It's falling to bits already

I recall Mr Clarkson commenting that the new Peugeot 407 "would
probably fall to bits"

Well, today, after just over 4000 miles from new, the first bit fell
off mine. It was the stalk that controls the lights and indicators.
The end fell off, leaving me unable to turn off the lights. After ten
minutes of fiddling, I managed to turn off the headlights, but the
sidelights were still on and I could not persuade them to switch off.

I should point out that this was nothing to do with the automatic
lights, it was a mechanical problem caused by a broken switch.

I called out Peugeot Assistance, otherwise known as the RAC, who
managed to persuade the lights to turn off by pulling in the remains
of the stalk (I never thought of that, I tried everything else). This
at least saved me from the consequences of s flat battery.

I shall visit my local Peugeot dealer in the morning to try to get the
switch replaced. But at least the car is driveable.

The RAC guy was impressed by the car, and said it was only the second
407 he had been called out to. He suggested it might be an indication
of their reliability. For now, I will reserve my judgement!

Martin

 

....or because the 407 has not been around very long, and that there are
thousands of RAC staff.

 

To be fair,
it was a component failure,
probably made by outside manufacturer,
I believe the car will prove to be a typical Peugeot winner
I changed one of these switches on a 1994 405 dt recently, it had done
180-000 miles, the indicators would not switch off on this car, (not bad
going)
Fitzy

 

You mean like the 807? Peugeot may have known how to make cars once, but
they don't appear to do now - and worse than that, Peugeot UK don't give
a damn about their customers.

Matt

 

In message <>

Dunno about Peugeot UK, by my local dealer, Castles, are happy enough
to sort it out quickly once they get the replacement part. Even
though I didn't buy the car from them.

Martin

 

My 807 (bought new) has been back to two different dealers a couple of
dozen times. Recently they had it in for a month to have more than 30
faults supposedly fixed. In less than a week there were problems again.
It is in the supplying dealer again at the moment to have a list of 11
faults looked at.

They have had it for a week now. I don't know when I'll get it back.
Peugeot UK have told me that I have to expect the "occasional problem".
Their attitude is that I should continue to take the heap of junk back
to the dealers ad-nauseum - they don't care about the disruptive effect
this has on us, and can't understand that this simply isn't acceptable
for a car that cost the best part of £23k.

That's when they actually bother to reply to you - it took me more than
a month to get someone from Peugeot UK to talk to me about the problems
with the car and the dealers. Even when you get a "customer care
manager" assigned, you can't call and talk to them - you get promised a
call back "within two working days" - which means that if you call on
Monday morning you are supposed to get a call back by the end of
Wednesday. In my experience that often didn't happen. If you call to
complain, your complaints are passed to the same "manager" that is
failing to deal with you. If you want to escalate, you are told to
write a letter to Brian Steele, the head of "customer care", with a
promised 5 day response time. When you get a letter back, it is woolly
words from the manager you were complaining about saying how sorry they
are that you aren't happy to be messed around and ignored.

I've worked out that I've spent more than a full working week just
taking and collecting the car from the dealers. I've done more than
1,000 miles just dropping off and collecting it (the dealers are both 10
miles away, so drive there in two cars, return in one, go back in one
and return in two means 60 miles per abortive repair attempt). Peugeot
UK's comment - never mind, take it back to the dealer and let them have
another go at fixing it. I have no idea how many hours I've spent on the
phone trying to get this resolved.

They may have been a good car company once (I've been very happy with
all the previous Peugeots I'd owned), but their inability to fix our car
and don't-give-a-damn attitude means I'll never buy another. I can't
believe how abysmally they have treated us or how appallingly bad the
quality of the car itself is. Incidentally, neither of the 807 courtesy
cars we've had have been fault free either...

Matt