You should look at Pistonheads loads of threads moaning about dealers of all manufacturers - BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, McLaren all get a daily lasting.

As has been touched on above these days I think there are so many time wasters out there that sales staff don’t give every enquiry their full effort.

I’ve been mostly lucky up here but have had a few notable exceptions many years ago was looking at getting my first “premium” car was completely ignored in Land Rover in Inverness, Audi in Dundee looked me up and down and actually questioned if I could afford an A6, took great pleasure in going back in the following week with my 6month old BMW 530d Sport!

I’ve got to say Pentland in Cupar were brilliant when I bought my L322 3 years ago, I’ve never had a problem with Land Rover in Aberdeen and this month the parts department in Pentland Elgin have been brilliant and sourced replacement parts for a Land Rover accessory that aren’t on the system.

I think the biggest issue is until manufacturers start taking more action against poorly performing dealerships by taking away their franchise or financially penalising them then the dealers of all manufacturers are not going to improve.

Being looked up and down is so common, I have had that at most dealerships, I think I was 25 when I purchased my first BMW and clearly my face and dog walking clothes didn’t fit - yet my parents who would never dream of buying new are basically treated like royalty by dealers.

My other half deals with parts & service, she gets much better pricing that I have ever managed.  Sold - Bell a 2015 MY16 Loire Blue Autobiography 4.4 SDV8
Previously George a 2007 MY07 Java Black VSE 3.6 TDV8
Previously a 04 MY04 Defender 90

Last edited by TJH1985 on 25th Dec 2019 8:34pm. Edited 1 time in total

That reminds me of a fair test of a proper, old school, Land Rover dealership - go in dressed to take the dog out AND take dog in with you! It got the relationship with mine off on a solid footing

A few years back and I mean at least 25/30 a local fella did good selling his chain of 6 fish n chips shops off for well over a million, that was a lot back then. He always wanted a roller so goes into a dealership in his every day stinking of fish gear.... sales man wouldnt give him the time of day but the young lad out the back made him and tea and was nice to him, next day he goes back asks for the lad to sell him a rolls confirms they work on commission sales puts a case on the desk opens it.......£120k or what ever it was cash tells the old fella from the day before to feckoff the young lad was sorting him out.

The same car is still owned by the same family sadly he is no longer with us good head for business owned fish n chip shops the local video shop where we all waited to hire video tapes you get the picture. Main dealers never change.

Red Merle wrote:

That reminds me of a fair test of a proper, old school, Land Rover dealership - go in dressed to take the dog out AND take dog in with you! It got the relationship with mine off on a solid footing

Absolutely. You’ve just described my relationship with County, Barnstaple, North Devon. An old fashioned, non chain, dealership

I’ve used Harwoods Edenbridge for 20 years for the same reason. I bought my first LR, a Freelander 1, there when it was an independent MD called Testers, a family owned business. Family sold to another family owned business called Harwoods, but they left the customer facing people in place, so the same standards applied. Never had any horror stories with them, only good service and good prices on cars.

Harwoods of endenbridge sold my mate a crash damaged discovery 4 and didn't disclose the fact. Was meant to be an ex landrover demo after chasing its history from LR it had new front and rear bumpers, windscreen both rear quarter panels plus a discovery 3 bonnet at some point which I found when detailing it for him which is what led us to investigate the car more closely

You could see under the bonnet discovery badge where the paint had sunk and on the rear of the bonnet no paint at all !

That’s shocking and in no way at all reflects the customer experience I have with them.

Something else I will mention is that there is a tendency for these new sharp suited snotty dealers to have a separate entrance for servicing. So, one drives into the car park into undercover service bay where an attractive girl with high heels meets you with an iPad or similar and takes the keys, and then you are abandoned. Halliwell Jones BMW in Chester goes even further in that the service building is quite distant from the sales building. The issue is that, therefore , there is no customer relationship as the sales dept has no idea that a previous client who has purchased an expensive vehicle a year earlier has now returned to the dealer and who might be thinking about a replacement....
With ‘old fashioned’ type of dealers the sales staff would notice clients from maybe a year before arriving for service bookings, engage them in some conversation over a coffee and biscuits pat the dogs , give them some bonios or similar, ascertain when the next purchase is looming and then work from that basis.

Has the internet screwed it all for us???

Is loyalty dilution, and chains the big problem??? all smug in my new plug!

2021 Westminster Black D300
2013 Vogue SE - gone
Some Porsche Cayenne guff pretending to be a 4x4!!
2006 Vogue
2004 Vogue
2001 Vogue

For me it's large chains that have screwed it all up and it isn't just in vehicles. Large chains are all plc's where the Board are beholden to the shareholders, NOT the customers and that's where the problems start. Drives:
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue - Stornoway Grey
2010 FFRR TdV8 Vogue SE - Zermatt Silver
1998 BMW E36 M3 GTII

CUE99T wrote:

Has the internet screwed it all for us???

It’s changed everything. How many of buy our cars like we, or our parents used to? How many of us will support a small local dealer and leave them enough margin to provide us with the service we’d like? I can’t see how traditional dealers can hope to survive if they stick to the same old model that we all say that we like

rvbush wrote:

For me it's large chains that have screwed it all up and it isn't just in vehicles. Large chains are all plc's where the Board are beholden to the shareholders, NOT the customers and that's where the problems start.

This

When it all became about numbers and profits, and not customer satisfaction, and retention

Red Merle wrote:

CUE99T wrote:

Has the internet screwed it all for us???

It’s changed everything. How many of buy our cars like we, or our parents used to? How many of us will support a small local dealer and leave them enough margin to provide us with the service we’d like? I can’t see how traditional dealers can hope to survive if they stick to the same old model that we all say that we like