Citroen: A Warning!---------------by Steve Clayton

CITROEN: A WARNING!

Now what follows—if you care to indulge me—is the story of my Citroen Xsara and how a small, no more than niggly problem can escalate ten-fold.

Over the past ten months, the car in question developed a hitch which could only be described as “intermittent driver’s door un-locking failure”. Although somewhat of a mouthful, the basic symptoms were that on occasions the central locking system stuck on the driver’s door, leaving it locked. Like I said, a niggly problem sorted with the turn of a key. Although it happened only occasionally, on one of these occasions, I lifted the handle, thinking the door was open, only to discover that the niggly problem had come back---the door stayed shut and the plastic door-handle snapped and broke off in my hand. It was time to call in a mechanic.

I looked on the internet and in the Yellow Pages for a garage who might be able to rectify my now handle-less driver’s door and in both cases was struck by a place known as Citroen Birmingham. A rather grandiose title---suggesting rather pretentiously that if you had a Citroen and lived in or around the Birmingham area, this was the only place for you.

I telephoned Citroen Birmingham and explained my predicament, to which they were rather helpful and stated that for the sum of £55 a new door handle would be fitted.

At two-o’clock on the 23rd of December, as arranged, I took my car to Citroen Birmingham. I explained to one of the many desk-clerks in reception as to why I was there, and as merely a footnote, I went on to tell him about my niggly “intermittent driver’s door un-locking failure”, and asked that while the mechanic was fitting the new door handle, he might cast his expert eye over the doors inners and maybe deduce why this problem occasionally occurred---adding vehemently though, that if it was anything more expensive than tightening a loose wire, to leave well alone. He said this would be done and told me to pick the car up in about an hour and a half.

After there or there-abouts ninety minutes, I returned, and through the glass partition, that divided the reception area from the garage, noted that my car was still being worked on. Somewhat starved of focal points I started watching Citroen Birmingham in action, so-to-speak. I watched this young mechanic sitting sideways on in the driver’s seat of my car with the door wide, looking, what can only be described as, a little bemused. He stared at the door; he fiddled a bit with it; he scratched his head. Stared a bit more; fiddled a bit more and scratched his head a bit more. He then called another mechanic over. He looked at the door and did some pointing---seemingly in offering advice, before leaving the original mechanic to do a little more fiddling, staring and scratching his head. It didn’t exactly instil much confidence in me, but hey, this was putting a new door handle on---hardly brain surgery of the mechanical world.

Eventually, after a good twenty minutes of this, he drove the car out of the garage area---suggesting job accomplished. This was confirmed when the job docket was passed forth to the reception area and one of the desk clerks called me over. He explained---picking up on the information on the docket---that a new door handle was fitted and as for the “intermittent driver’s door un-locking failure”, well this couldn’t be rectified and a new central locking loop was suggested. I asked the obvious question of how much this would cost, to which he leafed through a small folder, did a little number-crunching, umm’d and arrr’d  and after some more deliberation finally reached a figure and quoted: “£288, give or take a little.”

I thought this was a little steep in fixing what was only ever a slight niggle, and knew as long as I excepted that the driver’s door might not always open on command, as long as I didn’t yank on the handle, as I’d done in breaking it, it was a hindrance I could very easily live with.

I drove the car home. Parked it. Got out. Pointed the key-pad at the car to lock it, and…NOTHING! No beep! No flash of the side-lights! Nothing! All the doors stayed perfectly un-locked, strongly suggesting  that maybe I’d gone to Citroen  Birmingham with a small  problem---paid £55 and left with a much bigger one.

I went indoors and immediately telephoned Citroen Birmingham and quite angrily explained this new predicament that they’d now presented me with. “Ah yes”, the voice on the other end said, in eventually remembering who I was. “Well, as I said, you need a new central locking loop fitted.” “Thanks to you, I do now!” I replied---biting my tongue on a host of profanities. He went on to explain in a somewhat flippant off-the-cuff manor that, well, these things happen when investigating a problem; apparently, and I quote: “wires get disturbed”.

Strangely he hadn’t mentioned the fact that ‘wires get disturbed’ on that first conversation, before any work was carried out on my car---that they would look out for a loose wire on my driver’s door, but in doing so, they might disturb other wires and render the whole central locking system quite useless. If so, I’d have not only told him to leave it well alone, I’d have probably had second thoughts on them fitting a new door handle---just in case!

