Dealership experiences

[ITSv40]

The experiences in dealerships are not confined to car sales, the spares counters are the same.

I have been going to my local Volvo dealer for 45 years and never had a bad experience with the parts chaps. I go in, see a 'normal bloke' behind the counter who is knowledgeable and we both look at the screen to identify the obscure part that I am after. I then walk out a happy bunny.

We bought a Mini Cooper for 'er indoors a couple of years ago which necessitated a trip to the local BMW/Mini dealership. I walk in to be confronted with a big open showroom with no signage to the parts desk, I venture to ask a blonde dollybird type where it is and get the reply, ''take a seat and I will get someone to help you'' while gesturing to a black leather sofa.

While sitting on the sofa for what seemed like far too long I noticed that all the female staff where 'Barbie doll' clones and all the male staff 'Ken' clones.
they all looked like they were auditioning for a new TV series - aren't you lucky to be looking at me as I am so beautiful/handsome.

Anyway said little parts chap arrives at a desk and bekons me over where I then have to explain I want an aerial stalk for a Mini Cooper. It takes him forever to find the part in the system, but eventually does and informs me it will be in stock in a couple of days. I ask if he can send me a text letting me know when it is ready for collection - as Volvo do - but no., not a service they offer, just call in in a couple of days.

So back in a couple of days later and same dollybird/leather sofa scenario - if I wanted that, I can find more exciting places than a BMW dealership for my money. Little parts chap produces the aerial and then lectures me on how to fit it as if I have never opened a bonnet or seen a spanner in my life. Then having paid for it and about to leave he promptly tries to sell me a brand new BMW of some description. I politely tell him I only need the aerial and as I now have it, I am leaving.

I now buy parts on line from BMW as I cannot cope with the trauma of making the dealership showroom look untidy.

[pagan8c]

Originally Posted by GrahamBrown1

The best experience I have had was when we purchased my girlfriends mazda 2 from a main mazda dealer but part of stoneacre. It was the right car at the right price especially being the current model. I typically thought when arriving this is going to be the usual rubbish you would expect from a large motor group and as mentioned earlier I wouldn’t have been surprised if they would have been wearing football shirts.

How wrong I was though. We arrived and headed for the car we had seen. The salesman came out near enough straight away but not to soon. He gave us plenty of time to look round and then offered to fill it with fuel and give it to us for a 4 hour test drive so we could make our own mind up. Well we didn’t take the mick but we had it for just over an hour. Liked it and bought it.

There aftersales service has also been really good. I can’t really fault them. It’s just been in for service and a recall. I know mazda isn’t a premium brand but others could learn a lot from these guys. Stoneacre also have a Volvo dealership anyone had dealings with them?

Yes I have just ordered a XC90 Inscription from Lincoln branch. Easy experience and as they have looked after my previous 3 Volvos I can say that they are good to deal with. As you say the parts department are always easy to deal with and will let you know when the part is in if it wasn't in stock. Also been good for servicing etc.

[Grimble]

My only recent experience of a car dealer was at Arnold Clark when looking for a newish car for my wife. We wandered round for a bit (the whole point of going there was that there was a lot of choice under one roof). She liked a Vauxhall Mokka. Had a sit and poked around, then called over a sales man. He led us out to the yard where there were more of the same and she decided on the colour. He made us an offer on our trade-in without seeing it. We went away for a think and I did a bit of research on the model to see what was what. No real issues so we went back, took a test drive, made a deal with minimum fuss, signed up and the car was available next day.
No fuss, certainly no rudeness, no fake over-attentiveness, just a simple and straightforward purchase deal. No hard sell on finance, just a good deal on a 3 year service plan.
Cant say this for all the Arnold Clark group but their local branch was a pleasure to deal with compared to some of the horror stories above.
PS other than this purchase, I have no connection to any car retailer.

[I-S]

Originally Posted by 360beast

I'm guessing you went to VW, Audi and BMW?

