Being charged to wait whilst your car is serviced?

[bitchstewie]

Been meaning to mention this since hearing it on another thread and not quite believing it until I heard it again.

Apparently Mercedes charge £30 or so if you want to wait at the dealers whilst your car is serviced.

Any ideas why anyone would think that is an even vaguely good or acceptable thing in terms of keeping your customers happy?

Is it just Mercedes?

[bitchstewie]

HTP99 said:

Ive just tapped the details of a Mercedes into a central service and repair booking website, it has come back with 4 options for the same service:

"Drop & Go": "rop off your Mercedes-Benz any time between 8-10am. Collect when it’s ready, from 4.30pm until we close.": £456.94

"Lounge": "Enjoy fixed appointment times, reserved parking and a dedicated service manager whilst experiencing our comfortable lounges.": £476.94

"Drive": "Drop off your Mercedes-Benz between 8-11am, and drive off in a loan car. Return to collect your car by 6pm.": £506.94

"Collect": "We will collect your Mercedes-Benz from your home or work between 8-11am, then deliver it back by 6pm." £506.94

We offer all of the above but for the same price, we aren't Mercedes.

That's pretty laughable IMO. Presumably £450 is for something mid way up the Merc model range but £50 to a) wait b) have a loaner or c) have your car collected is a piss take.

I've had VW, Saab, Land Rover, Porsche, and other than perhaps a tenner for the dealer insurance I've never been expected or offered to pay for any of the above.

"Comfortable lounges"?

[bitchstewie]

xRIEx said:

It's £20 to wait.

My mistake, bargain!

[bitchstewie]

Thing is I do of course get that if everyone turned up at 8am expecting to wait whilst their car was serviced, it wouldn't work.

Whether the solution there is to charge more to those who want to do so, or whether it's to simply run some kind of (shock horror) first come first served system I'm not sure - I don't know what's involved in running a workshop.

£50 for a loaner or a collection is daylight robbery though if you're already paying the thick end of £500 for the service.

[bitchstewie]

wildcat45 said:

Good garages also use the service time as a sales opportunity. The salesman I bought Mazdas off always told me to let him know when I'd booked a service so he could sort me a car. New RX8 , 3 or 6 6!MPS, a nice MX-5 and the latest version of my then current CX-7. Whatever he had access to that he thought was nice. A lovely sunny day and there's an immaculate top down MX-5 Special Edition on the forecourt. 'It's yours, tank of fuel, have fun.'

Quite.

I had a similar experience at Mazda, I had an afternoon off so went tyre kicking, walked into a Mazda dealer and was looking at the MX-5, chap approached asking if I needed any help and I was perfectly candid and said I was just having an afternoon off - next thing I know I'm thrown a set of keys and told "bring it back in a couple of hours".

Six months later I took delivery of a brand new Boxster, but my mum had a brand new MX-5 because I was that impressed that I told her to go try one.

Similar thing at Lexus, went in several dealers and was offered test drives there and then.

Compare and contrast to spending an hour and a bit at Land Rover waiting whilst they finished servicing my last car.

I'm looking at everything in the showroom because there's only so many times you can read the same free newspaper, yet every single sales person seems far too engrossed in paperwork or chatting up the receptionists to bother to speak to me - it just seems so short sighted.

Still at least they didn't charge me £20 for the cup of tea I had