Dealer Communications!
Discussion
I’m starting to wonder how some garages actually manage to sell any cars the way they deal with customers!
Been keeping an eye out for a while for a car in specific spec / trim / colour / options etc that I wanted within my budget. Finally found one that ticks all the boxes. Price a little bit higher than I wanted but workable, few more miles on it than I’d like but no biggy.
The big down side is..... it’s about 350 miles south of me...... which makes popping in for a look a bit unrealistic. No matter though - have always said the right cars worth travelling for.
Wanted to ask a few questions about the car - so penned the selling garage an email via their own website. A week passes. No reply. So this time contact them via auto trader just giving them a nudge to my previous enquiry and expressing a serious interest and requesting the information I’d asked for.
Another few days go by and we’re at Monday. Still no reply so I decide perhaps they prefer to deal by phone. Would rather have had the information I’d asked for in writing but never mind..... Give them a call and speak to someone who doesn’t have the paperwork to hand but will dig it all out and call me back shortly.
No call back.
Tuesday morning, call again to chase it up. ‘Oh yeah sorry I totally forgot, we are completely rammed- tell you what, I’ll send you a video of the car taking you a tour of it’. Great I think. That’ll do nicely. Tuesday plays out. Nothing.
This morning comes around. Call to chase again and met with a similar response about being really busy and that they hadn’t forgotten about me but would definitely get me the video today.
Still nothing.
So annoying! I’ve been sitting here itching to go, ready to do a deal and hand over money to these folk and they can’t bring themselves to take 5-10 mins to get the information I’m asking for or enter in to a discussion about it.
Normally this kinda thing would put me right off a dealer and I’d just walk away, but annoyingly, the car is about the only one available ticking all my boxes within budget in the whole country.
I just know I’m going to call to chase them and having spent best part of 2 weeks trying to purchase this car and being eager to do a deal, they’ll have sold it from under me.
Frustrating.
What expectations do you have when you enquire about a car?
Been keeping an eye out for a while for a car in specific spec / trim / colour / options etc that I wanted within my budget. Finally found one that ticks all the boxes. Price a little bit higher than I wanted but workable, few more miles on it than I’d like but no biggy.
The big down side is..... it’s about 350 miles south of me...... which makes popping in for a look a bit unrealistic. No matter though - have always said the right cars worth travelling for.
Wanted to ask a few questions about the car - so penned the selling garage an email via their own website. A week passes. No reply. So this time contact them via auto trader just giving them a nudge to my previous enquiry and expressing a serious interest and requesting the information I’d asked for.
Another few days go by and we’re at Monday. Still no reply so I decide perhaps they prefer to deal by phone. Would rather have had the information I’d asked for in writing but never mind..... Give them a call and speak to someone who doesn’t have the paperwork to hand but will dig it all out and call me back shortly.
No call back.
Tuesday morning, call again to chase it up. ‘Oh yeah sorry I totally forgot, we are completely rammed- tell you what, I’ll send you a video of the car taking you a tour of it’. Great I think. That’ll do nicely. Tuesday plays out. Nothing.
This morning comes around. Call to chase again and met with a similar response about being really busy and that they hadn’t forgotten about me but would definitely get me the video today.
Still nothing.
So annoying! I’ve been sitting here itching to go, ready to do a deal and hand over money to these folk and they can’t bring themselves to take 5-10 mins to get the information I’m asking for or enter in to a discussion about it.
Normally this kinda thing would put me right off a dealer and I’d just walk away, but annoyingly, the car is about the only one available ticking all my boxes within budget in the whole country.
I just know I’m going to call to chase them and having spent best part of 2 weeks trying to purchase this car and being eager to do a deal, they’ll have sold it from under me.
Frustrating.
What expectations do you have when you enquire about a car?
Edited by ESD1711 on Wednesday 26th August 16:29
JPJPJP said:
If you are trying to buy something so rare, you probably should expect to do more work than if you were trying to sell it.
It’s certainly not rare, it’s only a C Class - just proving harder to find with the options etc I’m holding out for.Defo not something I feel I should be needing to do the ground work for to get a deal done.
Just find the lack of interest a bit bizarre.
