To: Sergio Marchionne, CEO Fiat Group Automobiles
250 Via Nizza 10126 Turin, Italy

The beginning

It was love at first sight ... I still remember the moment I saw her the first time in Helsinki. I couldn’t sleep and eat waiting for her to arrive in my city. I'd been standing still breathless and drooling when I occasionally saw her during my holidays in Europe. Relying on pure reason and declining the heart call I thought she wont survive during russian winter on russian roads. Some cynics insist that it had more to do with stopping the advance of the German army in World War II than anything the Soviet Army did. We even have a national song about how bad our roads are. Anyways, let’s go back to my romantic story. Finally realizing that love cannot be faked I sold the old car and hooked up with my brand new baby – an ice-white FIAT 500 with a glass sunroof. So we set up a new life together, with happiness and joy, driving at the streets of St. Petersburg, catching admiring glances and waves, giving my phone number away to the brutal lexus drivers and making the whole world a happier place. It seemed like it was never going to end. Well, until The Day of her First Service Check came. My baby was under warranty, so the first service had to be done at an official dealer’s service centre for FIAT. My friends told me not to deal with Sollers, but it was my baby’s home place and some stupid patriotic sentiment brought me there.

First Service

I called Sollers service centre to make an appointment. I had to explain the operator that ‘500’ is a model of my car because they had no idea such a model existed. I think the fortune sent me a signal at that moment, but I ignored it. It’s the biggest car dealer in the city and my baby deserves to have only the best! The first service almost went smoothly, they just forgot to top up the engine with oil after changing it.

Second Service

We had been together for six months when the cruel winter came. However, my baby stood firm: she was starting on with a half key turn, warming me up and sending me off with her beams lighting my way home on when I was coming late. Our troubles started soon after the second service. One day the engine oil disappeared. It had been at the high level and suddenly turned out to be low. The Sollers mechanics just struggled and said that they think it should be this way. After many testing and several trips to the service centre during two months they said the leakage is found: it’s a crankshaft gasket. Lucky me, it was a warranty case. The operator made an order for a new gasket from the manufacturer and we waited for one month for it to arrive. After one month I called to Sollers. They told me to come over. I immediately did but had to wait in the workshop for 4 hours only to find out that the warranty engineer had forgotten to order the gasket. I wrote a complaint to the head quarters of Sollers in Moscow and got a reply from Ms Marina Bessonova, a manager working with clients. She recommended me to change the service centre. What an amazing advice from an expert working with customers!

I went to another Fiat official vendor and service centre AutoPremium, where I ordered a new gasket and 2 months later it was finally replaced. However, the oil keept disappearing. I went back to AutoPremium and they said the problem is with the gasket again and the crankshaft bearing (damper/strut) needs to be replaced. The second gasket was ordered under the dealer’s warranty, explaining that it is a manufacturer flaw and my baby was installed with a defective gasket the previous time, which cost me 3 month of public transport use and lots of wasted time in the workshops. However, they refused to service the dampers under the warranty because it’s not covered for some strange reasons. The manufacture’s warranty is still on until may 2012.

Most Recent Service

I was on vacation in Tuscany in September 2011 where I bought the new dampers and gaskets for my baby because it’s two times cheaper than the same parts at the official service centre in Saint Petersburg. In the beginning of October these parts were installed at the service centre but they forgot to top up the engine with oil while changing it. Sounds familiar? Besides that, I still hear a crunching sound when steering that mechanics couldn't identify and i think they installed some old rubbish they had in the workshop instead of the dampers I brought from Italy. Anyway, on the way home from the workshop I heard a knock and my baby started to vibrate on a highway at 110 km/h. I pulled off and found out that the front wheel was screwed on with two screws and the other two had fallen off. I was just lucky to be alive. All AutoPremium said was “we are sorry, we forgot to fix the wheel”.

Conclusions and Results

- The car does not break by itself, the cause of all my painful experiences are unskilled workers of the FIAT dealers. It’s the carelessness, irresponsibility, an unwillingness to work and impunity of the official dealers. I believe that my still under-warranty car has been broken by the mechanics and it’s not the manufacturer fault.
- In the last 10 months I spent 26 days at the workshops.
- I’ve driven more than 1000 km and 20 hours to and from the workshops.
- A few times they forgot to top up the engine with oil in and now I have to double-check their work myself.
- The entire ceiling in my ice-white Fiat 500 is stained with the dirty fingers of those stupid mechanics and requires dry cleaning.
- I'm not sure my baby ‘s suspension has been serviced at all. Probably they replaced those spare parts with second hand ones.
- It is by my mere luck I am still alive. I'm trying not to be paranoic.

Questions to the CEO of Fiat S.p.A.:

1. Dear Mr Marchionne, if you ship your cars to Russia, could you choose your dealers carefully and provide a decent and secure service?

2. The most strinning question: I get an impression that my relationship follows the same pattern and we are going throught the same mistakes over and over again. I know this it totally unfair to treat and string my baby along like this but I feel like I'm at a crossroads and I honestly have no idea what to do. WIll breaking it off and losing her be the worst thing I've ever done or is it the right thing to do? Is here a chance for us to work it out and live happily ever after everything we have been through?

Still with love,

Zalina Orlenko