Powerstation Trip

[Hongkongfooi]

Thought i would give my feedback on my trip to Powerstation last monday.

What I have always thought was a class leading Subaru specialist.

I went with Ron to have my rear AST's rebuilt by curtis and had this booked in for at least a month.
Greg also came along in his 330s hatch and had some work done to his (i'll let him fill in this bit if he wants!)

I rang them the week before to remind them....told them that I was with greg and we were from SES and suggested doing a write up about them....this was fine.We were the only ones booked in that day.

Anyway, last monday I left home at 5.30am to get there for 9. It was a nightmare of a journey....snowy, car fire on m25 etc etc but we got there at 9.30...not too bad considering.
They had promised we would be away for 2pm.

Once there we were starving so asked if there was a greasy spoon or similar close by. They said no but a bp garage was not far away. So knowing that we passed this about a mile away we walked there in the freezing cold and grabbed what we could before walking back.
Once back at the garage we wondered round in again a freezing premises. Asked if we could look round, they said no go ahead, no offer of a tour?

There appeared to be about 6 employees there all working at pedestrian pace I thought, but both cars were in and being worked on.

I asked if there was a coffee machine or something...they said it broke and they never replaced it and to go and make one in their kitchen to which I did.
Brought it back into their waiting room which had a heater which just about took the temp to zero degrees. This room had the ability to have 4 strip light bulbs but only one was present. The cabinets which should have showed off products were two thirds empty, but there was a used bottle of additive in there which was nice.
The tv and playstation one! were broken and there was nothing to do but wait. To keep warm we walked around the premises trying to find the 'have you tried upstairs' area that was promised from the writing on the door of the waiting room.
To no ones surprise this now didn't exist as they sacked the employee at some time previous.

They then stopped for lunch for an hour and told us they were going out and turned off all the lights in the premises apart from the waiting room (which was nice)

At this point I went to my car and gathered every bit of clothing I had to keep warm, we are talking three layers including gloves! Greg did the same.

I was sooo cold I asked one employee you was still around for another heater so he grabbed the one from the reception office.

Anyway it got to 2pm and by which time we had all had a sense of humor failure. I pressed them to hurry up and eventually mine was done at 2.45. They told us Greg's would be another 2 hours!

I wanted to leave asap just to turn on the cars heater so reluctantly we left Greg (me 500 quid lighter after two shocks rebuilt, two new softer rear springs and a geo done) and they then put the guy that had been working on mine to work on Gregs car.
I understand he got away around 4pm.

Now don't get me wrong in that I was expecting some sort of red carpet treatment..... but bearing in mind the 4 hour journey time and the fact we were from a club and spending good money and they had a chance for some positive press I was amazed at the lack of customer care.
I swear that if this had been RCM we would have been given the keys to the firms van to go and find a cafe or they would have made us a coffee or something that would bring us back?

The overall experience was negative...if it wasnt for the fact I needed the Ast specialist i wouldn't recommend this place. It looks like its dying on its **** and only just surviving.
I wouldn't be surprised that since Litchfield moved away and that association ended they haven't kept up and business has gone down the pan. They do not seem interested in progressing their business.

Oh and get this they had some poor sap cleaning old hub caps which they sell on!

As to the work to mine....yes it feels a bit better due to the shocks not leaking and new springs but not the transformation i was hoping for


and yes....it was BLOODY COLD

[bonner]

lol sound like a bunch of hillbillys!!

[Hongkongfooi]

Originally Posted by bonner

lol sound like a bunch of hillbillys!!

its a shame really because if you see there website and video you would of thought wow...got to go there!

[bonner]

always the way that! its abit like products you find somthing good that works next thing you know its discontinued!! shame people dont take pride in what they do! well people like these anyhow! all people seem to worrie about is another day another dolla!

[SpecB]

I was there many years ago just after Litchfield moved out and it was not a dissimilar experience, booked in for almost 3 months due to holidays and when I arrived they didn't have the sports cat centre I had booked for, they fitted and mapped a full decat then sent me the sports cat at a later date, (after numerous phone calls) but I had to pay postage and for fitting and new gaskets when it arrived.

Fortunately despite a couple of calls they forgot to collect the old centre which was taken off the bill for the sports cat!

If you need anything AST again I'd recommend going straight to Ian.

[Lucky]

Shame Tim as I know you were looking forward to getting them done, especially as it was powerstation. It seems that customer care has gone out of the window with a lot of businesses at the moment, whether its down to cost cutting and now the remaining staff have too much to do, i don't know.

[Steve_PPP]

Thanks for posting this Tim, it makes interesting reading. Funny though, you'd think in tough times everyone would be trying extra hard to keep customers happy and repeat business rolling in!

[GB270Adam]

Sorry to hear the day wasn't what you were expecting mate, had a similar experience when I had my 2nd Civic Type-r, had a some coilovers fitted by TDI South and they did a sh!t job setting them up. Some garages really need to take stock of what their doing.

[Hongkongfooi]

Originally Posted by GB270Adam

Sorry to hear the day wasn't what you were expecting mate, had a similar experience when I had my 2nd Civic Type-r, had a some coilovers fitted by TDI South and they did a sh!t job setting them up. Some garages really need to take stock of what their doing.

You're right Adam. They need to think 'if I was travelling that far what is the most I can do to get them to Come back again?'
Wish I had the finances to run a business like that, I would make sure it's very different.
I have a feeling that the place is now occupied by several businesses. I just rung Curtis to get some ast advice and was given a different number as its separate company.

[XRS]

Sorry to read about your bad experience Tim. I've been using Powerstation for the last eight years, since I ordered the T25 and I guess I had the feeling that things were not as good as when Litchfield was based there. I did however choose to continue having the car serviced by Powerstation rather than Litchfield because I had always had a good experience with them. It is a long way to go for a service, but as I have family in Gloucester I always combined it with a family visit (I always took my Cosworth to Brooklyn in Redditch, so long distance servicing is nothing new). I never had to do the whole journey in one day.

I can see why you're disappointed, but I'm sure Curtis (who is a very clever chap) will have done a good job on the ASTs for you. I suspect he is now AST UK, hence the different phone number.