Unhelpful car dealers

[drift]

had a drive out to a car dealer yesterday about an hour from me as they had an RS for sale I was interested in. Plan was to go have a look, take it out for a drive and see what deal could be done.

After looking around the car for a good 15 minutes and seeing if I could get the attention of someone to help no one was to be found. I may have this wrong but have the days gone of dealers actually wanting to sell their cars? Not even a sniff of someone popping out with a quick “can I help”? Am I expected to go and beg these places to look over their cars? I ended up getting back in my car and driving off. Wasted trip.

I guess there isn’t too much point to this post other than to have a good rant.

The RS hunt continues.

[faber]

Je suis sur que tu va trouver ton bonheur .

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Gel DMB / Pieces carbone AWMODS / Frein a main carbone RS / Bouton carboneRS / Peinture noir mat pavillon + coques rétroviseur + clignotant séquentielle black / Feu arrières séquentielle black / Antenne courte sparco / Protection ceinture RS / Roue forgées avec sigle RS / Pneus Michelin pilot sport 4s / Bandeau Ford Performance / Garniture carbVone tableau de bord / Vérins de capot moteur / Ligne Scorpion embout inox / Système télécommande de soupape JPperformance / Kit induction Mountun / Kit secondaire Mountune / Durite noire Moutune / Filtre Moutune v2 / Chambre d’insonorisation Moutune / Valve Mountune / Kit durites d’échangeur Mishomoto / Plaquettes freins Ferodo 2500 / Garde de boue Mountune / Stage2 BRPerformance 397 cv et 617 couple / Bougies NGK Iridium / Bras de changement de vitesse Mountune / Vase d’expansion Mishimoto noir /plaque denumérotation n°16417/lampe d’eau couleur blanche RS/plaque feu de frein arrière Ford performance/échangeur Mishimoto +durite Silicon Mishimoto/plaque Ford Performance immatriculation

[71-bda]

drift, its a thankless task being a car salesman, when I was one I would let the people outside looking at cars have a look for a while and then after a while  casually exit the building and approach and ask if I could help etc etc, 9 times out of 10 the people would say ” I’m alright thanks” or ” if I need help I will come in and ask” or ” I’m just looking” so after years of that I guess one gets a bit jaded and just thinks ” if they are really interested , they will come in and ask something” probably also depends on their pay structure/commission rates, some car supermarket salesman only  get like £25 a car, back in 1987 we got 15% of the retained gross profit , and  in those days a new Fiesta Xr2 retailing at about £8200 having 17% profit in, we could earn over a £100 a car so we were hungry for deals and would chase every lead, especially as our basic salary was only £150 a month! Maybe they did not have any ‘free’ salesmen or  were on a skeleton staff and just did not see you outside?

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No nothing.

No Mods. No rockers. Just a chunky knob, thats now been replaced by an RS knob innit.

No tackiness.

Std as Ford intended, but with a space saver wheel and jack and nuts and wheel brace. oh.. and flaps, a man has got to have flaps.

Innit?

 

[drift]

All fair points 71-bda.

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across this. The same thing happened at an Audi Garage not long back. Pretty much ready to buy the car but received no acknowledgement. Like you say, I’d be more than happy with a very quick and simple “can I help”? Takes two seconds. If they are busy a “I’ll be with you shortly” would do. Nothing just seems rude and makes me think what they would be like with their aftersales service should it be needed.

Maybe it’s the way I look ?

 

 

[mark-250]

I hate being pestered by salesmen, I have walked off before when they keep coming up to me, maybe they like the customer to approach them.

Reading what you have put it seems you wasted your own time because you would not walk a few yards inside and ask for some info.

[stuartditchburn]

I think most of us have suffered this problem at some time. I must admit that I do like to be left alone for ten minutes or so for a nose about.   I went to buy a new ST~170 in 2003 and a young sales girl approached me and asked if she could help.  I asked some questions about deposits etc and she then left us possibly thinking I was not a genuine buyer.  I then went and found the youngest guy in the dealership and gave him the sale and the commission.   I got my car, she missed out but I think the sales folk have a difficult time and a lot of time must be wasted.  I have used Carwow for my last two cars and they where excellent.

