Were you WOW'd by the Porsche buying experience?
Discussion
I can’t work out how to link my post on another thread today but the answer is no. I have pasted it below:
I am still waiting for my delivery date, ordered in December. The whole experience of buying a new Porsche has been uninspiring, at best. From first enquiry, to test driving, to ordering, to asking for an update - all poor. At every stage I have felt like there is something or someone more important than me that the salesman has wanted to get off to. It just sort of takes the sparkle off. I hope collection is better.
I am still waiting for my delivery date, ordered in December. The whole experience of buying a new Porsche has been uninspiring, at best. From first enquiry, to test driving, to ordering, to asking for an update - all poor. At every stage I have felt like there is something or someone more important than me that the salesman has wanted to get off to. It just sort of takes the sparkle off. I hope collection is better.
Going downhill fast.
First salesman was good simple to deal with but left the dealership.
Sales Manager really good, straight to deal with arranged PEC day after I asked for it which helped me upgrade plus traded my daily driver in early (agreed a £1k discount but the value on my trade in was substantially lower than the figure I agreed with first salesman 2 months before - eventually agreed a better figure but still feel bit aggrieved - hey hoe, need to let it go).
Dealing with different person now who doesnt know what is happening, dates went back then got a call out the blue to say, surprise, it’s just arrived, in fairness always responsive to emails but I don’t think they find or get the right info.
They rang today to say oops got the price on the contract wrong would like to charge me a bit more. Not very happy asked them to imagine if I said I don’t want to pay the agreed sum on the car they just made for me anymore and want to chip it down a bit.
Made progressive bank transfers but want to pay the last £8k balance on credit card now saying their card machine not working!
All sorts of nonsense about can’t accept large payments by card (didn’t have that problem with my deposit) and it’s a bit tricky for them to process a payment at one of their other garages in the same group which I just don’t believe.
Expecting a callback tomorrow how the issues they have created are to be resolved.
It’s killed the excitement I had about picking it up.
Premium brand, below par service, better be a bloody good drive or I suspect I will have regrets getting on this merry go round 6 months ago.
Pick up Saturday... it had better not be out in the rain.
First salesman was good simple to deal with but left the dealership.
Sales Manager really good, straight to deal with arranged PEC day after I asked for it which helped me upgrade plus traded my daily driver in early (agreed a £1k discount but the value on my trade in was substantially lower than the figure I agreed with first salesman 2 months before - eventually agreed a better figure but still feel bit aggrieved - hey hoe, need to let it go).
Dealing with different person now who doesnt know what is happening, dates went back then got a call out the blue to say, surprise, it’s just arrived, in fairness always responsive to emails but I don’t think they find or get the right info.
They rang today to say oops got the price on the contract wrong would like to charge me a bit more. Not very happy asked them to imagine if I said I don’t want to pay the agreed sum on the car they just made for me anymore and want to chip it down a bit.
Made progressive bank transfers but want to pay the last £8k balance on credit card now saying their card machine not working!
All sorts of nonsense about can’t accept large payments by card (didn’t have that problem with my deposit) and it’s a bit tricky for them to process a payment at one of their other garages in the same group which I just don’t believe.
Expecting a callback tomorrow how the issues they have created are to be resolved.
It’s killed the excitement I had about picking it up.
Premium brand, below par service, better be a bloody good drive or I suspect I will have regrets getting on this merry go round 6 months ago.
Pick up Saturday... it had better not be out in the rain.
Frrair said:
the value on my trade in was substantially lower than the figure I agreed with first salesman 2 months before - eventually agreed a better figure but still feel bit aggrieved
The exact same thing happened to me! I was trading in my Audi TT which they told me was worth £20k, but then two months later they suddenly told me it was now only worth £18k and that this was a totally normal depreciation drop. I wish I’d questioned them more on this as I did feel like I was being fleeced a little at the time, but I was just so excited to get my new car that I couldn’t be bothered with the hassle of querying it. I've written a similar post on this topic before.
The flagship UK dealer in the West Midlands (not naming anyone) is horrendous - although existing customers tell me otherwise. Yet I've had three friends all have the same experience as me recently. No response to calls. Look down on you. Complacent. Disinterested. All sales, sales, sales. Similar to the Ferrari experience above. So much so I cancelled my order knowing I'd have to go back on the waiting list.
Went to Wolves because I'd heard good things - complete opposite experience. Honest, passionate, and customer focused. And that's every member of the team I engaged with. Finally get my car in April after an 18 month wait!
