear bumper.
Last month, something faulted in this system and the right rear blinker light was constantly burning (but not blinking). This of course caused the battery to run down when it was parked from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning.
I took the car into my garage (we use a Chrysler dealer as the Routan is a Chrysler underneath the hood) for repair. After some investigative work, they suggested we return the car to its original configuration, that while a red blinker light isn't preferred here, it is allowed. They said this would most certainly be the cheaper route. We decided since we were going to have the car in for this electrical work, we would get a rearview camera system installed at the same time. The guy said he knew of a great deal on a system that he would get for us and we thought - great!
So, the electrical work got done but the camera never arrived so 2 weeks later we brought the car back for the installation of the camera. This was this past Monday. We picked the car up on Tuesday - when the guy called my husband he didn't want to tell him what the costs were as they were so high - he wanted to explain in person. Not a good sign, especially for Switzerland :eek:
Husband went to pick up the car and was told there were so many hours of work involved (over 4000 CHF worth) and that they gave us a deal and all our work would be 3200 CHF. This is to repair a broken rear blinker in an admittedly convoluted electrical system, install a rear view camera (I think this was on the order of 600-700 quoted before hard), and balance the tires.
Now, my problem is, I see how this is NO way cheaper than if they had kept the re-wired system and just gotten a new relay or sensor or whatever would have been required. It seems to me they got in the work, it was harder than they thought and they spent soooo many hours on it.
At that point, shouldn't they have called and said it was going to be a lot more or considered going the other route? Unfortunately, we didn't get a quote up front and I know in the future I will do so, so please take it easy on me. :o
Finally, we hate the camera system they installed, and hate doesn't really describe it, not strong enough of an emotion - tiny screen, wobbly mount, can't really see it from where I sit in the driver's seat and where it is mounted on the windscreen without squinting or leaning forward, and because it is a wireless system the picture flickers. Also, the camera itself is mounted at the top of the back of the car, to the left of our break light. Not only is this unsightly (IMO), it is not a central location and it gives a weird perspective behind you as it isn't straight back, but rather down from the top, if that makes sense.
I called them to tell the guy I am 100% unhappy with the camera situation. Again, we trusted him when he said he had a great system that was available and didn't question further. We have since looked it up, the camera is available for 100 at Amazon.de and because it is a wireless solution (although at the time he told us about it he said it was bluetooth, which to me meant more sophisticated, which it obviously is not) the installation should have been much easier, the way I understand it. The guy wasn't there yesterday so we arranged that I will go in tomorrow morning to talk to him about it.
Do I have any hope that anything gets resolved in my favor - they take out the camera and install something I want at no extra cost and maybe reduce some of the other bill? 3200 chuffs is a load of cash, and I also feel like they didn't handle it professionally.
Am I being a whiny expat (note, this is a rhetorical question :D)
ps - sorry for not being concise, but wanted to try and give as much info from the beginning to make things more clear!