Obviously, everything I'm about to share is anecdotal, so make of it what you will, but I feel I need to put this out there. To my knowledge, we don't have a general thread for this, so if you want to add warnings of your own, feel free to post a reply. There's a few places I want to get through. The general gist is that they're rubbish for big Citroens, probably mostly fine for "normal" ones, but I'd still avoid. I'm partly to blame, I only went to first-party places because they offered courtesy cars (or so it appeared on the surface) when most independent places didn't. I'll just go independent next time.
1. Stellantis & You Peugeot - Edgware, London.
Formerly called "Robins & Day." As much as I hate this place, to their credit, they're the only ones on this list that gave me a courtesy car with zero fuss and the technicians take a narrated video of issues found during their initial (basic) inspection.
- I'll start with the worst one. They didn't reassemble my front suspension properly and could have gotten me, my family and friends killed. I have no way to prove it concretely, but they're the only ones that have ever done suspension work on the car.
- Mis-quote prices and then try to charge extra. Had a major service + other bits and pieces to do last year for my C5 X7. They quoted me some £3K which was already insane, but I agreed and authorised the work because the car needed it. 2 weeks in, they call me to tell me they made a mistake when giving me the initial quote (having looked at the car before quoting) and that the actual price was £5K! I put up a fuss and they agreed to the 3K, but they've always pulled stunts like this even back when my dad owned the car and dealt with them
- In general, they have no clue what they're doing when it comes to big Citroens, my dad got it back once and the normal ride height was pretty much at lift-stage 1. Apparently they had "mounted the ride height sensor in the wrong place." I assume they mean they got the adjustment wrong as opposed to mounting it in the wrong place.
- Often lie about the progress of work. For instance I'd ask them for a report and they'd say "we're fitting the wishbone today", then a week later I'd ask what's happening and they'll say they're ordering the wishbone that day and it should come in a week. They had the X7 for 53 days for the major service I mentioned a couple of points up.
- Don't listen to instructions. A couple of years ago, my dad asked them to fix the car before MOTing it because it will fail (ruined wishbone bushings), they MOT'd it first...and it failed...who'd have thought? I also asked them to give me new wipers (3rd party X7 wipers suck), but to not fit them (they added a note on the docs to leave them in the boot), they fitted them and charged me labour.
- They'll also try to sneak things into the final price that you told them you don't want. They tried to sneak a pair of Goodyear tyres in on my last service because I had a front tread depth advisory. Had to tell them at least twice to not put new tyres on.
Technically these guys are Suzuki + Citroen, with more of a focus on Suzuki, but given that they're Citroen-authorised I'd expect them to be up to scratch. Having gotten fed up of R&D, I went to this place as it was close to where I used to work. I only used them for a diagnostics session (£125/h) and it was enough to put me off.
- I came to them with a list of issues accompanied by Diagbox error codes, graph captures and specific instructions to reproduce the issues. I even offered to join the technician during the test drive to help repro. They were quite dismissive and acted like I knew nothing about what I was saying. When the session was over they came back saying they couldn't repro the issues and that there was only 2 error codes present, as opposed to the 6 or 7 I read. And that to further investigate they'd need to tear apart bits of the engine. So they basically came back to me with less info than I gave them to begin with
- They said that they offered courtesy cars, but at no point mentioned that I have to have held a license for at least a year (I was a week short). It makes sense, but it would have been good to know when I initially booked the appointment. Had to spend £15 on trains to get back home. NOTE: R&D gave me a car when I had only been driving for about a month.
- They won't stop bugging me over the phone even though I've finished my business with them. They called me a few days after my appointment for feedback. Then a month ago they called me to try and get me to book an MOT with them and then a couple of days ago again. This time I asked them not to call again.
Polite reception staff, incompetent and sketchy. Another Citroen-authorised place that have no idea what they're doing. I've only dealt with them once. Their diagnostics were cheaper than Worleys, Theoco wanted £120/1.5h.
- I came to them with the same set of issues as I did Worleys + a new minor oil leak. They weren't dismissive, heard me out and took the short document I had with the graphs. I again offered to join the tech for the test drive. However, they missed literally everything I came to them for. It was by sheer chance during the MOT that they found the cause (unassembled suspension) of 2 of the issues I had.
- They also offered a courtesy car, but only if my insurance was comprehensive for other cars as well. Mine's comprehensive on my own car, but only 3rd party for others. At least this time they told me up front
- They said they'd cover the London ULEZ costs for the days they drove it. I ended up getting fined 2 weeks later. They paid it without fuss though.
- Terrible with communication. I had to chase them up multiple times. They promised me a call back 3 times in one day, I ended up going in in person that day. Didn't call me when the car was ready. I only found out it was ready when I called them for an update and they said they had forgotten to call 2 days prior. It also took a lot of nagging for me to get the photos they took of the suspension.
- Just like R&D, they MOT'd the car before fixing it despite my explicit instruction and their putting a note in the docs. That's two unnecessary blemishes the car has now on a fairly clean MOT record. They failed it for a split CV boot. Fine, that's valid, but surely they should have caught it when they were investigating the front knock? It was during the MOT that they also found that the suspension wasn't assembled. Again, what were they doing during the diagnostic session if they missed this stuff?
- Sketchy attitude to pricing and didn't explicitly ask for authorisation of work. Unless I explicitly asked for it, they wouldn't give me the price of anything. They also lied about the cost of the CV boot. Said it would be £25 which seemed low for this car. So I asked if that was parts and labour, they said it was parts, labour and VAT. Turned out to be something like £280 on the invoice. I just paid it without comment because I had no evidence of the £25 price as it was a verbal exchange and frankly I was fed up of dealing with them at that point.
- Despite having it for 2 extra days, they admitted to forgetting to wash the car. They offered to wash it for free on another day (this was Fri before closing), but I declined because it wasn't worth the ULEZ charge.
- As I went to drive out of their car park, I felt something weird on my left thumb. Turns out they had somehow managed to take a slice out of my gear knob leather. Went back in to complain, reception people who I'd been dealing with until now were apologetic. I just asked them to order me a replacement and I'd consider it settled. They said that they had to escalate to a higher up. Out comes one of the co-owners of the company. He takes a look and pretty much immediately tries to gaslight me saying it was wear and tear and was like that when I brought it in (despite the clearly fresh leather surfaces where the rips were). Cue 10 mins of back and forth before he finally gives in and say's he'll order one in. I tell him it needs to be an original, he reluctantly agrees. As an aside, for some reason while we were arguing he tried to turn the engine over as if it was a petrol. Of course it didn't start because he didn't preheat the glow plugs. The confusion on his face was funny.
- Gear knob arrived today, I went to pick it up. And of course it's not original, I made a comment about it on the spot. They tired to lie to me again, but I'd had enough, so took it and went home. It smells of cheap suitcase, it's got sharp moulding burrs, weighs nothing and all the numbers on the gate map are a different size. Oh and of course the plastic plate with the gate map came off in my hand while I was just inspecting it at home. Came in a non-descript white box with a single sticker on it with a barcode, part number (AN0022864) and "made in China" printed on it. Googling the part number only goes to dead sites that redirect to AliExpress. The PN of the original is 2403AH, which I bought on my own dime earlier today. Won't be mounting the fake.