End of the Road for a Jeep?

I was surprised that Channel 9 covered the story prominently on the news last night seeing they get a lot of advertising from Jeep. Usually the big advertisers have sway in what's shown or not shown if they know ahead of time.

It was on channels 10 and 7 as well.

GBC - Never were truer words spoken. I cannot believe that a companys management is so pathetically leaderless, that they are prepared to continue kicking an unhappy customer in the nuts for so long - that he ends up broadcasting his problems very publically to the world - and thereby seriously damaging Jeeps reputation towards support for their products, and showing up their rotten attitude towards dissatisfied customers.

Whatever happened to, "the customer is always right"?

Jeep could have simply given the man the money he asked for, or owed on the vehicle, and simply taken it back.
It would have cost them but a drop in the ocean, as compared to Jeeps gross turnover - and it would have cost them virtually nothing, to eliminate the millions in damage to their reputation, that has now happened with this very public display of corporate humiliation.

I admire this bloke and his resolve, and I believe he's correct in that we DO need "Lemon Laws", the same as the U.S.
After all, we buy billions worth of U.S.-made products - and we slavishly follow America in every other field - so I see no reason why we shouldn't have a Lemon Law as well.

Part of the problem is that the management of many large companies and corporations is always prepared at every turn, to skimp on the manufacturing cost of important components - shortchange assembly-line employees on wage rates - rebuff otherwise loyal customers when they have legit complaints - but they are always happy to increase renumeration for senior executives and CEO's, and hand out major incentives to them - even when things are going seriously wrong for the company.

They have a saying in corporate America - "pay peanuts, and you get monkeys".

Well, perhaps their attitude towards paying peanuts to assembly-line employees, has resulted in monkey-style assembly quality - but one thing's for sure - they don't pay peanuts to the management classes - but they sure get a lot of monkeys in the upper levels of corporate management!

I reckon good on him. Most of us would have suffered in a fair bit of silence. Certainly will make me think twice before contemplating buying a Jeep. Have a friend who has one and he is not very happy either with the attitude he,s getting from Jeep.

Jeep Australia must be run buy children. With all the issues, bad advertising and money wasted on this one vehicle,...well...Jeep are looking like a very lame company in my opinion.

You are right, he must of been cashed up as he is giving $20,000 to charity.

GUESS HE IS MY KIND OF JERK.

I must have missed that "$20,000 donation" Slow.
Where did you find that?

In saw the piece on the news yesterday and he had received some $18000 in pledged support. The report said that he was still a good $10K out of pocket though in destroying his vehicle.

Cheers Mick

Allen B

national 9 news.

LINK

Bugger Bulldogs have just scored.

Thanks Slow,

It seems that, as usual, the story and facts(??) vary from one media report to the next.

The Courier Mail printed: “I am going to raise a Kickstarter campaign (for $22,500) for two reasons; I would like to get some money, I owe $31,000 on the car, I am going to make a loss,” Mr Wood said.
A similar story appeared in the Sunshine Coast Daily newspaper.
No mention of donation to charity.

Sometimes you can't even believe everything you read on ExplorOz Forum! lol

Oh, by the way, I happen to know the bloke. He is not "cashed up".

Having owned three jeeps in the past to me the difference in owning a Jeep was finding a good dealership you could rely on, the one in Perth city the old Chellingworth was golden in my eyes to bad it was sold and the new owners fell very short of the mark in my opinion. Out of the three vehicles we owned one i would consider to be a lemon the other two were ok. The one i thought was a lemon was the more optioned one and a higher marque. Bought the Lemon from a dealer second hand it had 20,000 km on it when we bought it, IMO let down by to much technology, sensors wouldn't last and heaps of small niggly things going wrong spent over ten grand fixing things on it. Can understand completely the guys frustration.

I'm at a loss to understand why people buy a new vehicle and then get used vehicle performance out of it - but continue to put up with that used vehicle performance.