Nil point

[DaveNP]

Going back some years (last century) I worked as an agency driver, able to drive an artic but drive anything for the money, one contract that we had was with the local Car Company HQ to provide a driver to assist their training department when they were running courses for new sales people. The sales people came from dealerships around the country so were not directly employed by the car co. but were only from that brand and the variation in their styles was quite marked, in a class of 20 people there would always be a few who gave car salesmen a bad name (or a name that probably wont pass this forum's swear filter). Presumably the trainees reflected the dealership that they came from.

Re the football shirts, whilst I'm not a football fan I can understand it from their end, the football is a big event so don't try to pretend it doesn't exist, use it as part of a promotion if you want but keep it professional, for what it would cost get each salesman a shirt in the team of his choice with his name on the back; the staff may well want to watch it and staff who feel accommodated will have a better attitude to the company, but don't let it get in the way of the work to be done.

I've never bought a new car but when we went looking for a newish car for the wife it was a similar experience, some ignored us from walking in to walking out, some had 'odd' sales approaches, and then there was the KIA dealership who were about to close in ten minutes but made us feel important enough that they would stay late to show us around their cars, I wonder why there's a KIA parked on our drive?

[classicswede]

Originally Posted by 360beast

I'm guessing you went to VW, Audi and BMW?

Sure he said premium brands so could have been BMW and Merc for german brands.

As to the football being on that is fair enough. Trainers, jeans and T shirt is fine with me. The lack of service is not good and what I would take issue with.

[andy_d]

Originally Posted by I-S

On Saturday afternoon we went out to begin researching some of the cars we are interested in replacing the V70 with (as well as some that are just pipedreams). During the afternoon we visited 3 dealerships of different brands (which will for now remain nameless, but none of them was Volvo). All 3 are premium brands (yes, there's lots of definitions of that. Let's just say that all 3 had vehicles with list prices of over £100k on their premises).

In the first dealership we were made very welcome, treated as though nothing was too much bother (even though they understood that we are at the very early stages of looking, ruling things in/out, etc and that we're not about to buy a car). They went off to put a decent amount of fuel into a car to allow us to have a decent test drive. They did not press nor push for a sale, hurry us or anything of the sort - they were interested in building a relationship.

The second dealership couldn't have been more different. The showroom was deserted and we'd sat in 3 cars before anyone came to us. He introduced himself by name 3 times, hurriedly got us a bottle of water each before disappearing again, telling us to ask the receptionist to get him if we needed anything - he was wearing jeans and a football shirt, which seemed rather unprofessional for an upscale brand. When we did need something (to sit in another two vehicle models that were outside and locked) and summoned him he then went to find someone else to open the cars for us (who also was wearing a football shirt, and continued saying how comfortable one vehicle was when both of us had struggled to get anywhere near comfortable in the seats). They didn't even attempt to take any details from us.

At the third dealership we were given plenty of time and offered a test drive, again despite making clear that we were not about to buy (and in the case of this brand, we can not afford the vehicle, we were only there because we were in the area and wanted to see). Once more, this dealership was engaged, enlightened and not pushing on the hard sell. They offered a test drive regardless of us making clear that we weren't going to buy, and when arranging a booked test drive made immediate confirmation by email.

Now I don't exist in a vacuum and I do realise that there's some sort of sporting event going on that some people think is quite important. However, for me if you are at work then you are at work, not watching football (unless of course that is your job). The second dealership made very clear what their priority was and it was not the customer. It reinforced a pronounced sense of disappointment we found with their vehicles (ones that we had been interested in for a long time).

Note that all 3 dealerships had televisions set up (first one in the showroom, second and third in back rooms) with the football showing.

So what are other people's views on this? Is it acceptable for a dealership (any dealership, but especially that of a premium brand) to relax the rules (eg jeans and footie shirt) because of such an event? Is it acceptable to allow employees to watch the football at the expense of the customer experience (because although the first and third dealers had the football on, I felt that they made us the clear priority - ie it had no impact on our experience).

