BYD cabin filter - does your dealer actually know how to install it? (another service horror story)

Hey buddy, which dealership did you go to? Ive got my own horror stories from setubal, and am looking for some other that is maybe a bit more competent, so would be useful to learn which others to avoid. And yeah for something like the filters, which is usually not too hard to service on BYDs you might be better off looking for resources online and do it yourself in the future, unfortunately. These cars are so good, but the service has been one of the worst experiences Ive ever had, and ive had a lot of different brands. Its got to the point where im wondering if servicing them in spain might be an option ( im not too far from the border)

My dealership here in Japan has been nothing short of great. Maintenance is always only a few hours and often someone will take the car from my house and bring it back to me at the end of the day. When they return the car I notice the interior is always vacuumed and the carpets are cleaned. When I needed repairs from being rear-ended, the parts arrived fast and work was flawless. The only "issue" (very minor) was some front airbag harness recall, and after that I would sometimes get an airbag error. They couldn't confirm the problem directly as it only appeared occasionally, but they re-tightened some cables under the seat and apparently that was it, the error never appeared again. But I admit this is probably the exception given most comments about BYD dealerships everywhere. Even here in Japan I am lucky that this dealership's parent company is specialized in imported cars dealerships (Benz, BMW, Abarth, etc), so their technical center is already experienced in dealing with less common cars and fixing imports.

funny thing is my dealer here in Portugal M. Costas is also multi-brand. Audi, Hyundai other imports. so in theory the same setup. And yet somehow i got a HEPA filter installed upside down, a broken latch, and a handle they snapped themselves blamed on "age of the vehicle" so yeah, multi-brand doesn't automatically mean anything apparently 🙂 execution still varies wildly anyway, I’m glad some BYD owners are having a good experience. Good for them, and good for you

Hey) My dealer is M. Costas, Braga And yeah, in the end it’s just easier to do the small stuff yourself. Turned out the bar for “they’ll probably mess it up” was even lower than I thought )) About the Setubal horror stories - which dealer was that? It’s actually useful to build a map of who to avoid around the country. My warranty is already gone, so the Spain option for me is simply about finding someone who actually knows these cars. Has anyone tried servicing there? If the experience is even halfway decent, I’d consider making the drive 🙂

there's only one byd dealership in setubal, caetano. Issues I had are too long to just write down here, but I simply do not trust them to service my car anymore. I live in the Evora area, and there's also a BYD dealership there, but that one I'm not going to go to either simply because they used to be Nissan, got bought out by Amatoscar, and now sell and service both nissan and BYD and my experience with them with a nissan leaf I used to own ended up in the gutter too, so I simply do not trust their service either even thought my past experience with their new owner (amatoscar) is not bad. I think I'll try either lisbon or cascais next. Spain (Badajoz), I have no idea if they are good or not but I'm willing to try if it comes to that. For regular maintenance and service you might also want to try other shops, like midas or myforce. might want to shop around for opinions on which ones of those specifically though. In larger urban areas like lisbon or porto you might also find some specialized non franchise shops, maybe ask around in facebook groups for advice on that, it's a fairly new brand in portugal so might be difficult, but I have the impression some of those that have been specializing in Teslas might also start going for other EV brands, and I've heard there might be a few trustworthy ones in those bigger urban areas.

I believe BYDs sell themselves, they are great cars, but car service has never been a good thing in the western countries, and considering this is a new brand to these markets will only make it worse, at least for a while.