Have I missed something... Unhelpful car dealers...

clive0510

keep the car you have for the time being. after lock down hopefully everything will be up and running,all be it minus a few companies who couldn't ride the storm. in the meantime chill.

DUTR

PinkPepperClove said:

This is a rant and I don't know if my expectations are too high... but I have received nothing but unhelpful car salesmen over the COVID lockdown. 
I have cash waiting to buy a car - Not an insignificant amount - £35k and I know exactly what I want and am not expecting a deal. I am just using my time to click around online and if the right car comes up then great!  (I won't get into car makes and models because it's not about that)

So far I have had
1. A private dealership who can't share the service history as they are working from home and won't be able to share until after lock down! They are advertising they are selling cars in lock-down and have told me they are "Very Busy".... I'm sorry how on earth can you distance sell a car without sharing that info?

2. Requested a video of another car so we can see the interior closer and in particular the boot with additional seats.. The response "Not sure what you expect to see in the boot apart form 2 seats?" WEAR AND TEAR MAYBE?!?! I advised I'm not prepared to drive 100 miles each way to see a car because they can't be bothered to video a car as I hadn't put a £99 DEPOSIT DOWN!? I said a quick watsapp video will do. I am not asking for a 4k 360 job... it was a no from them, 

3. Another dealer who were desperate to close a deal and quibbled over them delivering the car for free - Which they are advertising anyway... but went on to try and charge me and wouldn't take it off - Then lost the sale.

4. A main car dealer at two different branches in the who I am still waiting 4 weeks later for a call back with questions on cars still for sale!

I am in actual shock at the service across the industry and the arrogance that I have received! If someone says I have cash and I want to buy do you not make an effort to make a sale?!?!?! 

What is it you are expecting?
They are not going to bow down to you, just because you are a potential customer, it reads as if you are the one being arrogant.

MinuteNoodles

I guess the pointy shoes, slick hair, sharp suit brigade are getting a bit upset at finding out during lockdown that society deems them not quite the essential cogs in the wheels that they thought they were and are taking out their frustration on potential customers.

Dr_Crypto

I'm not entirely sure what you want. The salesman is not going to treat you as a walking god, despite many customers believing such is their right. 
If you want the buy the car then go ahead. Making videos and things takes an effort for them to go into an otherwise closed showroom to produce. 

Ectophile

Back in the olden days, the customer was always right.  But that was before everybody shopped around on the internet.  So retailers could add a big mark-up to allow for the staff time spent dealing with customers.  That may still be true for high-end retail such as jewellery and handbags.

But when it comes to used cars, people can shop around on Autotrader.  If a dealer tries to raise their profits, they get no customers.  So profits are thinner, and time spent dealing with needy customers eats into profits.  So unless thay have a good feeling that they are about to get a sale, they would rather you went away than wasting their time with awkward questions.

Scrapit

If delivery is the only sticking point for a sale then youve probbably missed out. You wanted free, how much did they want to charge? I suspect there is very little mark up on a delivery.

Scrapit

jeepjunkie said:

Scrapit said:

If delivery is the only sticking point for a sale then youve probbably missed out. You wanted free, how much did they want to charge? I suspect there is very little mark up on a delivery.

Err... the car was advertised with free delivery which sounds like they renaged on.

But how much is that? If he walked away from a car thats decently priced for the cost of a delivery, a couple hundred max. then hes dropped a hairy one.

Supersonos

I'm always amazed how little the car sales staff know about the cars they're selling.  I've only ever dealt with brand dealerships, but even when I bought an £80k Range Rover, the sales chap knew very little about the car.  He was unable to answer a lot of my questions (I remember asking if the driver/passenger temperature could be linked, he had no idea.  And I asked what was adaptive about the "adaptive speed limiter".  He didn't know.)

Herzlos

jeepjunkie said:

Scrapit said:

If delivery is the only sticking point for a sale then youve probbably missed out. You wanted free, how much did they want to charge? I suspect there is very little mark up on a delivery.

Err... the car was advertised with free delivery which sounds like they renaged on.

Presumably it was advertised as free delivery (within some distance) before the lockdown, and that delivery now is a lot harder.

It used to be easy to do by having salesman A drive your new car to you whilst salesman B picks him up in another car, but it's not possible to do that whilst maintaining a suitable distance. The other options are to drive the car there and walk back to the dealership (not likely unless it's within a couple of miles) or to use a loader which is expensive.

We also don't know how far the OP wants the car delivered - it could be well outside of the normal range or they'd be offering to just pick it up for free.

Brewer20

MinuteNoodles said:

I guess the pointy shoes, slick hair, sharp suit brigade are getting a bit upset at finding out during lockdown that society deems them not quite the essential cogs in the wheels that they thought they were and are taking out their frustration on potential customers.