Hoffeldt Motor Group's Atrocious After Care Service After Selling a New Defective Renault Triber

We supported Hoffeldt Motor Group's Renault Agency out of loyalty. They are in Bronkhorstspruit and we live in Pretoria. We bought a brand-new Renault Triber with the AMT (automatic manual transmission) gearbox at the end of November 2020. The Triber (and we recommend it to be renamed "Renault Trouble" started giving problems after approximately 2 weeks of driving it. (When we notified the dealership on the 16th of December, we were accused of not having notified them earlier.) The gearbox could not select its gears which means when you pull away, reverse or drive in slow city traffic it selects a too high a gear and then it can't pull away, then it overcompensates to a too low gear resulting in it leaping forward in a jerking motion. This is utterly unsafe and it worsened very quickly. We informed Hoffeldt Motors of the problem and they said that it does not make sense bringing the car to them as they cannot provide us with a courtesy vehicle because of the festive season and that they are on skeleton staff. Their words were that we need to understand that it is the client’s responsibility to get the vehicle repaired and to arrange for alternative transport and that it would be better if we take it to a Renault dealer closer to us. Since driving the car was both uncomfortable and dangerous, we took the car to Renault Silverlakes, during a time when we were moving to a new house and finishing up work for the year during our busiest time of year. They did a computer analyses and said that this brand-new vehicle returned many errors. When asked for the report they did not want to hand it over. They spent less than an hour on the car and said that they fixed the problem. The problem re-emerged after driving for about 2 blocks. We then the next day contacted Hoffeldt Motors again who then said that they will provide a loan vehicle and that they would sort the problem out. When we took it through to them the salesperson was extremely condescending and said that we just do not know how to drive with this AMT gearbox, which is not a true automatic gearbox. When he indulged us in an accompanied test drive, he realised he was in trouble and that the car is as bad as we reported and he, even in the face of his error, still tried to pin the car problem on us stating that we must put the car in neutral at stop streets. Wow!! Even with his new brilliant plan of putting the AMT vehicle in neutral at every stop sign, he conceded that there was something majorly wrong. Hoffeldt had the car overnight and the next day brought the car to Pretoria where we exchanged vehicles proclaiming that it is fixed. Well, a day later the problem reoccurred, and it was even worse than before. When we contacted Hoffeldt again, speaking to the director now as well, they became irritated with us since it is 23 December and almost Christmas and the director was already on holiday. We wanted to return the vehicle and demanded a refund. Hoffeldt then said they cannot do this and only Renault South Africa can authorise anything like that. We contacted Renault South Africa Customer Service and were given the run-around. Eventually Renault South Africa referred us to Renault Zambezi as they have a master technician that will sort the vehicle out. We took the vehicle to Renault Zambezi on 24 December and initially the technician wanted to convince us that it is just the way the gearbox is and that we will get used to it. We got the technician to drive the car with us who then quickly said "no no no there is something seriously wrong in that the car cannot select the relevant gear". We left the car with him for a couple of hours. He said that a cable was incorrectly installed. He corrected this and reset the gearbox. We thought that the problem was solved, but after about three weeks the problem reoccurred with a vengeance. Now this was the third attempt to repair a brand-new car!!! We then struggled again with Renault South Africa to no avail. We also again pleaded with Hoffeldt to refund us for a new vehicle that is problematic and dangerous and told the director that it is unsafe and that we lost faith in the model. She was adamant that we simply needed to accept this and that they will continue to try and repair this. She recommended that we take it back to Renault Zambezi since they had most success with this vehicle. We took the vehicle in for the fourth time for repairs and the second time to Zambezi. This time the technician confirmed that the problem is worse but that the "computer' does not report errors and the adjustment that he previously made with some success did not resolve anything this time around. He said that the next move would be to remove the entire gearbox and he has no idea what he would find as the model is brand new in South Africa. He recommended that we get Renault South Africa involved again but until now to no avail. Hoffeldt then last week provided a loan vehicle, after a letter from our attorney stating that my wife and her minor children were unsafe in this vehicle, and took the car to Renault Menlyn for repair. It is now a week already with no feedback whatsoever from Hoffeldt or Renault South Africa. I spoke to the Gauteng Regional Customer Care Manager for Renault South Africa today informing him that we do not want a repaired NEW vehicle and that we lost trust in the model. I also informed him that Renault Zambezi has a low km Duster that we want to swop out for the Renault Triber, but he did not want to know anything about it, stating that they will repair the vehicle. I informed him that the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) affords the choice to the consumer and not the seller to either get the vehicle repaired, replaced, or obtain a refund. He then said his manager will call me back, which “surprisingly” also did not happen.

In the meantime, due to the vehicle being financed by MFC, our attorney advised the bank that they had financed a defective asset and that they should, as the legal owner, exercise their rights under the CPA and demand a refund from the dealership. Our attorney also instructed MFC not to debit our account for this month’s instalment as we do not currently even have the vehicle in our possession. However, MFC communicated to my wife today (27 January 2021), stating that they will continue to claim the instalment but that they will liaise with Hoffeldt Motors. We find the fact that our bank is not protecting us in this regard, unacceptable.