Fiat Breakdown not very professional

barge1914

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Fiat Camper Breakdown number 0080034281111 is the only way to contact them. It’s an International Freephone that many UK mobiles cannot or will not connect to, and even if one does it’s at the privilege of paying as an international call…an expensive way of listening to music.
Previously you could ring Fiats RAC commercial breakdown local number directly, but since Stellantis have taken over (and they say so themselves) there is no alternative UK number. You could ring Fiat Customer Service and ask them to put you through, but on a Sunday when they don’t work…chocolate fireguards come to mind.

I did manage to contact them Friday…only by asking a dealer to call them and ask them to ring me.

Their cheerful and helpful Breakdown man from Dumfries diagnosed a NOX sensor error, cleared it off the log and said if it comes back it’s ok to drive to a Fiat Professional garage. Stellantis’s geographically challenged young lady told me the nearest was at Newtown Abbot, indeed from Stranraer it probably is! Otherwise nearest that can fix under warranty is Keswick.

Of course it’s come back, along with stop start error, inactive MODE selection button, and a grumpy erratic reverse camera connection…and it’s Sunday, Dealer, Fiat Customer Services and Garage all have their collective feet up after Sunday dinner. I’m only glad I didn’t have a proper emergency!

Nevertheless since the extended warranty runs out end of month and off to Europe in Feb I could use their help in getting booked in and sorted ASAP. If I wait till home the local Fiat place will probably say as usual…we can fix you in a 5 weeks time!

Anyone else solved this communication conundrum?
 
I'm sorry to hear about your experience. I had to call them on a Sunday, was connected quickly at no extra cost and had a very good response. As we had a cat and dog with us we chose to stay ( free as it was a breakdown ) at a service station until Monday. We were then take 120 miles on a low loader to a garage that could start work on Monday night, they worked a double shift. We had a free hire car and kept it for a day longer that the repairs took as it was more convenient for us. All in all very pleased with the service we received.
We had to call a foreign number initially but after that were given a UK number.
 
Glad it went well. Problem is when they called me they wouldn’t or couldn’t give a UK number. I think it’s only been like this since Stellantis set up their own Breakdown service and took over from RAC. As a matter of interest do you still have the number they gave you?
 
Google . Say no to 0845 . Serch number of name for alternative numbers. Given
 
Use any Search engine. The web site is still out th3re to get alternative numbers for cheaper calls.
 
And so, the saga continues. The Fiat place in Keswick ran diagnostics and said ‘ah it’s a stored fault’, Fiat will only pay for us to investigate if it’s ‘active’. So that will be £60 please’. ‘We’ve cleared it. Come back if it happens again and don’t turn your engine off’.

So, 3 miles down the road the warning light reappears, back to Keswick.
‘Ah’ says the mechanic ‘it’s active now so we can look at it’.

He wobbles fuses and jiggles relays. Says, ‘I need to look underneath at the NOX sensor, can’t do that here’ (indeed as the service bays are car height. There’s one round the front with an engineless car in it and it’s buried behind a sea of cars for sale on the forecourt). ‘Call in the morning and the service manager will fit you in’.

So it’s a night in a campsite miles outside Keswick (they are all full or closed in Keswick and no WC).

Next morning, call the manager…
’oh, I’m not at garage yet, anyway we’re too busy’…
‘but the mechanic said you coud’
‘oh I’ll talk to him and ring straight back’. He didn’t so I call,
‘oh er, he’s gone out on a breakdown’.

Finally, it’s now 4.50 pm, ‘
‘as I said we can’t do it, we’ve one mechanic, he’s too busy, you didn’t buy the van here, your not an existing customer’…so in effect….b….r off.
‘And by the way, don’t know why Fiat sent you here, Carlisle Truck and Van are bigger and would have been able to do it’. Perhaps the geographically challenged Italian who sent us here didn’t realise that Keswick is only nearest to Stranraer if you disregard the Solway Firth.

Following numerous days of frustrating calls variously to Milan and Albania, a claim is raised. This qualifies me to speak to a charming lady from Milan. ‘Oh bless your little cotton socks! How terrible!’ Excellent but quaint English!
Eventually after many to’s and fro’s around the European telephone network she gives me the number for Sherwood Truck and Van in Sheffield (hmmm…more of that later) and gets them to raise the ‘all essential’ job card (by now it’s the last day of the warranty Ta ta!

The garage can’t fit us in for a few weeks until the 20th of Feb. 5 days before our departure to Spain. But ok at least it’s agreed the warranty will cover it (hmmm).

I due course we arrive at the said Fiat professional garage. Er, sorry, who are you, don’t know anything about it. Who did you arrange the appointment with? Never heard of her, what job card? Grrrrrrrr!
The nice lady in Milan can’t be contacted.
Nevertheless the garage tries to be helpful, they take the van, they will try to get it sorted with Fiat.

Back home, an hour and a half away, I dig through my log, match dates and find the call I made at the end of last month. I try it, ‘
‘hello this is Sherwood Truck and Van STOKE ON TRENT. Oh it’s you we were expecting you’…Aaaaargh!

Eventually it transpires that our lady in Milan had the number for the wrong branch. She has returned from her training course.
Dire prognostications, the all essential job card and the van are in two different places and two different businesses. Not to mention two more days have elapsed. There are more technicalities. The ‘Warranty Dept’ demands that card and van to both have been at the same place before the end of the warranty….there’s a hole my bucket!…er never mind.

A case had now to be made by customer services that all the screw ups over the last month have been on the part of Fiat. If the Warranty Dept digs their heels in it will have to go through the ‘Goodwill Department’, does this mean the Pope has to bless the arrangements? Probably and just as likely! The nice lady will liaise and come back to me by close of play hmmm. It now transpires the the manager at the garage is away at meetings today, so she doesn’t and the van languishes yet another day closer to our departure behind the garage.

It’s now Thursday one day to go. Amid ongoing communication silence from Italy I suggest to the garage they order the parts anyway as ultimately either Fiat or me will have to pay. That seems to have unblocked something. As I watch the van on the tracker app wandering on road test around Sheffield they call back to say parts ordered, it will be done for close of play tomorrow, perhaps the Pope did get involved.

We’ll see!

Meanwhile in the last couple of days the alarm installer, two weeks late, and the boiler engineer after three failures to appear, have both descended upon us. Is this the new Little Britain we have been promised?
 
Yet again an emissions related problem, if EGR, cat, throttle body recerc., NOX, adblue and related faults did happen we wouldn't be breaking down so often.
f it is just the NOX sensor I'd get it done. pay, and be on my way, sounds a cheaper option.
 
Feel your pain.....once it is sorted maybe consider a complaint to Fiat through Resolver.co.uk They seem pretty effective at getting your complaint to the right people. And it's free!
 
All’s well that ends well. At the eleventh hour my friendly Italian lady from Fiat in Milan came back to say she had twisted the arm of their goodwill department (must have a direct line to the Pope) and promised the garage Fiat would stump up the £600ish required for fitting a new NOX sensor. And as the sun went down last thing on Friday I retrieved the van from its weeks sojourn in Sheffield. So now we’re en-route to sunny (?) Spain.
 
18 degrees and sunny South of Alicante ,forecast to drop next week but remaining dry
 
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