Dealers, test Drives and general pushiness.

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Darrell said:
My Dacia lives in Skiathos where I have a villa.
BOOM. There's the smackdown! ... ouch!
 
Whether I'm just lucky I don't know but having been involved in buying 7 cars over the past 3 years I got exceptionally good service every time . Nothing seemed to be too much trouble for the sales people even though the cars all came from different dealers. I think attitude on the customers part often sets the scene for how a deal develops.
 
I remember many years ago reading a report from Ford that it cost them £25 in marketing and advertising just to get a customer to set foot into a showroom. I guess it's increased quite a bit since then.....

If I received the kind of service the OP had received I'd have been tempted to ask the sales person how much it costs their business to attract a customer into their showroom.......

I doubt if you'd get a realistic answer, or an answer at all.

However, on the other side of the coin - the last time I bought a Mercedes from a trader, it was about 10 years ago. I saw the car advertised by a small garage on Autotrader. It was a 600 mile round trip away. I spoke to the trader, who couldn't have been more helpful. I asked about the service history. He faxed me a full breakdown of service dates and mileage. The ad offered a full independent report for £100, which I agreed to pay, and because I was familiar with the model, I asked for several specific additional items to be included. He faxed me a very comprehensive independent report. On the basis of that, I took the train from Lancaster to South Devon. The trader drove 15 miles each way to collect me from the nearest station. I inspected and test drove the car and after reducing the cost of the report by 50%, we agreed a deal and I paid him part cash, part credit card.

The car was a 1989 190E 2.6 auto with 130k miles (which he'd taken as part of a batch of cars from the main dealership and wasn't the kind of car he usually sold). It had a full, up to date M-B dealer history (20 + stamps), was exactly as per the report and I kept it for the next 6 years and 75k miles.

Oh, I forgot to say - the price I paid was £850.

The moral: he was a superb car salesman, was as helpful as it was possible to be, and he wasn't ever going to make a fortune out of me - nor was he likely to sell me another car in the near future, given the distance. But I was a good customer and was treated like one.

Oh, and I did write a letter of thanks afterwards with permission to use it as a testimonial.

Goes to show that one shouldn't tar all traders with the same brush.
 
Some interesting replies to my post, many thanks to you all for bothering.

Over the years, I too have had some good experiences with dealers, so I don't believe they are all the same.

The loathesome Hendon Way Motors wanted £50 for a pootle down the traffic-infested North Circular, refundable if I bought the car.

Paragon Porsche in East Sussex gave me the keys to a 996 Turbo and told me to go away and 'have fun'.

I liked that approach and ended up buying a car off them. (Not on the same day though).
 
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It confuses me as to why any dealer wouldn't anticipate that a potential customer wouldn't insist on test driving a car.

I'm unlikely to buy a house without having carried out a survey - why would I buy a car (especially a second hand car) if I hadn't taken it out to see whether it was mechanically sound!
 
Hendon Way Motors have been around since dinosaurs walked the earth.
Looked at a couple of Porsches they had. The dealer looked down his nose at me because I came straight from work.
Eventually bought from Portiacraft at Mill Hill circus.
 
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I just didn't like the way they hit me on the head with the club.
 
I bought our approved used C250 estate from Swansea Sinclair a few weeks ago while trading in our C180 2011 estate. I had been browsing the classifieds for a while looking for the exact spec and mileage I wanted and after a few months came across my 20k miles top spec amazing condition via Sinclair website. I didn't call before making the trip up on a rainy Saturday. I was pretty apprehensive in potentially buying from there as Sinclair other dealers closer to me in Neyland have given me 3 years of not very good service when it comes to servicing and general enquiries. I shouldn't have worried as when I arrived we saw the car on the forecourt and went inside to ask for some details and a drive. We were immediately assigned a salesman who spent the next 3-4 hours with us giving us a thorough test drive, coffee and showing us all the features. This was before talking the price down and offering us a cost to swap. He was attentive and answered everything that I required inc print outs of old service invoices etc. This service carried on the whole way through the sale and even after sales with a follow up call the week after we had taken delivery to make sure everything was ok and that we were happy. The service was that good I had to commend him and would not hesitate in buying a car from their Swansea branch again in the future, Neyland branch however can jump!
 
