What is it with car dealers?

[The Zee]

What is it with car dealers at the moment? I know we have the WLTP lark going on, but seriously !

As I am in the market for a new car I thought I would look at the opposition as well as Skoda.

Firstly Skoda – Had a test in a Karoq, left the salesperson with some questions who said he would get back to me, he didn’t. Chased but couldn’t speak to him, left a message to call me back, he didn’t.

Secondly Mazda – Expressed an interest in the CX-5 which is now available for the first time as a petrol automatic. Contacted two dealers who said they would come back to me when full details and pricing were available. This has been in the public domain for a month now, but cannot get any interest from the either dealers.

Thirdly BMW – Looking at an X2, dealership could not have shown any more indifference if they had been trained to.  

I know in the scheme of things 30k -35k is not a fortune these days but it is a lot of money for me. If the front line of these businesses cannot give confidence I wonder about the ongoing service support during ownership.

Is there anybody out there that wants my money?

[Ryeman]

It seems manufacturers are having trouble getting their new cars through the new emissions testing fast enough to keep up with demand.  Salespersons will demonstrate their attitude to you by their response - treat them accordingly.

[Aspman]

That's not a dealer problem it's a people problem.

 

They don't have proper CRM type systems to give them reminders. That and they would rather concentrate on the sale in front of them.

 

The 'Big Book of Selling' has told them that a customer out the door is not a customer at all. Only the customer in front of you is a sale. So they don't bother with anything else.

In fairness most people that mosey round aren't going to buy so maybe it's not worth their effort to chase them all even though you are the rare exception being someone that is genuinely interested.

[The Zee]

Having given all of them my mobile number, home number, e-mail and home address I was hoping that I might have been taken seriously.

[Jfhuk]

I share you’re disdain of BMW stealers. They seem to hire only the brain dead in the sales departments. Last trip was the best yet. I was looking at possibly buying an X5 before getting the Kodiaq..

 

Tim nice but dim, computes the best price, I show him a car wow quote and ask him to match it. “Can’t do that Sir, we’d go out of business”. Oh so your manager is closing shop then is he? As it’s his email address on it.

 

Red faced oik then says I’ll have to get back to you. At that point I said goodbye.,

Edited 6 September, 2018 by Jfhuk

[silver1011]

You've picked three bad dealers. Assuming they're all local then it looks like you'll need to travel.

 

My local Skoda dealer isn't great (DM Keith in York), but an hours drive away is Des Winks in Scarborough. Night and day difference in their customer experience.

[Rapidash]

The same happened to me and my misses on monday this week: 

 

Mrs was driving her VW caddy when she noticed her EML light appear on the dashboard. We both decided seeing as we were close to our local vw commercial vehicle centre, we should nip it in and let the guys have a look over the caddy. 

 

Well what a mistake that was: 

 

Arrived at dealership to be greeted by frankly two rude old service advisers who couldnt give a damn that we were there and weren't very helpful in the slightest. 

 

After 20 or so mins of faffing they decided that they could look over the caddy with the diagnostic reader, turns out the caddy has a faulty knock sensor. 

 

Finally the "technician" said yeah no worries you can continue to use your caddy it will just have the eml light on in doing so, not the mention the fact the caddy would go into limp mode if we did this.

removed the caddy outside of the dealership to be greeted with limp mode, 4 and a bit hours later the recovery guys arrive to tow us home. 

 

So yesterday 6th of september the caddy was collected from stoke our home town transported down to birmingham to be repaired by their local vw commercial centre. Its baffling really as we have a perfectly ok commercial centre in stoke but they dont want to know. 

 

Avoid imperial commercials stoke like the plague for aftersales they are horrid. 

 

thanks for reading 

ash .

 

  

[The Zee]

9 hours ago, silver1011 said:

You've picked three bad dealers. Assuming they're all local then it looks like you'll need to travel.

 

My local Skoda dealer isn't great (DM Keith in York), but an hours drive away is Des Winks in Scarborough. Night and day difference in their customer experience.

No quite. The Skoda dealer was the one who sold me my Superb a few years back, they were good then and the Mazda dealer we bought a new car from them last year. Can only assume that business is so good they don't care about sales.

[Auric Goldfinger]

11 hours ago, silver1011 said:

You've picked three bad dealers. Assuming they're all local then it looks like you'll need to travel.

 

My local Skoda dealer isn't great (DM Keith in York), but an hours drive away is Des Winks in Scarborough. Night and day difference in their customer experience.

 

Another thumbs up for Des Winks,  We bought a CitiGo from them. Seamless experience