The Latbema Promotion - I Was Looking Forward to It :(

One Friday morning began with a pleasant piece of news in my email, in the guise of spam, that "Latbema" had started repairing VOLVO vehicles too. That was good news, given that the previous week at the Technical Inspection it was found that - there was free play in the anti-roll bar link joints. I wondered how they knew I had a VOLVO. After brief reflection, I recalled that I had registered with this email at volvoclub.lv. Well, never mind - a crisis, people earn a living as best they can.

I must say, until now I had heard neither good nor bad about "Latbema". In short, right up to that fateful spam letter I was convinced that they only repaired BMW. So it came to pass that the previous service, with which I was very satisfied ("Adra"), had become too expensive for my now crisis-stricken wallet. Well, perhaps not as expensive as the authorised VOLVO service, but 16 lats/hour + VAT had become a serious argument to look for alternatives. "Latbema" appeared to be one of them. Being an active user of the internet age (read - penguin), I carefully studied the aforementioned outfit's website. Everything was clearly and comprehensibly set out. Both the fact that they repair VOLVO, and the fact that from 1 September there is a promotion:

"From 01.09.2009 until 01.12.2009, the LATBEMA auto centre service offers a unique opportunity:
when purchasing new spare parts at the regular price - the service work for installation will be free of charge.
This offer applies to all VOLVO models, without any mileage or year of manufacture restrictions."

I call. I set out my repair request and referred to the promotion. Before I had even had a chance to ask about a day when I could come in, the mechanic interrupted, saying - look, the promotion applies if the car has up to 2 weeks until its technical inspection, or if that time has just passed. Moreover, the car must be no older than 15 years. In my indignation I tried to object that the website contains entirely different information. My objection did not seem binding to the mechanic, who as a key argument mentioned that the promotion does not earn him anything extra in his salary. Well, dammit!

For form's sake I asked - how much would it cost then "without the promotion"? The prices did sound okay. A joint ~15 lats and labour 6 lats for each. It is hard to say now whether that was with or without VAT. But, taking everything mentioned above into account, I was left with no confidence that such "messing about" would not continue in future.

A noteworthy conversation a few days earlier was with an acquaintance who owns a car parts shop. Upon my enthusiastic account of the Latbema promotion, he asked - do you really believe anything is ever free? Well, I thought - a crisis, clients are needed. Why not? Nothing doing... the parts too, it turned out, were marked up 100%.

Epilogue

Now, what I truly don't understand - how can one mess customers about so brutally?! Are there really that many customers? And this too - how is it that the good outfits go under, while such botchers flourish and thrive? Conclusion - the crisis hasn't reached auto services yet :)

Article updated 2009-10-14

This evening, Latbema service manager Andris Miemis contacted iinuu to find out which mechanic had caused such complaints. In his email he stated that the promotion is indeed in force and free labour applies to all VOLVO models, without any mileage or year of manufacture restrictions. Restrictions currently apply only to BMW and Mercedes.

The service manager in his email offered to recalculate and return all overpaid money spent on repairing the car at standard rates, i.e., without the promotion terms. Well, it is pleasant to know that someone at this company thinks about the company's reputation and is capable of communicating normally with a client.