I had a rubbish experience at a Honda dealership around about the time the S2000 was mid-life. Drove up in the 350SL, walked in, asked to arrange a test drive in the S2000. He looked me up and down and said in a dismissive tone "we'll see about that, sir" then walked away from me back to his desk. I then went to a different sales person to ask for pricing on the current Accord. Response? "I've got a brochure around here somewhere"... he dug around for it, apparently couldn't find it and I got a "sorry, seem to be out". I turned around and walked out. They've also been pretty unhelpful at finding parts and their idea of a "hand wash after a service" was to put the car through the car wash at a nearby petrol station...

The odd thing is the Honda dealership up the road, run by the same group, could not be any more different - always willing to help, and they take responsibility when they screw up (which has unfortunately happened once) and fix the problem.
 
He looked me up and down and said in a dismissive tone "we'll see about that, sir" then walked away from me back to his desk.

I would have asked to see the manager and reported him.
 
On the other side...selling privately is usually a total pain.

Whenever I've sold privately, I've always sent loads of detailed high-res pictures first to their emails, listing anything and everything that's right or wrong with the car, answered their calls immediately, been accommodating with their weekend times of viewing, offered them drinks on arrival, taken them around the car, showed all bills and service history, let them drive on different roads for at least 15 minutes, been polite and answered all their questions.

My cars have always been priced well under dealer's, valeted, wheels refurbed, no bodywork or mechanical issues, and my rural location is rather nice.

The result is most of them offer 30% less than the asking price and if you don't accept, they walk away- none of the Mike Brewer "I'll meet you in the middle' deals. And you never hear from them again.

I won't give up my day job, but then I'm not a car salesman. Just dabbled for a bit.

A lot of the car-buying public are peasants and are welcome to the pushy dealers.
 
On the other side...selling privately is usually a total pain.

Whenever I've sold privately, I've always sent loads of detailed high-res pictures first to their emails, listing anything and everything that's right or wrong with the car, answered their calls immediately, been accommodating with their weekend times of viewing, offered them drinks on arrival, taken them around the car, showed all bills and service history, let them drive on different roads for at least 15 minutes, been polite and answered all their questions.

My cars have always been priced well under dealer's, valeted, wheels refurbed, no bodywork or mechanical issues, and my rural location is rather nice.

The result is most of them offer 30% less than the asking price and if you don't accept, they walk away- none of the Mike Brewer "I'll meet you in the middle' deals. And you never hear from them again.

I won't give up my day job, but then I'm not a car salesman. Just dabbled for a bit.

A lot of the car-buying public are peasants and are welcome to the pushy dealers.

Hmm...
 
The result is most of them offer 30% less than the asking price and if you don't accept, they walk away- none of the Mike Brewer "I'll meet you in the middle' deals. And you never hear from them again.

Now imagine dealing with these "buyers" on a daily basis and you'll see why some car traders are so cynical...
 
Speaking from experience.
 
Now imagine dealing with these "buyers" on a daily basis and you'll see why some car traders are so cynical...

Yes, I totally get it.
 
I went to look at a car for my wife and son at the weekend. (£6000).

I told the dealer on the phone that we had just started our search and that "I wouldn't be buying today."

He said still come over and have a look, which we did.

The car was nice and we asked for a test drive.

He asked us to 'do the paperwork' first and then we could test drive it.

I think this is the point at which I would have given up.

As previously, any hint of **** waddery, then stop wasting your time!

There are plenty of good places. Just finding one...
 
That's my new strategy.

Even if you've driven an hour in traffic to get there.

Sod 'em. Walk away.

Life's too short.
 
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