vw dealers - why so bad?
Discussion
Never had a vw but want a golf. went into local dealership with a leasing quote from the internet to see if they could get near it.
To cut a long story short when they finally got round to me they were not interested in giving any figures just showing my pretty pictures of how financing works. In the end I said just email me the figures having been there over a hour with a 2 year old.
That afternoon received a patronising emailing saying i didnt understand the diff between pcp and contract hire could I come in again.
How can I understand it without any fffing figures. Sent email back and still no figures 4 days later.
Turns out my dad went into another vw dealer 2 weeks ago to seriously look at a tiguan. No one helped him he walked out in disgust.
My chum yesterday said he went in to buy a brand new toureg and up together and they were'nt interested so he leased one of the net and bought a citroen instead of an up.
Cant believe that they are this bad its appaulling. Is this how they are in general?????
To cut a long story short when they finally got round to me they were not interested in giving any figures just showing my pretty pictures of how financing works. In the end I said just email me the figures having been there over a hour with a 2 year old.
That afternoon received a patronising emailing saying i didnt understand the diff between pcp and contract hire could I come in again.
How can I understand it without any fffing figures. Sent email back and still no figures 4 days later.
Turns out my dad went into another vw dealer 2 weeks ago to seriously look at a tiguan. No one helped him he walked out in disgust.
My chum yesterday said he went in to buy a brand new toureg and up together and they were'nt interested so he leased one of the net and bought a citroen instead of an up.
Cant believe that they are this bad its appaulling. Is this how they are in general?????
petemurphy said:
Cant believe that they are this bad its appaulling. Is this how they are in general?????
My only dealings with VW were a few years ago when I was looking at a 2.0TT or a Golf GTI as a company car. I ended up plumping for the TT despite the VW dealer being much more helpful.I suppose it's easy to tar a whole dealership with one brush if you have a bad experience with one individual, or tar a whole manufacturer with the same brush because of one dealership.
Pretty much the only company whose dealers I've found to be uniformly bad is BMW. Guess what I drive...
C
CraigyMc said:
My only dealings with VW were a few years ago when I was looking at a 2.0TT or a Golf GTI as a company car. I ended up plumping for the TT despite the VW dealer being much more helpful.
I suppose it's easy to tar a whole dealership with one brush if you have a bad experience with one individual, or tar a whole manufacturer with the same brush because of one dealership.
Pretty much the only company whose dealers I've found to be uniformly bad is BMW. Guess what I drive...
C
well thats 3 dealerships so am happy to "tar" them as thats the brand experience I'm having. I suppose it's easy to tar a whole dealership with one brush if you have a bad experience with one individual, or tar a whole manufacturer with the same brush because of one dealership.
Pretty much the only company whose dealers I've found to be uniformly bad is BMW. Guess what I drive...
C
Mostly positive, but of our two local dealers:
The salesman's promises at one of there being another Touareg / Phaeton as a courtesy car (if we bought one of these) turned out to be garbage.
The other dealership's commitment to pay the underwritten figure from local Merc dealer for existing car was nice. But a lie (we drove straight round and got an extra £5k from the Merc dealer directly - the same figure he'd given the dealer).
Ironically the first was otherwise good on the sales side (got a great price from them), but crap at aftersales. For convenience we ended up trying the second for servicing and found them to be good at this side of things.
Audi however... well, because we never have a fixed budget in mind, we clearly can't afford their cars. They're great though at pushing us over the edge and causing us to think "screw it, let's buy the xxxxxx now".
The salesman's promises at one of there being another Touareg / Phaeton as a courtesy car (if we bought one of these) turned out to be garbage.
The other dealership's commitment to pay the underwritten figure from local Merc dealer for existing car was nice. But a lie (we drove straight round and got an extra £5k from the Merc dealer directly - the same figure he'd given the dealer).
Ironically the first was otherwise good on the sales side (got a great price from them), but crap at aftersales. For convenience we ended up trying the second for servicing and found them to be good at this side of things.
Audi however... well, because we never have a fixed budget in mind, we clearly can't afford their cars. They're great though at pushing us over the edge and causing us to think "screw it, let's buy the xxxxxx now".
When I got my Scirocco the first dealer I went into wasn't interested at all. Couldn't have come across as a bigger cock if he tried. As the OP, he was more interested in telling me about the finance before I even got a decent look at a car, test drive and tell him what figures I had in mind. I think I spent 5 minutes talking to him/been talked at before I decided he wasn't having my money and decided to walk out and try the next closest. Second dealer was the total opposite and got the sale.
Never had a great time with my local VW dealer either. When I was looking at a potential company car I went in a few dealers to see what certain cars were like (the bottom of the range ones I could get!!) and my experiences were thus:
Audi - awful, very dismissive.. Nice showroom though with lots of sparkly lit up DRLs.