New vehicles cost plenty, so you expect exemplary performance and reliability that your old vehicle never had.

I buy new vehicles, to GET new vehicle performance - i.e., virtually totally trouble-free performance, and virtually 100% reliability.

If I want to put up with regular breakdowns, strandings and unreliability - I'll buy a $1500, 300,000 km, 20 yr old bomb.

If a vehicle doesn't deliver new vehicle reliability, then you've definitely been sold a pup, and it's up to the manufacturer and dealer to sort out ALL the problems - quick-smart and, with 100% customer satisfaction as the aim.

If that's too hard, then you might as well keep your new car money and spend it elsewhere, and drive a bomb.

I bought a new dishwasher after the old one provided 17 yrs of almost completely faultless performance. I bought the same brand because of the performance of the old one.

God, what a disaster! The old one was built in the company factory - the new one was built under sub-contract by vineyard peasants (they left their olive-oil-greasy fingerprints all over it, so we know that much) in a backyard workshop.
The old one had no electronic components whatsoever - the new one was full of electronics built by the lowest-bidding Chinese tenderer.

The new machine broke down 3 times in 14 months. When it stopped a 4th time, I got onto Product Review and wrote up a review that must have burnt the company executives ears when they read it.

Amazingly, the Australian management of the company regularly monitor Product Review, and they contacted me almost immediately.

The Australian manager offered his apologies for the poor performance of their product - and without any badgering or hesitation, generously offered a complete, brand-new replacement machine - with another full 2 yr warranty (none of this "pro-rata" stuff).

I accepted his offer, although I was still distrusting of the brand and the new models.
The new machine was promptly delivered - and unfortunately, it only ran for 36 days, before it, too, ceased working.

However, the company was on the ball with repairs and replaced a heap of electronic components with new upgraded components - and since then it has performed like a new machine.

It still has an odd "funny turn", when it refuses to do anything in response to button pressing - but we found the old trick of turning it off at the wall, and leaving it to sulk for 10 minutes, makes it work again.

I don't think the new model machine is a patch on the original, non-electronic model - but I can't fault the company management for their rapid and courteous attention to my complaints, and their immediate replacement of a machine I was unhappy with.

When the replacement machine stopped after only 36 days, I told the manager if it stopped again, I would request a full refund.
He was happy to agree to that, if it came about - but I have not pushed that demand yet, as the machine is now performing to a satisfactory level of performance.

All company management should respond as this dishwasher company management have, to customer complaints.
After all, if unhappy customers leave in droves, they have a complete failure in their business model.

I must agree with Ron.

We have always purchased new cars, apart from one. Not many though as we have only been driving for 50 or so years and we hang on to them for years (Kingswood 19 years and falcon 22 years). The exception was in 2010 with a second hand 100 series. The only hassles with the new cars was the drivers seat was out of alignment and Falcon rebuilt the drivers side to fix it. Our right hand arms got sore on very long drives. The center of the steering wheel was two inches out of line with the center of the seat and foot pedals. The doctor actually identified it as the problem when after a Melbourne to Sydney return drive I could hardly lift my right arm. Good on Falcon and not one issue with the Holden.

We also replaced all kitchen and laundry appliances with new Miele stuff about three years ago in preparation for retirement after the kitchen carcas and cupboards etc were all replaced on an insurance claim. We had Miele before and no breakages over several decades. Luckily insurance picked up about 20% of the cost as the old kitchen had developed a leak and the whole chipboard carcase had to be replaced. The only issue was a flickering light in the steam oven which was fixed one hour after I called them to just ask if it was normal and would settle down. The service bloke was faster than Riccardo getting here. Good kit and excellent service.

I can't think of any company that over the last 50 years we have had issues with that weren't fixed quickly and properly after they company was contacted. But the old man taught me well how to be positive and polite in the first instance as that sets up what happens from there on. A smile goes a long way.

PS Ours is that kitchen with a panorama photo from Hamilton Station near Oodnadatta on the glass splashback if anyone remembers it.