LAUREN L

Extremely Disappointing Service and Poor

I recently visited SEAT MARSHALL LEICESTER for a scheduled service on my car, and unfortunately, my experience was far below expectations. I arrived at the dealership at 8:30am, having been told the service would take a maximum of 2.5 hours, meaning it should have been completed by around 11am. I brought my laptop to work on while I waited in the main area. However, there was no communication or update from staff at any point — I had to go up to the service desk twice, once around 11am and again at 12pm, just to ask how much longer it would be. I was told my car was updating which were apparently taking a long time. Eventually, my car was ready around 12:30pm, a full four hours after I arrived. I was given £30 compensation, but that hardly made up for the poor communication and excessive waiting time. Unfortunately, things only got worse after I left. As soon as I got into my car, I noticed it was requesting another software update, despite supposedly having been updated in the garage for over an hour. I accepted the update as usual and drove home, arriving around 1pm. The next morning at 6am, my car alarm went off unexpectedly. Later that day, when I tried to use my car around 1pm, the key fob wouldn’t unlock the car, neither my main key nor the spare. When I manually opened the door, the wing mirrors were still folded, and the car was completely dead - the battery was flat. I called SEAT customer service to express my concern and was told rather dismissively that “car batteries just go flat sometimes.” That explanation didn’t sit right with me, especially considering my battery had been tested during the service and was perfectly fine when I dropped it off. I then called Green Flag for breakdown assistance, and the technician confirmed that my battery voltage had dropped from 12V to 4V since the service. He also mentioned that, in his opinion, the update I accepted after leaving the garage caused the battery to drain completely, which aligns with the timing of the issue. Overall, this experience has left me with serious concerns about the quality of the service and the professionalism of the staff. The lack of communication, the time wasted waiting, and the resulting electrical issue make it very difficult for me to trust this dealership again. I called management twice last Friday (17/10) to submit my complaint and the manager could not be bothered to call me back. I hope management takes this feedback seriously and investigates how post-service software updates are handled — because as it stands, I would not recommend SEAT MARSHALL LEICESTER to others based on this experience.