Complaint Review: Volvo

Please see below the letter sent to Volvo

30 June 2004

Mr. Leif Johansson
President, AB Volvo and CEO, Volvo Group
405 08 Gteborg
Sweden


Dear Mr. Johansson,

I am writing to you in connection with the handling my husband and I received from Volvo in France, Switzerland and ultimately Sweden, earlier this year.

We own a V70, purchased in December 1997. In the second half of November 2003 we took the car to the Volvo dealership Mario Bottone & Fils in Signy, Switzerland, for a routine service. Shortly thereafter, on the morning of Saturday, 29 November, we heard a grinding on the under-side of the car and thus consulted with the above garage. My husband and I were requested to bring in the car so that they might look at it again. Following a further inspection of the car, we were told that the main front axle had broken. Please note that our car has never had an accident and it is regularly serviced only by outlets recognized by Volvo.

My husband and I were both surprised and concerned at this, and queried the garage further on the matter. They in turn advised that in their years of Volvo maintenance they had not previously come across this problem.

My husband and I decided we would report the matter immediately to Volvo, since we understood from the garage that such a fundamental part of the car would normally not break, and it might be linked to a fault in the metal or the axle part itself.

The treatment we received at the hands of your various customer services, from regional offices in Europe to your Headquarters in Stockholm, was not only not incompetent, but offensive. Whilst I was fully aware of their main argument for not taking responsibility for the broken axle, namely that the car's warranty had expired, the other points I raised with them (see the email exchange, attached) were never recognized or addressed, and I was simply given the standard reply or line time and time again, despite my continued efforts, without any courtesy to at least acknowledge the points I raised. The experience was not only exasperating but distressing and, from the attached exchange of e-mails which my husband and I had with various members of your staff, you will yourself see the extent of the mismanagement of what should have been a client service.

Furthermore, and perhaps more seriously, after I had been advised that the onus was on me to prove that the axle was indeed faulty, when I reverted to the above-mentioned garage and asked for the part, so as to do the very action that Volvo had told me I had to do, I was informed that Volvo in Sweden had already intervened and asked for the removal of the said part, in that it had been sent to Sweden.

You will appreciate, in light of our being in mid-dispute and particularly since I was, furthermore, following the instructions of your own office, that such an action is questionable at best, if not legally unacceptable. It defies all ethics and certainly the credibility of Volvo and their commercial practices. Please refer to my exchange with Ms. Ryder.

I am aware that, as Chief Executive Officer, you have limited time available but I would suggest that you nevertheless review the exchange of e-mails here-to attached, since I believe you will gain an insight, perhaps not available to you previously, into how your company handles its customers. I can confirm that I will not be purchasing any Volvos in the future and would recommend to any interested party to consider an alternative. I no longer believe that security and customer loyalty are Volvo's priorities, since you gave no importance to our situation, but rather treated us as opportunists wishing to benefit from a mishap, and you were offensive in your blatant disregard and indifference towards our concerns and the points raised.

Please note that I am a full-time working mother with a demanding job, and have very little time available to me, and do not benefit from being surrounded by various services, be these legal or administrative, to handle queries such as mine. I appreciate you are not directly concerned, but believe that, as the Chief Executive Officer, you may wish to be directly concerned.

Yours sincerely,

A&G

cc. The Swedish Consumer Coalition
The Swedish Consumer Agency
Consumer Soundoff
BadBusinessBureau
Which? Car

A&G
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