JPJPJP said:
You’ve been looking for one for a while and there is only one in the country just now
Sounds quite rare to me
A while is probably a bit misleading - I’m talking a few weeks as opposed to months. Sounds quite rare to me
It’s defo nothing rare or fancy. If it falls through another will appear - it’s just annoying when it does tick the right boxes at the moment and the seller has such little interest in dealing with me on it that’s all.
ChevronB19 said:
Try speaking to Mexman, who will promptly accuse you of being a time waster.
Give it a rest will you? If he is that persistent, then he obviously isn't.There's normally a good reason for a seller to blank you.
The logical reason is they don't want to sell to him.
The reason, being that they don't particularly want to send a car 350 miles away and then have to deal with the warranty issues long distance, if that situation arises.
Much rather sell locally to avoid future problems, where returning the car is easier and less problematic and costly, than trying to do this long distance.
We often do the same, if we are selling a car that historically can be problematic, older BMW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroën etc, we will try to avoid the buyer politely, and hope they dissappear or lose interest, or it sells to someone more, local.
Look at all thre threads on here about rejection, CRA, repairs, want my money back, broken down etc..
Not worth the absolute ballache of trying to recover a vehicle from 350 miles away.
Edited by Mexman on Wednesday 26th August 21:14
ninepoint2 said:
ChevronB19 said:
Try speaking to Mexman, who will promptly accuse you of being a time waster.
Has he ever said where he works, just so that I can avoid it and tell friends to do the sameWho are you?
If you are in Scotland, and i am in the South West, I dont think I have much to worry about there.
Mexman said:
ninepoint2 said:
ChevronB19 said:
Try speaking to Mexman, who will promptly accuse you of being a time waster.
Has he ever said where he works, just so that I can avoid it and tell friends to do the sameWho are you?
If you are in Scotland, and i am in the South West, I dont think I have much to worry about there.
Mexman said:
Give it a rest will you? If he is that persistent, then he obviously isn't.
There's normally a good reason for a seller to blank you.
The logical reason is they don't want to sell to him.
The reason, being that they don't particularly want to send a car 350 miles away and then have to deal with the warranty issues long distance, if that situation arises.
Much rather sell locally to avoid future problems, where returning the car is easier and less problematic and costly, than trying to do this long distance.
We often do the same, if we are selling a car that historically can be problematic, older BMW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroën etc, we will try to avoid the buyer politely, and hope they dissappear or lose interest, or it sells to someone more, local.
Look at all thre threads on here about rejection, CRA, repairs, want my money back, broken down etc..
Not worth the absolute ballache of trying to recover a vehicle from 350 miles away.
Have seen in the past cases where cars don’t need to go back to the place they were bought from for warranty work - take it to a loca garage and it all goes through the warranty company. Maybe that depends who the company is. There's normally a good reason for a seller to blank you.
The logical reason is they don't want to sell to him.
The reason, being that they don't particularly want to send a car 350 miles away and then have to deal with the warranty issues long distance, if that situation arises.
Much rather sell locally to avoid future problems, where returning the car is easier and less problematic and costly, than trying to do this long distance.
We often do the same, if we are selling a car that historically can be problematic, older BMW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroën etc, we will try to avoid the buyer politely, and hope they dissappear or lose interest, or it sells to someone more, local.
Look at all thre threads on here about rejection, CRA, repairs, want my money back, broken down etc..
Not worth the absolute ballache of trying to recover a vehicle from 350 miles away.
Edited by Mexman on Wednesday 26th August 21:14
The flip side is surely that there’s a significantly lower chance of someone who’s gone to the trouble of spending circa £100 on a flight to get to your garage turning out to be a tyre kicker / time waster - and also much less chance of deciding not to go through with a sale...
Mexman said:
ChevronB19 said:
Try speaking to Mexman, who will promptly accuse you of being a time waster.
Give it a rest will you? If he is that persistent, then he obviously isn't.There's normally a good reason for a seller to blank you.
The logical reason is they don't want to sell to him.
The reason, being that they don't particularly want to send a car 350 miles away and then have to deal with the warranty issues long distance, if that situation arises.
Much rather sell locally to avoid future problems, where returning the car is easier and less problematic and costly, than trying to do this long distance.
