Bloody car dealers

It's Gods way of telling you to get the 300C. ;-)

-- JackH

Isn't that blindness?

OK, well, I may be in the 'timewaster' category at the moment.

But the facts are that, in the not too distant future, I will be spending my own money (sort of - monthly allowance paid to me with my salary) on a car. I'm open to suggestions of buying used vs leased (and if I do a PCP type of thing, I kind of need to order last week for a factory build ayway) - and I'm also aware that I may have to buy 4 weeks or so before my company car goes back to get a good deal on something that has come back as a trade-in against a new plate car.

So, I'm looking at spending around £15k, either up front with a bank loan, used car dealer finance or even a personal lease on a new car, with the timescale of 4-8 weeks.

I'm being absolutely honest with the sales droids and doing my best to organise test drives that are both convenient to me and at quiet times for them, so as not to waste too much of their time.

However, the Volvo dealer *still* doesn't want to help me.

Ultimately, it could cost his parent chain a fair bit of cash in a sale and servicing - because they're all (Saab and Alfa excepted) coming from the same chain.

What makes it even worse is that the Jag. dealer in Swansea showed me around a few cars, listened to what I wanted, and made sure I'd give him a call closer to the time, as he'd be happy to pull in any car from group stock that I wanted to look at.

Chrysler were the same.

I suppose that's the difference between real prestige dealers and the wannabes (and I include Alfa in this latter category).

You are lucky, in Manchester Statstone have the Saab, Ferrari, Porsche and Maserati dealerships too.

In Warrington, it is PLP Vauxhall that do the Saab and Chevrolet (mainly parts and service for Saab, but the occasional sale too).

it really is a dealership thing, where i work we have 2 nissan, 2 vauxhall chevrolet saab, 3 peugeot, 2 renault ect (to bloody many!) but i've heard a few times how people have gone to our renault southend dealer and found them totally unhelpful and come up to our basildon renault dealership and found it a lot better. some of it is just salesman too. one of our salesman who left recently could pretty much sell anything but never got repeat customers cos if they came back with a problem he'd hide till they went away, he also never call people back either.

i hate car dealers in some ways, it doesn't get any better working for one cos if your staff and want a car trying to find someone to help you is impossible for most of the staff cos the salesman can't be arsed to help in something they get nothing out of. so unless your friends with any of them you aint getting a car with staff discount easily!

I agree with all of what you're saying. As a sales droid it is better for him if he goes on the test drive in that there is bugger all chance of selling cars to people who've not driven them, unfortunately doing that at a mainstream dealership just lands you with a ton of shit from the sales manager, finance department and a few others. In most of the dealerships I worked in if you generated "A lead" and sales were slow you were expected to go through reams of paperwork ringing everyone who'd been into the garage in the last 10 years. In a mainstream dealership people are pretty much expected to walk in and get a test drive there and then, but they're not that well equipped to deal with it when it comes to actual demo cars available (Normally a sales droids company car is the one you get to have a go in).

Prestige dealerships are a lot more laid back to work for, when a sale happens as long as you get everything right you have a good time. Test drives are encouraged provided there is a decent chance of a sale. Joe Public also expect to have to do more to get to test drive prestige cars so it tends to go un-noticed. That's why it's easy to book a prestige car for a test drive, but difficult to get a drive by just walking in. The prestige dealer will also have a lot more available models for you to try as they tend to have most in stock.

Indeed, I used to work for PAG as a mystey shopper / dealer-checker-up-er, and out of all them, it was mostly Volvo dealerships that seemed to think they were better than everyone else and could what the f**k they liked... I had one or two loose their dealerships / severely hauled over the coals, but it seems some are still taking the piss...

Tim..

I visited Ray Chapman Volvo of Malton - twice in fact as I was passing both times. The first time I was told they didn't a C30 on site, but it didn't matter because there wasn't a salesman available to talk to me anyway. Arranged that someone would phone me the next day to discuss easy Motability sale. No one ever did. I stopped by again as I was passing. Again, no C30 on site, no apology for the lack of a call, left name and number again but of course I assumed they'd never call. And they never did - which I'm actually thankful for as it helped killed the temporary insanity that was wanting a Volvo - that and driving the wallowing heap of shit elsewhere. It was laughably called a 'Sport' model as well.

I found when looking for a car on motability that most places treated you as second class.

Yea same here, although the Peugeot dealer were nice originally, so they got my business. Only had the one, left the scheme after that.

It's a shame that geniune motability cases get this treatment, but you can blame all the dole scroungers who have been signed off with a bad back / leg / depression etc. for this - it's not *that* hard to make a case for motability, so many decent dealers get inbred scum families from council estates coming through their doors for their 'free car, innit'

From the dealer's point of view, why would that lead to second class treatment? They still get a sale out of it, and I'd guess a fairly easy one - far easier than trying to sell to you for example.

Have you had any dealings with dole-scrounging, inbred scum?

They're an absolute PITA, as they'll not only want their car 'on the social, like', but a load of extra free stuff thrown in as well. 'We're entitled, innit'.

No - I live somewhere less pikey :-)

And any dealer with any nous whatsoever can tell that stereotype apart from somebody more reasonable.

I wanted a car full stop. I had no choice.my wife couldn;t walk. Money is the root of all evil.

Depending on the manufacturers membership of the scheme they often get a reduced margin on the sale. Better, more focussed dealers, have someone employed to do motability as part of (or their entire) role and they are the ones that are best to deal with. First question when ringing round is to ask if they have a motability specialist - if you can find one that does then you're on your way to some service.

Other than that sticking to the smaller dealers seems to help - big dealer salesman isn't going to be interested in a low commission sale.

"Tim S Kemp" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

...flog some poor sap an overpriced "extended warranty"...

Heh - I worked for a peak season in Comet a few years ago - if only you knew.

"Tim S Kemp" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

G'wan...

Last thing I bought from DSG was an iron. The extended warranty they tried to sell me would have cost more than the actual iron itself...

The muppet behind the counter looked shifty when I suggested that if the iron was THAT unreliable, I didn't want it.