chabot150

Hello all,

I am not a regular poster on this site. I prefer to do more of my time driving then talking about cars. Let me give you some background information to my problem with Valenti Motors in Watertown, CT. Sorry for the length of the post.

I purchased a Black 2009 Audi TTS Prestige in September of 2009 from Danbury Audi in Danbury, CT. I chose Danbury because of past poor experiences with Valenti and due to a lower cost vehicle. I recently passed 5,000 miles and inquired about my 5,000 mile service. I contacted Danbury Audi and learned that the service takes approximately 2 hours. Given that Danbury Audi is about an hour away, I simply could not find an available time to make it to Danbury Audi for the service. My only available service location was Valenti due to their proximity to my work.

I dropped the car off on Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at approximately 10:30 a.m. I retrieved my car later on in the day at approximately 4:00 p.m. When I arrived, my car was parked in the shade and appeared to be looking fine. Later on that evening while getting gas, I noticed what appeared to be dry wax that wasn’t wiped off. However, it was not wax. There were scratches, thousands of them, all over the clear coat of the car. I immediately called Valenti only to get the service department’s voicemail. I left a message hoping for an easy resolution.. Today, I had yet to hear from Valenti, so I placed another call to them. I was referred to a service manager by the name of Lou Hart. We set up an appointment for later on in the afternoon.

I arrived at Valenti and met with Lou Hart. I showed him my areas of concern (the numerous scratches in the clear coat of the car). He said that the scratches must have been there before hand and they simply weren’t seen because there was wax on the car previously. He said a wax job would take care of the scratches. He admitted his service department did a lousy job of getting the dirt off the car, yet he said they couldn’t possibly be from their service department because they use top of the line chamois to dry the car. I informed him that it wouldn’t make a difference what kind of drying cloth they used on the car if they didn’t eliminate the dirt and road gunk from the cars surface. He simply scoffed at this notion and said there was nothing they can do, because they didn’t cause the scratches.

Unfortunately, this hasn’t been my first poor experience with Valenti Audi. On my previous car, a 2004 Audi A4 1.8T, they failed to do a brake job that I had paid for. They also failed to describe the limitations for their iPod connection after I made it clear that I was expecting it to be able to change songs directly from the iPod. They refused to refund me the $300 or so it cost for the connection even though I hadn’t even left the lot when I voiced my initial complaint about the ineptitude of the iPod connection.

I have gone ahead and contacted Audi of America. They are looking into the situation. In the mean time, my best advice would be to avoid Valenti VW, Valenti Audi, Valenti Saab, and Valenti Lotus. They obviously do not care about treating their customers with class and concern. If anyone would like any more information, I would be glad to discuss this with you in even more depth.

Nicholas Chabot
Chabot150@gmail.com

am_ver

Exactly the reason why I explictly tell the SA 'PLEASE DO NOT WASH MY CAR' when I drop it for service. The micro-web scratches are caused by a dirty drying towel.

haha bye

You didnt learn your lesson after the first bad experience with them?

BlueSander

Thanks for letting us know.

uberwgn

I'm afraid this sad tale could be played out at many dealerships across the country. I've heard it so many times

Solution: Have the car professionally detailed and seek reimbursement from Valenti.

The G Man

You can pretty much find dezons of these complains in every forum, my dealer put scratches on my black car while washing it. This is why I dont buy black cars and if I did, I certainly would not let anybody else but myself wash the car.