Capilano Volkswagen

We leased our second car with them a couple of years ago, a Tiguan. I wanted different rims than the ones that came with the car and a good deal on them. After much haggling they met my terms, and off we went with our new Tiguan with the rims I wanted. Less than a year later began hearing a loud howling sound while driving at high speeds. Took them in, first to be told the noise was normal, and then having taken them into a tire store and being told it was the tires, I came back here and only then they decided to admit that yes it was the tires. So outright LIED to me the first time. The tires they gave me were a no-​name brand called General, which NO other VW comes with, none. And I could not find a single car on their lot with those tires. But did they mention that they were giving me no-​name tires and that this was the reason the rims I wanted ended up working within my budget? Of course not. So I was deceived right from the start. Their solution? For me to pay $ 600 MORE to get better tires than the ones they deceived me into, instead of what a good customer service business would do which is to replace the tires with ones that didn’t make noise. After wasting a couple of hours arguing with the service manager and sales manager who refused to accept that they sold me duds, I was fed up. So I finally told them to take the rims they bamboozled me into back, give me back the money I paid for them, and put the stock rims and tires back on the car.
No problem, I can take one hit to being provided terrible customer service. But then a couple of weeks ago I take my car in to get an oil change. Because I live in downtown and work in Langley and can’t keep taking my car to North Shore during their business hours, I had taken the car to Mr. Lube for a change prior to this. I have taken two other leased vehicles to Mr. Lube for years without any issues. So then I get a call from their service department telling me that they can’t take the oil pan bolt out because it was stripped, likely by place that serviced it last. Right away I’m thinking why does it take 2 hrs to come to that conclusion? So then they tell me they can spend another 2 hrs trying to take it off, but that likely I would need to replace the ENTIRE oil pan! I told them to leave it, paid for their work? Not sure for what but paid anyways, and took the car back to Mr. Lube for them to rectify their work. And when I got there I put the Mr. Lube manager on the phone with the Capilano VW service guy so that he can explain what Mr. Lube did wrong. But what actually happened was I listened as the Mr. Lube manager provided strong evidence contradicting what the Cap VW service guy was claiming and more importantly listened as the Cap WV guy CHANGED the story he had told me. Turns out his team had actually tried to take the bolt off but couldn’t. So then I’m thinking was it stripped or was it on tight and you stripped it trying to take it off and then tried to blame another company for doing it? More importantly, if it was stripped and you saw something was broken by another company, why would you not leave it alone rather than touch it and make it worse? So now I’m certain that the bolt was just on too tight perhaps and that Cap VW stripped the bolt trying to take it off.
Now I’m left having to take the car BACK to Cap WV. When I call the service guy to arrange the visit, his first comment to me is «so we’re going to replace the oil pan?», and I’m like no, you’re going to try to take the bolt out, not sell me a new pan! We then drop the car off at 9:30am. 12pm rolls around and no word, so I get worried and I CALLED THEM for an update instead of the other way around, only to be told oh yeah we got the bolt off. Great. It took 2hrs?! Is my oil changed? Not yet. So another 2hrs go by, total of 4 hrs now, and finally my wife goes to pick the car up. Obviously she was shocked to see a bill for $ 280, that’s in addition to the $ 50 paid the first time, for a total of $ 330 to get an oil change.
When I challenged them on why I have to pay for what is obviously their shoddy work stripping the bolt, their response was to GUILT me for taking my car to somewhere other than them to get the oil changed. Classic shady sales tactics. Put fear in your customers so that they don’t go anywhere else but you. So now it’s MY, the customer’s, fault that all of this happened. When I asked for an explanation of why they would touch a stripped bolt, the guy gets defensive and outright rude to me and then to my wife, in a tone as if he did us a favor. The nerve.
So for a mere $ 800 ($ 600 for the tires they wanted to sell me and $ 200 extra I ended up paying for an oil change) Capilano VW not only lost us as future customers, but also lost all of our friends and families as customers. If companies want to know what NOT to do customer service wise, they really should come and study this place, cause these guys can give a master’s class on the subject of poor service.

I am very happy with the Volkswagen Service especially Moe who looked after me for the last few times.
The service was really good and I appreciate that.
Thanks to all of you and keep it up.
Good service is the key to a successful business.
K. Birkbeck

Wow, I totally disagree with these other reviews-​I have been going to Cap VW for many years (bought my current Passat there) and have been treated with the utmost courtesy and professionalism. They do a great job and I have no complaints. (I HIGHLY recommend Moe if you want the best service guy there… he’s the best in my opinion)

I love the brand, but Cap Audi VW does not do any favours for it. The service is really less than stellar.
The Audi and VW lots are in 2 separate locations with the same ownership– they share cars freely between the lots.
–booked an afternoon off work and drove 98 km (round trip) to close the vehicle sale. After signing in at reception and waiting an hour I was advised by Andy that the sales manager had not yet been able to respond to my offer and there was nothing he could do at at the time. After a couple more days of negotiating further, Andy told me that the car had to be purchased in June to get the pricing and that someone from Audi would call me on Saturday to complete this– presumably to schedule a time to come down that day. I cancelled my canada Day long weekend plans to hear from this other salesman. I did not hear from him.

Bought my car from here. A 2009 GTI with 73,000 KMs. Car was a Certified pre owned, and such it came with a 2 year, 40,000 km «bumper to bumper» warranty. 7 months after buying the car I had my check engine light come on, so I take it to capilano VW and the service guys tell me I have to pay $ 1000 to clean the carbon build up out of the intake manifold. Told me theres no way to cover it under the warranty. Absolutely ridiculous. I took it to clarkdale VW to get a second opinion, and after talking to the service guys there, they said a) $ 1000 is WAY to high a price for the job they wanted to do, and b) its likely another issue in the car such as a bad coilpack or injector (both covered under CPO warranty). Its apparent to me that capilano just wanted to scam me for $ 1000 bucks for something that isn’t even the root cause of my check engine light coming on. I will never go back to Capilano because how can I trust them after this? Not to mention every time I tried to get information relating to the car out of the service advisors about WHY I needed this carbon clean done, they had the audacity to blame it on me putting «bad fuel» into the car. Absolute joke seeing how I have only owned the car for 10,000 KM and put 91 or 94 Octane Chevron fuel in it. Don’t bring your car to Capilano VW service, you will get ripped off.

I would never go back to this dealership ever again! after driving the car for the first 100 km the turbo blew and the exhaust fell off! I did buy a use car from them, but it shows how reliable their mechanics are because they inspected the car before it was sold. Luckly I bought warrantee, but I had to leave numerous voice messages to have the service team update me on the situation. In the end I still had to pay over $ 2000 out of my own pocket to have the car safe to drive. Save yourself the time and go to Cowell VW in richmond. Lesson learn

I regret having used my extended warranty with them… always the bare minimum done, never a borrowed car and even thought I used over $ 8000 in extended warranty on my Touareg with them… A problem on my heater I mentioned a couple times never got solved and when a light of my Airbag popped up and I asked if they could clear it up I was told I had to pay half an hour labour… It didn’t matter how much business I done there and that I always spoke with the same service guy (James) … not even tried to talk to his manager… I told him he lost a customer and it was like it didn’t matter to him. I should had brought my business somewhere else to begin with. Bare minimum service… Always polite but never goes out of their way to do an extra and make the customer happy. When you are spending big money on car service you expect service and that people sometimes go out of their way to help you… not there.