So when we bought my wife's Forte5 from Nationwide Kia of Maryland and as we buckled in to leave we quickly noticed the driver's seat belt was malfunctioning (two weeks ago mind you). The seat belt for all intents and purposes works properly, but the adjustment mechanism on the B-piller is jammed.
We waited about a week to take it back because of scheduling details, but Nationwide got their hands on it briefly last week (wednesday). I dropped it off got a loaner and went on my way. Interestingly enough, I got a phone call within 10-minutes of my departure asking me what was wrong with it because the service guy looked at it and didn't see a problem. Apparently they misunderstood me or something got lost in the paraphrasing of my service report because they thought we only had a problem with the seat belt connection. So I explained what was wrong (again) and they give it another go.
35-minutes later I got another call..."Yup its broke, we need to order parts that will not come in until monday afternoon, so come and get your car." So we get the car later in the day because we had things to do and it was supposed to be washed up prior to my arrival anyway. Which I confirmed over the phone and it was clearly stamped on the service report. So this is where things go downhill, to my dismay the car was not even washed and on top of that we had to wait about 45-minutes to an hour before we could collect our keys and speak with the service manager about coming in for our next visit.
To his credit, the manager was extremely occupied with another customer who was livid about them not even servicing her husbands car and the fact that they lost their keys (they ended up being in an envelope on someone's desk all day). It was somewhat entertaining, but then it got old.
To add on to my early dissatisfaction with Nationwide, we went ahead and scheduled a tenative appointment with them to bring the car in on monday evening and to get a loaner once we received a confirmation that the parts were in. We were told we would receive a phone call from the service manager on monday (yesteday) confirming all of this, but we did not. My wife called yesterday around 1pm to check-in and was only able to leave a voice message with the manager, but we did not receive a call back until this morning. So apparently the parts are in and we can drop it off tonight to fix the seat belt. God help them if they do not wash the car when we pick it up tomorro, my wife will be livid.
So here's my conclusing and main complaint...to his credit, Fred the service manager of Nationwide Kia, which is handled at Nationwide's central Nissan service center, does an ok job of handling A LOT of clients and I am sure he has his good and bad days like the rest of us. From my observations they have him handling Kia and Nissan vehicles which I feel is too much for him. Granted he could probably handle it a bit better, but I do feel like he has a very loaded plate so I understand a bit.
Additionally, I think Nationwide's Service Center has some huge holes in its service department and how it is managed. There seems to be almost zero level of formal process control for handling overnight drop-box keys, there is not enough dedicated Kia reps on hand and from the looks of it the cashier's office is overworked and understaffed as well. On top of all of that, I think Nationwide has outgrown its britches a bit and has too much going on in that central service center. For as big as they are as a company, they certainly could do themselves a service by expanding and rennovating their service department.
Sorry for the rant...Wish us luck!
Now for a small Kia/Hyundai rant...why and the hell do you not stock quarts of oil for customer purchase? I want to change the oil in the car around 3000 miles because I feel 7500 is too long for break-in mileage oil to be in the car. So I have been gathering the parts required to do the service, but alas I cannot find a Kia/Hyundai brand of oil at any of my local dealerships. All they stock is bulk oil drums for service or some other brand name oil (i.e. pennzoil, mobil etc). So I am giving up a bit on that and I guess I will be searching out an acceptable brand of oil for her 3000 mile oil change.
We waited about a week to take it back because of scheduling details, but Nationwide got their hands on it briefly last week (wednesday). I dropped it off got a loaner and went on my way. Interestingly enough, I got a phone call within 10-minutes of my departure asking me what was wrong with it because the service guy looked at it and didn't see a problem. Apparently they misunderstood me or something got lost in the paraphrasing of my service report because they thought we only had a problem with the seat belt connection. So I explained what was wrong (again) and they give it another go.
35-minutes later I got another call..."Yup its broke, we need to order parts that will not come in until monday afternoon, so come and get your car." So we get the car later in the day because we had things to do and it was supposed to be washed up prior to my arrival anyway. Which I confirmed over the phone and it was clearly stamped on the service report. So this is where things go downhill, to my dismay the car was not even washed and on top of that we had to wait about 45-minutes to an hour before we could collect our keys and speak with the service manager about coming in for our next visit.
To his credit, the manager was extremely occupied with another customer who was livid about them not even servicing her husbands car and the fact that they lost their keys (they ended up being in an envelope on someone's desk all day). It was somewhat entertaining, but then it got old.
To add on to my early dissatisfaction with Nationwide, we went ahead and scheduled a tenative appointment with them to bring the car in on monday evening and to get a loaner once we received a confirmation that the parts were in. We were told we would receive a phone call from the service manager on monday (yesteday) confirming all of this, but we did not. My wife called yesterday around 1pm to check-in and was only able to leave a voice message with the manager, but we did not receive a call back until this morning. So apparently the parts are in and we can drop it off tonight to fix the seat belt. God help them if they do not wash the car when we pick it up tomorro, my wife will be livid.
So here's my conclusing and main complaint...to his credit, Fred the service manager of Nationwide Kia, which is handled at Nationwide's central Nissan service center, does an ok job of handling A LOT of clients and I am sure he has his good and bad days like the rest of us. From my observations they have him handling Kia and Nissan vehicles which I feel is too much for him. Granted he could probably handle it a bit better, but I do feel like he has a very loaded plate so I understand a bit.
Additionally, I think Nationwide's Service Center has some huge holes in its service department and how it is managed. There seems to be almost zero level of formal process control for handling overnight drop-box keys, there is not enough dedicated Kia reps on hand and from the looks of it the cashier's office is overworked and understaffed as well. On top of all of that, I think Nationwide has outgrown its britches a bit and has too much going on in that central service center. For as big as they are as a company, they certainly could do themselves a service by expanding and rennovating their service department.
Sorry for the rant...Wish us luck!
Now for a small Kia/Hyundai rant...why and the hell do you not stock quarts of oil for customer purchase? I want to change the oil in the car around 3000 miles because I feel 7500 is too long for break-in mileage oil to be in the car. So I have been gathering the parts required to do the service, but alas I cannot find a Kia/Hyundai brand of oil at any of my local dealerships. All they stock is bulk oil drums for service or some other brand name oil (i.e. pennzoil, mobil etc). So I am giving up a bit on that and I guess I will be searching out an acceptable brand of oil for her 3000 mile oil change.