[jonyboy]

I would much prefer it this way

iam left alone to have a look around the car and then if I like what I see I go inside and speak to someone about it

[Matt23]

Most people like being left alone to look over a car at their own leisure these days, then when your ready just walk inside and ask for a salesman to help. To be fair, if I were you traveling an hour to view a car with the Intension test drive and striking a deal, maybe a phone call first to book an appointment might have been a good idea. The amount of time wasters dealers get with performance cars such the RS are probably 9/10 people and that puts dealers off entertaining most people without making an appointment.

I work for a bmw dealer and we get so many time wasters especially with the M3/M4/M5s, so prior arrangements must be made for test drive.

[fixedgear]

As above.

 

Dealers get countless people on their forecourts every day, staring at the floor, walking around looking interested but all they want is a tear down the road, never to be seen again.

 

As Matt said, call and make an appointment, be forthcoming and then I think you will get the response you’re looking for.

[rs-jon]

Evans Halshaw Group is a fine example of arsehole dealers…

My local one in Milton Keynes I had bought my previous 2 cars from – when it come to the RS, they were not allowed to sell because they were not a Ford Store and so they put me in touch with their Bedford branch…irony being that the amount of interest they had in potential sales for RS and Mustang far outweighed that of which Bedford took but had to pass over all potential interest.  So April 2017 I made the trip to Bedford one Sunday afternoon and started looking at the RS in the showroom, the arse I had been put in contact with decided he would rather chance his luck with a Mustang tyre kicker rather than me and kept me waiting 20 minutes.  Eventually he got to me and took my details (albeit rather disinterested) and said he would call me back a few weeks later to discuss options and trade in…the call never came and in June I purchased a brand new RS from Stoneacre York who couldnt have been more helpful.

Now while the Sales team at EH MK are great – their service department are cretins…agreed to view my car in order to carry out some warranty work and also offered to do the recall, then when I was about to book it in the service manager point blankly refused to do either the warranty or recall work because quote “we dont sell RS here”.  Needless to say I will not be buying another car from that shower.  Ironically they phoned me late June last year to offer to service the car…my reply was less than pleasant…

[peters]

I’ll add Don’t Trust Ford to that list, bought the last four cars off them, so i rock up few months back to buy one for the wife and they couldn’t be arsed to move away from the internet, Went to another 2 of DTF  showrooms and nothing …. so she now has a Suzuki swift sport.

 

Guess they make enough not to want my business

 

 

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Its back !

 

[rog]

@ Drift ~ I read your original post and thought… you must have visited Dagenham Trust Ford…

[skillboy]

Funny enough I Purchased my RS from Trust Ford Dagenham and the service was Shocking, I asked them to update a few things before picking the car up as it was a used RS, On the day of the pick up they said to me all was completed, after a few days i thought I would check and to my astonishment none of this was actually done !

one of the tasks I asked was to update the SD Card to the latest version which in the car was using the F5 card and this was to be replaced with the F6 card and also to update the Sync 2 system to the latest version which at the time was V3.10 the car was running V3.8. I had to contact Ford CRC to raise these issues and to be compensated as the Sales Manager had agreed for this to all be carried out before picking the car up.

To Make matters even worse a family member purchased a new Fiesta from the new car sales team and the service was appalling

Oh and also saw the Service department rolling used tyres to the back of the workshop and one of them rolled into the front of a Kuga and made a horrible noise on the plastic bumper.

If I knew these were so bad I would of never of gone to this dealership, I would avoid at all costs.

 

[rog]

On collection of a vehicle ask your sales rep… tyre pressures checked and all good? … oh yes sir, I checked them myself earlier … pull out your tyre pressure gauge, and only then will you know if their word is sound.

[Author]

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