My own view is that the first and third dealers had the balance correct, between the event and the customer. The second dealership should have closed for the day.

dealers 1 + 3 spot on, Zero pressure, and there To work With the customer,
dealer 2 , they didnt apply pressure or "hover" etc,, which is good,, Not being focused on the customer or working with the customer as "a sporting event" was on,would Appear at first look to be "the sport is more important than the customer",, not the best 1st impression to give.
As to the attire of them, that Shouldnt matter a Hoot , as long as its clean (or as clean as the job allows when working).
what it Does show is that dealership places a Value on their staff , allowing them to be @ work, and follow sporting events ,, shame they didn't this time get the balance right .

I dont get why people get So hung up on "clothes" , its the Skills and manners (or lack of) and interpersonal abilities that matter NOT what cloth they choose to wear,, but thats like expecting bwm "drivers" to use Indicators ,,,,,,

[andy_d]

Originally Posted by I-S

Interesting that so many have had that experience with Audi.

We haven't been anywhere near an audi dealer as they have very little that interests us as far as cars go. All the VAG group cars I've driven in my life I've hated (except the golf mk 6, which was sort of ok). Of course, the image that audis convey is something else that counts against them.

Perhaps this arrogance and aloofness is something that afflicts all german car brands?

or a Vast % of the so called "drivers" of said brands,, but i would choose slightly a few stronger words than "aloofness" but 100% agree on the arrogance of said % of so called "drivers"

if your driving down the road, and a T junction is coming,, and a White audi dives out From the T turning right Directly in front of you, so as to Need standing on the brakes,, and you Parp the horn at the ,,,,, blonde/orange Thing driving the car, only for her to turn in her seat , Hurl abuse both verbal and hand gestures at you ,, before Barging her way into the Other stream of traffic,, it isnt much of a wonderment Why certain types cause road rage and get the living kicked out of them,,,, audi/bwm + orange "drivers" need a cull

[Fursty Ferret]

My experience of Volvo dealerships has always been excellent - knowledgeable parts and service employees, and the sales team are polite, not pushy, and know their stuff.

Looked at a Mazda 6 a few years ago before settling on the V60. Salesman didn't know whether the gearbox was dual-clutch or torque converter, and wanted to make an appointment for a test drive. I asked him to give me a call with some times when I got home but he never called back. Which is one of the reasons I'm driving a Volvo now.

I also wouldn't care if someone was wearing a football shirt. Don't know the first thing about it (is something happening at the moment?) but jeans better than shiny suit IMHO. I can make a pretty quick judgement on someone without needing to base it on what they're wearing.

[I-S]

Yesterday and today were an interesting continuation.

Yesterday we visited dealer 4 (another dealer for the same brand as dealer 1), dealer 5, and then today we revisited dealers 1 and 3, as well as visiting dealer number 6.

Dealer 4 pretty much matched dealer 1, so it seems that a good dealer experience comes with that brand.

Dealer 5 was appalling! The salesman came over and struck up conversation, noted that my husband is American and starting telling us all of the good that Trump is doing! My word that's a risky strategy in trying to sell someone a car. However, in the end it was futile because this brand's products were extraordinary in how disappointing we found them, and the one vehicle they had to offer that might have been ok for us would be a total needle-in-a-haystack to find the spec we required.

Dealer 6 was largely a non-event. Dealer seemed ok, but again, products were very disappointing.

Getting back into the Leaf after each sit-in or test drive was interesting as it highlighted how poor some of these "premium" vehicles are. This evening I got into the V70 to take some pictures and was really struck by just how much better its interior is than a whole bunch of newer and much more expensive vehicles.

Ultimately I think it came down to dealers 2 and 5 believe that their products are amazing and sell themselves. In fact to my experience dealers 1/4 and 3 are the ones who's products sold themselves (and were both spectacular driving experiences).

Through it all, my estimation and judgement of Volvo has managed to improve. At the moment there isn't a Volvo that meets our price/spec/requirements, but if there were then I'd definitely consider it (and for example, S90 and new V60 and XC60 all would, if we could get a T5 cheaper). Several other brands that we previously had a better view of we now definitely won't.