BMW - awful - I hate that dealer, same experience every time.
Jaguar - really friendly, useful advice but too expensive for me. Not their fault though!
Mercedes - excellent - ended up opting out and buying one.
Lexus - excellent.
VW - awful, basically ignored.
Went in a Nissan dealer yesterday to look at a Joke for my other half. Staffed by chavs, useless... stood there with a 1 year old for ages and eventually they spoke to us and really didn't seem keen to show us the cars. Just wanted to look in the boot (which incidentally was too small).
I'd like to think if I was in charge of a car dealer it would be great, but there must be some reason they are like they are. My dealership would be great but probably make no money.
Audi - awful, very dismissive.. Nice showroom though with lots of sparkly lit up DRLs.
BMW - awful - I hate that dealer, same experience every time.
Jaguar - really friendly, useful advice but too expensive for me. Not their fault though!
Mercedes - excellent - ended up opting out and buying one.
Lexus - excellent.
VW - awful, basically ignored.
Went in a Nissan dealer yesterday to look at a Joke for my other half. Staffed by chavs, useless... stood there with a 1 year old for ages and eventually they spoke to us and really didn't seem keen to show us the cars. Just wanted to look in the boot (which incidentally was too small).
I'd like to think if I was in charge of a car dealer it would be great, but there must be some reason they are like they are. My dealership would be great but probably make no money.
just seems crazy these days when you have people wanting to spend a wad of cash and many people after jobs that they have that sort of service. The only good experience i have had with a dealer is porsche - and no i wasnt spending a fortune i remember going there once to buy one tiny lightbulb for 90p and they could not have been more helpful and welcoming.
I went to my local VW dealers to get some coolant as it is a lot nearer than the nearest Audi one, I was in there for 45 minutes!
20 waiting to get served, then another 25 waiting for them to fetch it from parts/pay for it.
This was first thing in the morning and there wasn't another customer in sight!
They were more interested in chatting to the young girl working there from what I could tell
20 waiting to get served, then another 25 waiting for them to fetch it from parts/pay for it.
This was first thing in the morning and there wasn't another customer in sight!
They were more interested in chatting to the young girl working there from what I could tell
Rick101 said:
Strangs you can go into a shop and buy something with a far smaller margin (say a tv) and on the whole get knowledgeable staff, clear information and far better service.
But TV shops make all their money from TV sales. Car dealerships make all their money from finance packages, upsold extras, servicing and the like. They make bugger all on actually selling the car.C
krisdelta said:
I found the sales side of Guildford VW very poor and ended up with a nearly new Golf from the VW dealer near Gatwick. I suspect you can take ANY manufacturer and find a good and bad dealer.
One the one hand, yes I agree.On the other hand, I've (and no-one else I know) has ever had these sort of issues at Lexus/Jaguar.
No doubt someone has but these seem to be rare occasions whereas I've seen plenty of threads like this on VW/Audi/BMW (as well as variable experiences at other euro manufacturers). Personally, my wife and I have never had these sort of experiences at Honda either and also a poor VW experience meant we bought a Ford Focus many years ago (the Ford salesman was great).
Anyway, whatever experiences we've all had doesn't help the OP other than to say, try another VW dealer. If they're no better (either bad luck or there's a pattern here!) then try something like Lings (if you know what car you want and just want figures, don't need to test drive etc.). Failing that, just try another manufacturer/car.
CraigyMc said:
But TV shops make all their money from TV sales. Car dealerships make all their money from finance packages, upsold extras, servicing and the like. They make bugger all on actually selling the car.
C
I think retail make most of their money on selling extended warranties but thats not really my point.C
What really amazes me is how little the salesperson knows about the car they are selling. They often know the headline information but are unable to give you any real details. If you want to know about a car, better to ask on a forum.
e.g Was at Skoda recently. Spec sheet on car stated something called 'Cateye'. Nobody in the dealership knew what it was. Went home, looked on Skoda website and found the information. I will say skoda is probably one of the better dealers too.
My local VW dealer is very helpful - I didn't buy my car from them but I have it serviced there. Whilst the staff are excellent, whenever I take the car in for some work (more often than I'd like, but that's VWs for you in my experience....) I get repeated requests to fill in customer satisfaction surveys. I get asked verbally during the visit, I get asked to fill in a form whilst I'm there and the last time I went in I got sent two(!) online surveys requests. If past experience is anything to go by I will no doubt get a phone call about my service experience as well.
The service when you're there is excellent but the constant badgering afterwards has really put me off using them again.
This problem is not exclusive to VW dealers, or car dealers for that matter, but they are definitely the worst.
The service when you're there is excellent but the constant badgering afterwards has really put me off using them again.
This problem is not exclusive to VW dealers, or car dealers for that matter, but they are definitely the worst.
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