Kia Mile End review: Service department

some feedback on the Kia Mile End SA Service department. In early February on the way back from Melbourne we identified that there was an issue with the air conditioning in our Sportage. It was blowing hot air on the drivers side and cold air on the passenger side. It doesn't take a genius to discover this issue can be caused by a faulty blend door actuator. As the car was to be booked in for a major service my husband rang and informed the Service Department so they could save some time. They informed us we would have to wait for the service (some weeks away) for the problem to be properly diagnosed. We patiently waited, in the meantime driving a car that had almost no cooling through some very hot days. The day of the service came, and we picked up a small sedan as the loan car, both my husband and I have bad hips, which is why we bought the higher wheel base Sportage. As a result of driving around in the teeny tiny loan car I now need Physiotherapy so I can walk and sleep without pain.

Our car was in the service department for two days, because they couldn't fix the aircon. We eventually picked it up on the Saturday, after being told that the faulty blend door actuator would need to be replaced and the part had been ordered from Sydney, potentially arriving at the end of the week. Nobody told us that in messing with the car both vents now blew hot air. What fun on a hot day! Today I rang and spoke to a Melissa, who told me that they couldn't book in a car before the part arrives. I was also told by Melissa that the part would actually not be arriving until the end of the following week (when were they going to tell us we had to wait even longer than expected?). Is the part perhaps being sent by a Carrier Pigeon, or Australia Post? I was also told that the earliest date she "might" be able to fit our car in to have the part fitted was the 13th April, three weeks away! When I protested about the lengthy wait, she very smartly told me I was welcome to leave the car with them until it was repaired, perhaps some time in April. I was also told that if I insisted on booking the car in earlier that I would have to leave it for a day or two, maybe three while they "tried to squeeze the car in" Up until this point I had tolerated being spoken to like I was a mentally deficient child, by someone who sounded like she was barely out of school, and I confess I started to lose my cool, not hard in a hot car.

We are semi-rural, and depend upon our car, we are also driving around on hot days in a mobile oven, today being one of them. I did not appreciate Melissas lack of empathy, her inflexibility or her attitude. Had the aircon not been rendered completely dysfunctional by the Service department we could have coped, after all we had been driving around for weeks waiting for the service with the cooling only working partially. Apparently, we also don't understand that its a Warranty Repair and therefore only worthy of waiting for weeks for it to be carried out. Never been made to feel so insignificant and unwanted as a PAYING customer. We bought our Kia in Melbourne, we have always had it serviced by Kia, the customer service and attitude at Greensborough always kept us happy. Cant say the same for Mile End. We always tell everyone how happy we have been with our car, however things are very different now.