We often do the same, if we are selling a car that historically can be problematic, older BMW, Renault, Peugeot, Citroën etc, we will try to avoid the buyer politely, and hope they dissappear or lose interest, or it sells to someone more, local.
Look at all thre threads on here about rejection, CRA, repairs, want my money back, broken down etc..
Not worth the absolute ballache of trying to recover a vehicle from 350 miles away.
Edited by Mexman on Wednesday 26th August 21:14
Finally got the information out of them I’d requested two weeks earlier.
All four wheels needing refurbed, an extra 3000 miles on it over what’s advertised, advisories on MOT suggest it’s going to need brakes done soon.
All this on a car with above average mileage which falls in to the ‘high price’ category on autotrader putting it some £900 above market average.
Dealer not willing to budge one single penny on asking price.
I think I’ll pass. The hunt continues...
All four wheels needing refurbed, an extra 3000 miles on it over what’s advertised, advisories on MOT suggest it’s going to need brakes done soon.
All this on a car with above average mileage which falls in to the ‘high price’ category on autotrader putting it some £900 above market average.
Dealer not willing to budge one single penny on asking price.
I think I’ll pass. The hunt continues...
ESD1711 said:
Finally got the information out of them I’d requested two weeks earlier.
All four wheels needing refurbed, an extra 3000 miles on it over what’s advertised, advisories on MOT suggest it’s going to need brakes done soon.
All this on a car with above average mileage which falls in to the ‘high price’ category on autotrader putting it some £900 above market average.
Dealer not willing to budge one single penny on asking price.
I think I’ll pass. The hunt continues...
Ask for the wheels and brakes to be done as part of the sale?All four wheels needing refurbed, an extra 3000 miles on it over what’s advertised, advisories on MOT suggest it’s going to need brakes done soon.
All this on a car with above average mileage which falls in to the ‘high price’ category on autotrader putting it some £900 above market average.
Dealer not willing to budge one single penny on asking price.
I think I’ll pass. The hunt continues...
Ignore Autotraders reccomended price, you yourself said it's the only one you can find at that spec, I'm also not surprised they won't budge on price.
I did ask that. And it was a no to the wheels and a yes to the brakes.
I don’t read too much in to the autotrader price scale - but the reality is, it IS priced high for its condition and mileage.
We’re talking a diesel C Class Estate. It’s nothing special or rare in that respect. The fact it’s 1 of 1 available says more about me being too picky than it being a rare car.
At that price, I’d expect it to be near mint and it’s not.
Saves me a flight to London and I’ll hold out for another one.
I don’t read too much in to the autotrader price scale - but the reality is, it IS priced high for its condition and mileage.
We’re talking a diesel C Class Estate. It’s nothing special or rare in that respect. The fact it’s 1 of 1 available says more about me being too picky than it being a rare car.
At that price, I’d expect it to be near mint and it’s not.
Saves me a flight to London and I’ll hold out for another one.
I had the exact opposite recently, I have been looking for a low mileage version of a particular car for quite a while, one popped up on AT around 150 miles away, I messaged on the AT link around 6pm and had a text back within an hour, my questions were answered so I offered what I wanted to pay (£1k less than advert) and enquired at the same time how much deposit he wanted and in what format. The price was agreed and deposit sent within two hours of my initial enquiry.
I arranged to collect the following Saturday on the proviso the car was as described and when I arrived it was even better, I was given some optional extras that weren’t in the advert (luggage cover, boot liner, luggage divider etc) and had to wait around while the freshly steam cleaned mats were put back in the car.
It was a superb buying experience and put my faith back into the fs to that despite people like Mexman there are also some decent dealers/salesmen out there who want to move good stock onto a good customer.
I arranged to collect the following Saturday on the proviso the car was as described and when I arrived it was even better, I was given some optional extras that weren’t in the advert (luggage cover, boot liner, luggage divider etc) and had to wait around while the freshly steam cleaned mats were put back in the car.
It was a superb buying experience and put my faith back into the fs to that despite people like Mexman there are also some decent dealers/salesmen out there who want to move good stock onto a good customer.
Gassing Station | Car Buying | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff