Car Problem

For the past few weeks we have been having problems with the car, well I call it a car but it’s a Fiat Ducato, which is the Fiat equivalent to the Transit, it’s a wheelchair accessible adapted vehicle.

The problem is that it has been making rather strange noises when driving, I was pretty convinced it was a drive/transmission related issue rather than engine as it only happens when actually moving, it started a couple of weeks ago and has got gradually worse, yesterday I finally got round to contacting the fiat dealer to get it booked in to be looked at.

One of my BIG bugbears with the vehicle has always been that, before we signed the contract for this particular vehicle I specifically went to the local fiat dealer, in Bedford, to make sure that they were able to service commercial vehicles, they said yes! But by the time we had the vehicle delivered they had stopped doing Fiats altogether! Leaving us with the option of going to either Milton Keynes or Northampton. A minimum of 22 miles.

We tried the dealers at both locations for servicing but weren’t happy with either, for a number of reasons, but this time round when we needed to get this problem looked at I discovered that there is yet another dealer, also in Milton Keynes, who can service the vehicle now, so I have opted to take it there, I took it to them today for them to look at and they have diagnosed the problem and booked it in for 2 weeks time to be sorted, hopefully.

Anyhow, so far this new dealer seems to be much better, their whole communication and customer service skills seems streaks above the others and they have been making the right noises throughout, obviously time will tell but at last, half way through our 5 year contract, we seem to have found a dealer who we can rely on and trust to look after us.

So the biggest problem I had today was finding my way to the dealer! This should not have been a problem as I have sat nav and that is normally totally reliable, the thing is that sat nav is only as good as the idiot who programmes it and because I transposed 2 digits it took me to the wrong place, the actual postcode was MK6 4AG but I entered it as MK4 6AG leaving me at completely the wrong end of the city! Then not having a clue where to go as I hadn’t realised what the problem was! Perhaps I need to learn from this and make sure that I take a written note of addresses with me just in case there is a problem, however I wont have a problem finding the fiat dealer again as I have set it as a favourite on my sat nav, I am a fan of such technology and always feel that the problems encountered are due to human error more often than actual problems with the technology itself and this problem illustrates that clearly, it also illustrates that I am only human and fallible.

Anyhow, you are probably wondering now what the problem was, it turns out to be a bearing that’s wearing out so they have had to order the part in and, as I said, have booked it in for the problem to be rectified in a fortnight, one good thing for us is that we don’t have to pay for the problem with the vehicle as it is a motability vehicle and the costs are covered under the contract hire scheme.