Fiat

[Roo^]

Our new Fiat Grande Punto was collected by a tow company, under the instructions of the dealer we bought it from in order to carry out a "vehicle safety recall" under the instruction of Fiat. When the car was returned the car had been scratched on almost every panel on three sides. Since then Fiat blames the garage or us, the garage blames the tow company or us, we've no idea who the tow company was but.. I'm guessing they'll be blaming either the garage or us. For the past month I've called the garage and Fiat's head office trying to sort this out and each time they tell me they will and call me back. I bored of this last week because now Fiat won't talk to me about it because the person looking in to it "isn't in today". The marks on the car are clearly not due to anything we've done, there's no "bump damage" these are random scratches and chips of the paint the deepest being a 5mm chip out of the top of the bumper. ( the cars used by my wife to go to work we'd never had the seats down in the car or used the boot for anything other than shopping ). My best guess is that the tranporter had a loose strap waving around which has whipped around the car on the 60 mile trip to the garage.

Where do I stand with this please because all parties appear to be blaming each other and stalling, not returning calls or allowing me to speak to anyone in a position to help.

[emma81]

When the tow trucked collected your car did they do a vehicle inspection on it, reason i ask is any car that is collected from anywhere they normally do a vehicle inspection, which basically is a sheet with a picture of a car on where they walk round and mark down any scratches, chips, dents etc, this is then normally signed by you and you have a copy, they also make note of reg, mileage etc..if they done one of these and there is no marks on the sheet then thats your proof it wasnt your fault. If i were you i would forget about the phone calls and write a stinking letter to Fiat's HQ regardless if it was the tow truck or Fiats fault at the end of the day Fiat employ the tow company so its there resposibility!

[Roo^]

No they don't do a vehicle inspection, it was in mint condition when it left our home I know this because we used the car the day before and the marks aren't ones you'd pick up from stone chips or normal use of the car. We live in a village where the last reported crime was in 2003.... so I'd say it was very unlikely any damage was done during the night as we have 3 dogs which ( cos the areas so quite ) erupt if they hear anyone out side, plus again the damage is in weird places not where people "key" cars nor does it look like vandalism.
I'll take your advice and write to Fiat, they've yet to keep a promise to me so I'll not be holding my breath waiting for a reply.
Thanks for the reply Emma