Astoria GWM — Local services in Melbourne

If There Was an Option for Zero Stars, I’d Give It – My Honest Experience with GWM Haval Australia Services department NOT the NEW car sell.

If you're thinking about buying a GWM Haval vehicle, I strongly recommend you read this first.

I've been dealing with GWM for nearly 5 years after purchasing a brand-new Haval H9 in 2021 from a dealership in Perth. Since then, the experience with their after-sales and customer service has been nothing short of exhausting, frustrating, and extremely disappointing.

The Core Issues I Faced:

After moving to Melbourne, I took my car to Astoria GWM in February 2025 for the 55,000km scheduled service. I paid $965, plus loan car fees—for what was basically a standard oil & filter change, safety check, and spark plug replacement. No major repairs or complex work. That alone felt like a rip-off.

At drop-off, I reported two issues:

A ticking/clicking noise from underneath the car when stationary (suspected exhaust or suspension issue).

The indicator light on the dashboard wasn't working.

Even after a test drive with a mechanic who acknowledged the ticking noise, after leaving the car all day when i went to pick up the car up only to find:

The indicator light was not even checked, let alone fixed.

I was told the ticking noise was just the exhaust expanding when hot—but no proof of actual work or fix was provided.

And It Gets Worse… Second Visit: I had to return again. After keeping my car the whole day, I was told:

The indicator bulb couldn’t be replaced individually and the whole instrument cluster needed to be changed.

They had “distressed” the exhaust, and that “should” fix the ticking noise (it didn’t).

Third Visit: They finally replaced the cluster but:

Reset the odometer to 0km – now I have a vehicle that reads 0km, which could seriously impact resale value.

The dashboard was left in Chinese, and the mechanic couldn’t be bothered to switch it to English.

Service & maintenance intervals were not updated correctly.

Fourth Visit few weeks later, Returned again to correct the above:

The dashboard language, clock/time, and maintenance KM were STILL not fixed.

I was told the ticking noise is “just how the exhaust sounds” and not a mechanical issue.

And now, they can’t even fix the time/clock on the new cluster, and I need to return again YES again the 5th time

What Kind of Customer Service Is This?

This is now 5th separate visits, a ridiculous amount of wasted time, fuel, and energy for what should be basic fixes. The lack of competence from the mechanics, combined with a complete absence of urgency or care from GWM, is honestly shocking. These are the kind of problems and excuses you’d never expect from established brands like Toyota or Mazda.

While I must acknowledge that Stuart at GWM Astoria has a calm and polite manner and tries his best to keep things smooth when customers are frustrated, no amount of politeness can make up for GWM’s systemic service failures. The mechanics seem incapable of diagnosing or resolving even minor issues properly.

Final Advice: If you're considering buying a GWM Haval, please take my experience into account:

Don’t just look at the initial price or features.

Consider what happens when something goes wrong.

Ask yourself if you have the time and patience to keep returning to a service Centre again and again for things that should’ve been fixed the first time.

And consider the frustration of dealing with a brand that doesn’t take responsibility, doesn’t follow up, and doesn’t deliver the service you paid for.

My Message to GWM Australia:

I'm extremely disappointed, frustrated, and angry at how this has been handled. Why does a customer have to fight so hard just to get basic support on a new car—especially when they’ve paid nearly $1,000 for a basic service? This is not acceptable.

GWM, your customer service has wasted my time, my money, and my trust. This is not how any company should treat their customers—especially those who’ve spent good money on your...

If you care about getting the after sales support even if it relates to the agreed terms and conditions of the sales agreement, then please do yourself a favour and save the disappointment. My experience relates to the delay in getting all the accessories (fair enough, things are not always available and delays can happen) which basically becomes your own responsibility to arrange a pickup for when they arrive, regardless of the fact that they were part of the original sales agreement and should have been supplied with the car in the first place. If you buy a car with additional accessories (floor mats, cargo liner etc.) make 200% sure that you get ALL OF THEM fitted before taking the delivery of the vehicle. If the accessories arrive at a later stage, the dealership will make you travel all the way to pick them up yourself (Just pray you don't live far). No matter how much you explain or request them to courier them to you, they will not budge. If you ask again, they will not respond to your emails but instead call and sternly tell you to come pickup. If you speak back, they threaten you with statements like: • "if you don't pickup your parts by certain day, you will not get the parts at all". • "Stop sending us emails, we do not have time to waste answering your queries" • "Our staff is here to assist with delivery related issues and you are putting her off and distracting her from performing her duties" If you continue, they become aggressive and raise their voice to quieten you down and if you reciprocate, they hang up on you. Wish they had given the above statements to me in writing but that would have been catastrophic and would made a total mockery of themselves. If you think you can climb up the ladder and get some help from the higher authority at this dealership, brace yourself with the fact that the extremely pathetic, unprofessional and arrogant communication flows from the top down. Both the GM and Sales manager need to go back and get some customer service and communication etiquette lessons. Isolating some people from the experience and not labelling them all as "Toads from the same well", Steven C had been helpful with the sales process, although he too did not acknowledge or respond to my email around the particular issue. Jasmin had been great with the vehicle demonstration and timely communication, although the sales manager claimed (as mentioned above) that my emails were putting her off and distracting...

Booked a test drive for an Ora online the other day with Astoria and was called by Chenyang Li to confirm the appointment. We were looking to buy another car, a compact EV, given the garage space, so we booked the drive test after trying out the BYD Dolphin and the Mini from the Brighton branches. When we arrived we were told by Chenyang that no Ora was available for test drive, but he could show us one. Disappointed, we were ready to leave but gave it a shot thinking we were already there anyway. Unfortunately the Ora was parked somewhere far away from the showroom and the whole time walking to and fro, we were already being encouraged to put a deposit in for one. For starters, we went in for a test drive to compare the cars we had in mind, so if you confirm a test drive, please make sure there’s a car to test drive, otherwise a call to let your customer know would be appropriate. Please don’t waste people’s time. Additionally, it became a bit confronting being told “the car is the cheapest option between the three and that there were no offers he can give us because it was already the cheapest out of what we were considering” then be asked what was holding us back from signing up. We had to tell Chenyang that money is not the issue and we DIDN’T even try to negotiate because we weren’t even there yet. A test drive is what we came for so negotiating a price for a car we didn’t get to test drive didn’t seem appropriate. Pretty upsetting to be honest. Went to BYD as soon as we left and got us the Dolphin with the color option we wanted thrown in for free. Couldn’t be happier with BYD Brighton after that experience with Astoria.

UPDATE IN REPLY TO OWNER : For starters, I wasn’t with my wife. I was with my partner. Neither did we pay a deposit as we didn’t even get to a test drive. I challenge the owner to prove we paid anything with this visit after how we were treated. We did no negotiation and I wasn’t with my wife. We couldn’t possibly do any of what was on the response as we only booked the drive test Thursday, 13 March. Today is 15 March. Nothing happened on a Monday. Please get your information straight before calling your reviewers out. Attaching photo of calling card provided to us earlier as proof we had such experience with Mr. Li. We have no reason for lies, only to document how we were treated and forewarn those who read reviews. For those considering GWM Astoria, please read other reviews...