The flagship UK dealer in the West Midlands (not naming anyone) is horrendous - although existing customers tell me otherwise. Yet I've had three friends all have the same experience as me recently. No response to calls. Look down on you. Complacent. Disinterested. All sales, sales, sales. Similar to the Ferrari experience above. So much so I cancelled my order knowing I'd have to go back on the waiting list.
Went to Wolves because I'd heard good things - complete opposite experience. Honest, passionate, and customer focused. And that's every member of the team I engaged with. Finally get my car in April after an 18 month wait!
Ollie1977 said:
I've written a similar post on this topic before.
The flagship UK dealer in the West Midlands (not naming anyone) is horrendous - although existing customers tell me otherwise. Yet I've had three friends all have the same experience as me recently. No response to calls. Look down on you. Complacent. Disinterested. All sales, sales, sales. Similar to the Ferrari experience above. So much so I cancelled my order knowing I'd have to go back on the waiting list.
Went to Wolves because I'd heard good things - complete opposite experience. Honest, passionate, and customer focused. And that's every member of the team I engaged with. Finally get my car in April after an 18 month wait!
There’s a few west mids dealers, but as I had the same experience I’m going to guess Solihull?The flagship UK dealer in the West Midlands (not naming anyone) is horrendous - although existing customers tell me otherwise. Yet I've had three friends all have the same experience as me recently. No response to calls. Look down on you. Complacent. Disinterested. All sales, sales, sales. Similar to the Ferrari experience above. So much so I cancelled my order knowing I'd have to go back on the waiting list.
Went to Wolves because I'd heard good things - complete opposite experience. Honest, passionate, and customer focused. And that's every member of the team I engaged with. Finally get my car in April after an 18 month wait!
The buying experience of my Boxster, was the worst of my life, hated it, neatly cancelled a couple of times, but really wanted the car.
Then when it came to buy the next one I had a new sales person, they were rubbish, so asked for another, they were also rubbish, couldn’t even get me a test drive in a 991.2 gts.
Stopped in at wolves on my way down south with work, straight in a gts convertible, sales person was really helpful, placed an order the following day, collect in two weeks.
I ended up at Solihull after getting treated like s
t at reading too, so now on my third opc, hopefully this one is a keeper, shame they’re 150 miles away. Sales guy at my OPC was a decent chap. Handover was nice enough and the freebies of adequate quality. Service head is a moron however and, though under warranty, I will more than likely write off the warranty and have the car looked after elsewhere. I am an neither satisfied nor dissatisfied tbh because my expecatation of such people is low to begin with.
There are decent human beings who are competent and diligent in their work and there are those who are at the other end of the evolutionary scale. In my experience there is no correlation between which type you encounter and the market position and pricing of the business you are dealing with. Doesn’t matter the sector..... whether one pays £5 or £500 for lunch, eg, one is equally likely to encounter good service (or bad), ime at least.
Expecting better service because you think you are buying a luxury car is a recipe for disappointment.
There are decent human beings who are competent and diligent in their work and there are those who are at the other end of the evolutionary scale. In my experience there is no correlation between which type you encounter and the market position and pricing of the business you are dealing with. Doesn’t matter the sector..... whether one pays £5 or £500 for lunch, eg, one is equally likely to encounter good service (or bad), ime at least.
Expecting better service because you think you are buying a luxury car is a recipe for disappointment.
I'm generally not a big fan of salesmen attitude in U.K. (sorry chaps!), and Porsche was not impressive, sadly.
I had one to one dealing for both test drive, servicing and brand new purchase inquiries for several times(2 different OPC, London) but quite disappointing. On the other hand, VW, Mercedes and Land Rover were surprisingly quite good. No hard-sale, continuous customer support and informative.
The independent dealers and specialists(Porsche-focused) have been quite fantastic though, I guess the true "enthusiast" and also the long-term approach makes them reliable people/places.
I had one to one dealing for both test drive, servicing and brand new purchase inquiries for several times(2 different OPC, London) but quite disappointing. On the other hand, VW, Mercedes and Land Rover were surprisingly quite good. No hard-sale, continuous customer support and informative.
The independent dealers and specialists(Porsche-focused) have been quite fantastic though, I guess the true "enthusiast" and also the long-term approach makes them reliable people/places.
Dr mojo said:
Good experience with Porsche Leicester and Chester. London based dealers are poor. Not sure if correlation with locality and affluence. I suspect in London and places like solihull they may not need to work very hard for the business. Just a theory.
