It's interesting that some things at Robert Eardley Crewe don't change.

In this day and age you would expect email to be a common form of comunicaton, to date they have not answered a single email, when I called they said it must have gone into junk. If they know this why don't they check it. They are frustrating

Robert Eardley  was sold to Barlow Motors a few years ago. They have rebranded to Barlow Motors and moved to bigger premises in Crewe.

 

 

 

Yes, it's a very smart dealership now. Easy to find (it's the former Honda dealers place) and very friendly. Did a good deal with me when ordering a new Karoq Sportline in June, and have been helpful in adding the new MY21 Area View option to the order. Respond to emails after a day or so (but I'm not sure what days my sales rep works, and can't expect him to be there 24/7!) 

 

Before I visited them in June I'd been at the older cramped Newcastle-under-Lyme site. Perhaps I caught them on a bad day (it was just after the return to work from lockdown) but they seemed completely disinterested in me as a potential customer. So I drove on to Crewe instead and found them far more welcoming and helpful, making me go for the deal rather than wait any longer.

 

Chris 

Further update now my car has been handed over.

 

After amending my order to include the new MY21 options, I'd asked the sales exec to send me a copy of the amended spec from their computer system, but was only able to get an email from him listing my changes. 

 

And although he'd promised to update me with the progress of my order, in practice I was getting news from Skoda UK via their Twitter DM feed before he contacted me. And he'd never supplied any details of the MY21 changes as promised either. It seemed I knew more about them than he did! 

 

I'd asked that they register my car with my personal plate, and had sent a scan of the retention certificate to my sales exec so he could do this. But when the sales manager phoned me on a Friday to say my car had arrived at Grimsby and said that I would be contacted on Monday to confirm the handover day, my sales exec was then furloughed on that day so couldn't do this! Later that week I managed to contact the sales manager, discovered he had no knowledge of the retention certificate, and so sent him a second copy so the car could be registered. 

 

When I picked it up, I was pleased to find that they were honouring our originally agreed price, despite my adding around £300 in changed options, (and the original price had matched a Carwow  quote). But I was less pleased with the way he fobbed off queries. (He'd only given me two keys when I was expecting three for the personalisation option, said he'd check, and then came back to tell me that MY21 cars only had two now. But when I got the car home, I found a third key synced to the car tucked in the phonebox! And when I asked if he needed to see my driving licence to authorise the Connect account, he assured me that he didn't need to do that. Except that later when I'd linked the car up to my Skoda ID and Connect account, it said I needed to show my driving licence to my dealer for the Lock & Unlock feature to be activated!)

 

So all in all, a good financial deal, but typical sales people who don't know the details of the product their selling, and promising more than they can deliver.  

Hats off to Barlow Motors (Skoda dealer) in Crewe. Excellent customer service!

1. Parts ordered, arrived three days early and they rang me at 8.30, as soon as they’d come through the door.

2. One of their technicians talked me through a proper PITA fiddly bit that I hadn’t been able to work out how to do.

3. They added my reg number to the Skoda system (I had the VIN), the absence of which was due to the previous owner being 'The Service Authority'

Nice one Mr Barlow’s team!

In the correct discussion I hope ...

Just bought a car that was originally delivered by Robert Eardley and Son Crewe.

I'm after if possible ...

Original dealer window stickers (I think the car had a large rectangle one and also a smaller rectangle one? - maybe someone can advise?)

Original dealer keyring with the Skoda and Dealer branding ...

and for fun, any photos anyone might have of the dealership, their cars they bought there, or anything historical.

Thank you

I hate to leave bad reviews, and this is a bit of a dated one, but I havent been around the forum for a while, so I will chip in now.

This is my local garage, probably about 3 miles from my house.

The first time I dealt with them was during Covid, and their customer service was awful ! Havent been back since, and I have warned others off since.

I part ex'ed my old Skoda in for a new one over the Covid period. I fully understand Covid made things hard and more complicated.

However, after giving them my Karoq as part of the deal, they failed to register it in their name (they said they would do it all as part of the service with the V5) and therefore, 4 months after they took the car off me, I got a letter telling me I had failed to pay my tax on the vehicle and I need to pay immediately or face a fine. I went into the garage and explained, and I was told that it had been done and there was nothing to worry about.
One month later I received a letter telling me that Baliffs would come round to my address in the coming weeks if payment was not made, and the payment would be a lot higher due to costs.

I went back to the garage to take this up with the Manager there, and he was very confrontational and would not accept that they hadn't done it.

By some miracle after that confrontational chat, a week later I received a letter saying the ownership of the car had been changed. However, I still had to pay the fine.

I paid the fine (£150) to try and get it all sorted and then claim back. I spoke to Skoda Crewe about this, and the DVLA and neither would help me out.

Summary is - they had my V5, went into lockdown, didnt change the car details over, and they tried to cover it up and say they had done it, when they clearly hadnt.

Could have improved since, and it was a testing time for the world, but my sympathy or ownership was shown over this. If they had apologised and paid the £150 for me (as I hadn't owned the car for 4 months), there would not have been an issue.