He went on to kindly explain that it was possible to lock the doors manually from the inside, although neglecting to mention that this wasn’t the case with the boot. No, the boot had to stay un-locked.

After the holidays, I again telephoned Citroen Birmingham. Having calmed a little in the interim period and realising you could argue your case to your blue in the face with a large company as such, where you don’t talk to a hands-on mechanic, but a desk clerk who spews out the same glib rhetoric over and over about it not being their fault and, well---these things happen.

Having explained who I was, I told him I was willing to have a new central locking loop fitted and asked when it could be done. He told me to bring my car in on the Tuesday the 6th January, so they could asses what needs doing, with a view to actually doing the repair a day later on the Wednesday. I asked why they needed to asses the repair, when they knew what the repair was. After all, THEY told ME what needed doing. Perhaps thinking on his feet, he informed me that they needed to find the serial number of the central locking loop.  Now this I might’ve expected, if say, I’d gone to some Fred Bloggs’ backstreet garage under the arches. But this was Citroen Birmingham---the clues in the name. Surely, given the make, model, year of the car, Citroen Birmingham would have all this information without having to rummage about looking for a serial number! But no, apparently not. And not only this, just to add further insult to injury I was informed that this would cost me £44! This was £44 remember, before anybody actually did any repair. This was £44 because Citroen Birmingham was apparently ignorant to a serial number to a part to a Citroen car.

A while latter I phoned again; with much frustration I asked if I couldn’t just bring my car in and get it done---completed; without all this messing around. It was here, and not for the first time, that I learnt that the desk clerks on reception at Citroen Birmingham are not all singing from the same Hymn sheet. “Oh yeah…just bring it in tomorrow and we’ll fix it,” I was told. Great! I thought, and on the dot at eight o’clock the next morning I once again rolled up at their large premises at Small Heath.

Now if I hadn’t already learnt it, it was soon to be hammered home once again that optimism is a very fleeting thing when dealing with Citroen Birmingham. This was apparent when the desk clerk informed me on arrival that today they would only be assessing the problem---looking for this damn serial number on the central locking loop. He obviously weren’t reading from the same Hymn sheet as the one I spoke to the previous day. And apparently not even the same one as the guy I’d spoke to before that, for this one told me the cost for searching out this illusive serial number would cost £80! I quickly informed him that I’d been quoted £44 two days ago and thought £44 to be extortionate! Somewhat flustered, he went on to state that it was a big loop, and the serial number could be anywhere on the loop, and that it might take the mechanic ages to find it.

This guy was making it up as he went along---no longer singing from any Hymn sheet. It was amateur-hour personified.

As I contemplated how many years I’d get for murder with many mitigating circumstances thrown in on my defence, it was eventually put to me that maybe a small deposit could be paid today with the balance settled tomorrow on completion of the job. I agreed, and was told to come back in four hours.

Four hours on I went back. This time I dealt with a desk clerk whom I’d never seen before. He handed me back the car keys, before rather smugly letting it be known that no charge would be made for any work carried out today---which was quite fair, considering no actual work had been carried out---before presenting me with a quote.

My mind flickered over the previous quote, two weeks prior, which, if you remember had been “£288, give or take a little”.  Now call me cynical, but when places like this give you a quote, preceded by “give or take a little”, you just know it’s going to be more give than take. What I didn’t realise, until I glanced down at the quote I’d been handed, was just how much “give”. It would seem that £288, was a wild inaccuracy, for the new quote was £1346.28p----that’s a “give” of well over a thousand pounds!

£1346.28? That’s probably more than my actual car’s worth! If this was an insurance job, the insurance company would no doubt class my car a right-off!

I was angry. After all, this was a problem that they had created. Apart from the drivers door that occasionally stuck, the central locking system worked perfectly fine until Citroen Birmingham got their hands on it. Now I was quite willing to meet them half way---admitting that there was a slight defect with the driver’s door, but they weren’t. Not one bit. They were an unapologetic, unsympathetic, typically arrogant large company, still out to screw me for every penny they could, with an attitude that brimmed: ‘We’re big, you’re little, either pay up or f**k off!’

Well, I did the latter. And that was my story on how something as simple as a broken door handle escalated all the way to £1346.

Citroen Birmingham---be warned!!!