I’ve had good service from my OPC in London, the local one is very disappointing, I put a big spec on a Cayenne diesel s a few years ago and the salesman was not familiar with all options, very poor imho.Don’t use them any more other than servicing and warranty.
Had a dreadful initial experience, which led to me rejecting the car they'd built for me and demanding a new one.
Main dealership in London, owned by Porsche so not a franchise. First salesman I dealt with was a pleasant chap. Ordered my initial spec to get onto the build queue, put the deposit down, but told him to get back to me once the cut-off date was known as I wanted to spend more time delving into the options list and would want my spec changed before build.
And so I spent some time on the configurator playing with options, speaking to people here at PH, delving into the possibilities. In the end the spec I wanted had 7-8k more in options than the spec I'd ordered initially.
A month or two went by and no word, so I chased. No build yet came the reply. Another month or two went by, so I chased. No build yet came the reply. I chased perhaps twice more, until one morning out of the blue I got a happy phone call from my sales chap informing me that the car had been built and he had a delivery date!
This knocked the wind out of me. I told him this was not the spec I wanted and that he was supposed to let me know when the cut-off date was as I had an updated spec! I got the number of the dealer principal, who was not available when I called, so I left a message with what had been happening, and asked what my options were.
Later that day I got a call back from the Principal Sales Manager (dunno if that was his job title but he was the chap in charge of sales) who was hugely apologetic for the poor communication from my sales rep, and said the dealership would take full responsibility for the cock-up. He asked me to send through my updated spec, that I would go straight to the front of the build queue with that spec, but would obviously have to wait several months more for it to be built. I said fine, asked for £500 off for the inconvenience which he agreed to. Told me to only deal with him from then on and not to speak to my original sales rep.
He was fine after that - kept me updated and communication was fine up until delivery - good to his word I was front of the queue.
The day of delivery, my car was under a sheath in the showroom, with what they unveiled as part of what they called 'the big reveal' so was a suitable moment. No freebies really apart from a plastic framed photo of my car which was tat, but I don't care for freebies really as they just end up in the bin.
Main dealership in London, owned by Porsche so not a franchise. First salesman I dealt with was a pleasant chap. Ordered my initial spec to get onto the build queue, put the deposit down, but told him to get back to me once the cut-off date was known as I wanted to spend more time delving into the options list and would want my spec changed before build.
And so I spent some time on the configurator playing with options, speaking to people here at PH, delving into the possibilities. In the end the spec I wanted had 7-8k more in options than the spec I'd ordered initially.
A month or two went by and no word, so I chased. No build yet came the reply. Another month or two went by, so I chased. No build yet came the reply. I chased perhaps twice more, until one morning out of the blue I got a happy phone call from my sales chap informing me that the car had been built and he had a delivery date!
This knocked the wind out of me. I told him this was not the spec I wanted and that he was supposed to let me know when the cut-off date was as I had an updated spec! I got the number of the dealer principal, who was not available when I called, so I left a message with what had been happening, and asked what my options were.
Later that day I got a call back from the Principal Sales Manager (dunno if that was his job title but he was the chap in charge of sales) who was hugely apologetic for the poor communication from my sales rep, and said the dealership would take full responsibility for the cock-up. He asked me to send through my updated spec, that I would go straight to the front of the build queue with that spec, but would obviously have to wait several months more for it to be built. I said fine, asked for £500 off for the inconvenience which he agreed to. Told me to only deal with him from then on and not to speak to my original sales rep.
He was fine after that - kept me updated and communication was fine up until delivery - good to his word I was front of the queue.
The day of delivery, my car was under a sheath in the showroom, with what they unveiled as part of what they called 'the big reveal' so was a suitable moment. No freebies really apart from a plastic framed photo of my car which was tat, but I don't care for freebies really as they just end up in the bin.
Edited by Tim bo on Wednesday 7th March 08:30
Tim bo said:
The day of delivery, my car was under a sheath in the showroom, with what they called 'the big reveal' so was a suitably special moment. No freebies really apart from a plastic framed photo of my car which was tat, but I don't care for freebies really as they just end up in the bin.
A friend of mine (who's on here actually) bought a car where they did the 'big reveal' - only trouble was it was the wrong car. He blipped the dramatically presented key fob only to find it unlocked another car on display.NDA said:
A friend of mine (who's on here actually) bought a car where they did the 'big reveal' - only trouble was it was the wrong car. He blipped the dramatically presented key fob only to find it unlocked another car on display.
I think my heart would skip a beat if that happened to me, but you'd have to see the funny side once you'd realised.
