Hello All

I've been Looking at SDV8 Aotubiography's recently and have come across a few I like.

Dealer A: 1 hours drive away. No online reviews, and they don't seem interested in calling me back about a car they have been struggling to shift. They have a brand new MY15.5 (Oct 14 Build) for sale quite a bit below market rate as it looks like they've been struggling to shift it. Its been recently reduced too

If they weren't struggling to shift their stock, I'd understand the lack of interest in returning my call, but to not return a call re a car they've been struggling to shift? They have however confirmed it IS still for sale.

Dealer B: Local to me, service seems great so far. They have an MY16, but its for sale at market rate with room for negotiation, but they've admitted up front it won't be as cheap as the MY15.5 mentioned above.

Dealer B spent ages with me today and haven't been pushy at all so far. They claim to pride them selves on after sales service, and online reviews are very good and aplenty.


My question is, do you think its wiser to :

Option A: Go with Dealer A who's further away (if I can ever speak to someone), bag what seems like a deal on a brand new MY15.5, for sale quite a bit below market value, but face potential customer service issues if/when theres an issue with the car down the line

Option B: Go with Dealer B who's nice and local, spend more (market rate), on an MY16 on the premise that I'll have a better customer service experience should there be any issues with my car down the road.

Cheers
JKay

buy from dealer A and take to dealer B for servicing... ... - .- -.




Y. O. L. O.
.

Hopefully dealer B will be just as happy to entertain potential warranty issues/claims etc even tho they weren't the supplying dealer

What Stan said. Unless your prefered dealer can work on the price. Mine was a blue one!

Depends on which is best value. Cheap doesn't necessarily mean Best Value. A Grand or two (UK) difference in sale price wouldn't sway me to pick a car built in October 14, even though it's technically new, over a MY 16, probably built twelve months later. Other things that would influence are spec, colour etc but it's best value I'd go for.

As Stan says, don't be concerned about buying from one and servicing at another. I invariably do that unless the local dealer can give me the deal I can get elsewhere. To give a bit more to that last comment; I built up a decent relationship with the dealership who sold me my first L405, used it for 12 months and 5,000 miles and then offered to buy another from them. Trouble is they offered £4,000.00 less than everyone else was offering me. So I now have a car I'm happy with and that first dealer still has that car two months later that I'd have taken. The madness of it is that he then reduced the price of the 4.4 AB (64plate) to £73,000 and a week later put it up to £77,000, which was £2K more than the price I'd originally seen it at.

Does the Aus JLR dealer network work the same way as it does in the UK? Because all the answers above are exactly what you would be expected to do here in the UK...

All UK JLR main agents are ran as a business and complete against each other for your sales business (meaning its quite common to travel several hundred miles to buy a car)...Once you own a JLR product it is then common place for you to take that “product” to any one of JLR’s network for maintenance (usually your local trusted one)...

Hope that helps...

Dealer B - for the service All my spelling errorz are belong to me!

2023 FFRR L460
2021 AM new Vantage

I agree with BasilF. I would opt for the latest MY I could afford at the time. I'd hope any good dealer would still want the servicing business. They should see it as keeping your custom and that you might be a future purchaser.[/quote]

You also need to check that any warranty is transferable - again, in the UK you can buy from one dealership and then have another one do any work under warranty.

Jkay wrote:

they've admitted up front it won't be as cheap as the MY15.5 mentioned above.

A dealer will not get rich from warranty work....  All my spelling errorz are belong to me!

2023 FFRR L460
2021 AM new Vantage

Behave, they make a fortune from it: £150 per hour and then pay the technician £20 all in. Oil is suddenly 3 or 4 times the normal trade rate and that's without them charging £120 to replace an "R" on Range Rover.

They sell own branded warranty, alloy wheel protection and total loss protection at huge mark ups. I should know because I just got a refund on the £1000 dealer warranty I didn't need and after their commission I got back considerably less than half

The real issue is that even at Dealer level each separate department Sales / Service / Parts are all run independantly and charge each other part of the business, so the only person/s who see's the joined up picture is the DP and above.

@Kurt
My post was nothing to do with what the dealer might earn from warranty work but merely to allow the OP to be reassured that Dealer B would confirm willingness to do it.

I know warranties are meant to be honoured by any dealer but reassurance would be good.  John
2008 Stornoway Grey 3.6 Tdv8 Vogue
2005 TD6 Java Black Vogue - Written off!!
GAP iiD BT
2003 Discovery TD5 Auto, Nanocom Evolution - gone to a new home!
MasseyFerguson 152 - No electronics!! - Sold

I don't know the Australian set-up, but in the UK I think the dealers are encouraged to help one another out with stock. My current car was with another dealer (with a good reputation for service etc too) but I prefer to deal with the one I am used to and asked if they could organise a deal on it. They had no stock that would have met my requirements. They got the car from the other dealer and sold it to me. So you might be able to get the better, local dealer to get the other car. The other dealer would of course not release the car if they thought they had a decent chance of selling it themselves in the near future, so it would be as well not to follow up with them until the preferred dealer has had a chance to react.

Beyond that I would tend to prefer to give the business to the better dealer, even if the cost was a bit higher. The better dealer should be happy to do work for you anyway - at least here in the UK the workshop will be a profit centre in itself. In volume franchises the margins on sales are pretty thin and I think more money is made in the workshop, perhaps there is more balance in higher price vehicles like RRs. Only Range Rovers since 1988

Quote:

Does the Aus JLR dealer network work the same way as it does in the UK? Because all the answers above are exactly what you would be expected to do here in the UK...

Thanks for all the replies.

Come Monday I need to confirm that the warranty is indeed transferrable, as when I lived in South East Asia, the dealers tended to run on individual basis (despite being part of the same franchise). That and banks too, e.g. I couldn't ask for statements, bankers cheques/drafts/reset my internet banking password anywhere else other than the actual branch where I opened the account

I did try to ask dealer B if they could get the stock from Dealer A, but they said they were unable to in this instance, and that dealer A probably has some sort of extra incentives on that vehicle to be able to sell that cheap, something which they can't match apparently. The difference comes up to around £5,000-6,000 for a brand new MY15.5 (Oct 14 Build) vs a Brand new MY16 built sometime in mid 2015. The MY15.5 will be around 7-8% below rrp whereas the MY16 will be 4% below RRP after discount.

Got a text off dealer A last night after 7pm, apologising for not getting back to me, and was promised a callback this morning. Its just gone mid day here and still nothing.

Spec wise all the cars I'm looking at are pretty much similar (down to colour and options).

Decisions decisions !

If Dealer B is indeed happy to look after me in the hope of keeping me as a loyal customer the next time I look to change vehicle, then yes I guess its simple, Buy from Dealer A and use dealer B for everything else.

Apart from the two above cars, the only other one I can find with the desired spec/colour is for sale privately, July 13 Build MY14 with 9,000 miles (15,000km) for 23% below RRP before negotiation. This is factoring in a 2 year extended warranty (which I will purchase from dealer B) valid until September 2018

Its so much harder to make decisions when Im emotionally involved