Took 11 months to deliver my car, which was 13 months after my first test drive. Sent a spec in and got no answer. Eventually got it in contact and placed the order with a discount. Made a few spec changes before lock down. Was due to collect in May. It the car had the wrong gearbox. Refused that so the car was reordered. This one was completely wrong. Different colour, wheels, interior etc. Third car was correct. Had a few bits added but was still paying the 2017 model price. Some other extras I negotiated didn’t transpire, but got gtechniq added, so swings and roundabouts there. Took a long time but I ended up with a better car in the end. Did get the reveal with the cover on etc. Only annoying thing was another salesman pulling the cover back to show a prospective customer the colour. Fortunately I didn’t see the car from where I was standing but thought it was a bit inept to do that. That was as the reason not blemish on collection. My px did drop £500, I traded it in a couple of months before final collection and was given a loan car.
Edited by Pinball on Wednesday 7th March 08:51
Edited by Pinball on Wednesday 7th March 08:53
I'm very fortunate that my local OPC is one of the very few independent dealers left. It is 'family' run and I know nearly everyone from the DP right down to the technicians, parts advisor and receptionist on a first name basis and they know me.
Throughout the buying process of my cars they have gone over and above any other marque I have bought from (BMW, Audi, LRRR, VW) and have made the buying experience extra special. They do the expected black cover reveal on collection day and the car is always inside plus you get a good hour (or longer if required) to go through the controls and make sure you are comfortable with the car before you leave the showroom (with a full tank of fuel).
You even get a welcoming coffee if you drop in to say hello or collect any parts
Throughout the buying process of my cars they have gone over and above any other marque I have bought from (BMW, Audi, LRRR, VW) and have made the buying experience extra special. They do the expected black cover reveal on collection day and the car is always inside plus you get a good hour (or longer if required) to go through the controls and make sure you are comfortable with the car before you leave the showroom (with a full tank of fuel).
You even get a welcoming coffee if you drop in to say hello or collect any parts
In a word - no. I’m going back three years now, but we purchased our BGTS from Porsche Centre Swindon based on an excellent experience from the salesman that sold us a used 911 C2S two years earlier who unfortunately had since moved on. When we arrived at the appointed time we found the salesman flustered and unprepared, he actually accused us of arriving early. The car was not in the showroom, still “round the back” being prepared, when it did turn up it made a complete farce of covering it up. Our surname was also incorrectly spelt on the collection display, SWMBO had enough at this stage, and gave the salesman both barrels. Eventually all was sorted but a very disappointing and shambolic experience. To cap it all, two years later the dealership contacted us for the first service and insisted that at two years the Porsche service schedule recommended air con drain and re gas which it does not. Dishonestly trying to claim extra work and money or merely misinformed? Suffice to say that since then our requirements have been met by Porsche Centre Portsmouth that so far have been excellent.
Edited by dreamcar on Wednesday 7th March 12:38
dreamcar said:
In a word - no. I’m going back three years now, but we purchased our BGTS from Porsche Centre Swindon based on an excellent experience from the salesman that sold us a used 911 C2S two years earlier who unfortunately had since moved on. When we arrived at the appointed time we found the salesman flustered and unprepared, he actually accused us of arriving early. The car was not in the showroom, still “round the back” being prepared, when it did turn up it made a complete farce of covering it up. Our surname was also incorrectly spelt on the collection display, SWMBO had enough at this stage, and gave the salesman both barrels. Eventually all was sorted but a very disappointing and shambolic experience. To cap it all, two years later the dealership contacted us for the first service and insisted that at two years the Porsche service schedule recommended air con drain and re gas which it does not. Dishonestly trying to claim extra work and money or merely misinformed? Suffice to say that since then our requirements have been met by Porsche Centre Portsmouth that so far have been excellent.
I think it's very dependent on the person you deal with. Bought my current car from Swindon. The buying process and service was pretty much as expected, no complaints but nothing exceptional. That was up to collection day. I was going by train from Reading to Swindon to collect the car. Got to the station to find all trains subject to indefinite delay due to an 'incident', turned out to be a suicide. Called salesman to say can't make it and reschedule. He called me back a few minutes later saying he'd organised a taxi to get me from Reading station. Excellent customer care.Edited by dreamcar on Wednesday 7th March 12:38
Previous 3 cars purchased from OPC Wolverhampton. First two great and efficient service from salesman. Third car and new salesman a total disaster, needed chasing and correcting all through the process. Eventually told sales manager I wanted to deal with someone else.
Suspect more down to the individual than the dealership.
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