[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by ddc73

That's one of em

Ahh understand, it's when you said North East that threw me

[tjlees]

Sales people that treat you like this need to know - ring up/email the dealer manager and complain. Though it may have got me nowhere a) I felt a whole better and b) hopefully it fixed it for the next customer walking through the door.

I also ring up and praise, if the person has gone beyond the call of duty. It's unfortunately rare and tends to be indys.

[rich100]

Originally Posted by swissfraser

First time I went here I had just moved back to the UK and could not buy a BMW soon enough. My other half and I went for a look at a couple of 320D's and I swear the salesman spent about 10 minutes telling us how good Audis were.

More recently I was there getting my 5 series serviced (if I didnt have the service pack I'd have gone elsewhere) and while there I found myself looking at a rather nice 330d xdrive touring, which was almost new. I spoke to the salesman and he offered me the best part of 20k for mine if I traded in, but he didnt quite make the deal sweet enough so I left and told him if he could make the offer any more attractive to let me know. He emailed me later that day and said that actually he would only be prepared to offer me 17k for mine, but if I still was interested to let him know.

I will never go back.

Lmao. How a request to sweeten a deal can be misunderstood and translated into "please look at the figures again and call me with a much worse deal" is beyond me. I've no idea how some of the salesmen in this thread manage to survive in the jobs.

Sounds like at jaguar in particular they must have a morning meeting with targets for repelling customers and performance bonuses awarded for optimal rudeness.

"Guys, busy day ahead of us today, lots of punters through the door. On no account let them near the cars and the boot is an absolute no go. Absolutely no test drives either. If anyone has the temerity to ask for one beat them with this shitty stick. Oh and discounts, none at all, if they ask give em you,re best condescending comments and if they still push, refer the matter to me and I'll personally escort them from the premises"

[E60MKF]

Jaguar in Ayr have been very good, nice sales team which doesn't seem like the norm. One day i dealt with an ex-jag salesman at merc and he was the best salesman I've ever met in any merc dealership

[SkyJawa]

Originally Posted by ddc73

I'm still waiting for test drives in golf r from 2 north east vw dealers, 3 months ago, both lost interest when I said I wanted to buy rather than pcp. Nowt but tossers! Anyway bought me 330 instead, n I feckin loves it

I've yet to find a good VW dealer. Also their stance on their warranties is not worth the paper they print them on.

[E60MKF]

Originally Posted by SkyJawa

I've yet to find a good VW dealer. Also their stance on their warranties is not worth the paper they print them on.

I had a great salesman at VW who became the manager so he recommended someone else on his team who was just as great but he then became the manager so again I was recommended someone else who was just as great but then the whole showroom staff were redistributed and the new sales team are awful. Hence the move to BMW for the second car!

[f1swk]

Originally Posted by swissfraser

There's nothing wrong with their service department, its the sales department. Main reason I went though is sheer convenience as its the closest garage to my house

I bought my last car from John Clark BMW in Dundee who were a dream to deal with.

you drove past perth to go to dundee bmw
i drive past dundee to go to perth

[WullieD20]

Originally Posted by E60MKF

Re Douglas Park, Glasgow: I've never used them but the couple of times I've been, they have been really good!

1. Took TEN DAYS to diagnose and repair to my wife's Mini (under warranty!), and put 60 miles on the clock while they had it (it was a knocking gearbox mount).
2. Invited the public on their own website to attend the launch of the F36 Gran Coupe. When we arrived on the Sunday to view, we trawled the showroom for twenty minutes (not one person spoke to us in all that time!) to discover there was no 4-series Gran Coupe evident. When we eventually asked we were told: "It's the MDs car and he doesn't work at weekends"..... WTF????
3. Having written to both BMW UK and the MD direct to complain about their service we received no response whatsoever, far less any form of apology.
4. Something similar to posts above, we were dressed 'casually' and were looked at by one salesman as he'd just trodden in something unspeakable (he actually deserved a good slap!).

As I said, an absolutely appalling attitude all round and not a dealer I shall ever intend revisiting.

[WullieD20]

Originally Posted by rich100

"Guys, busy day ahead of us today, lots of punters through the door. On no account let them near the cars and the boot is an absolute no go. Absolutely no test drives either. If anyone has the temerity to ask for one beat them with this shitty stick. Oh and discounts, none at all, if they ask give em you,re best condescending comments and if they still push, refer the matter to me and I'll personally escort them from the premises"

LOL. . . . ..

My dealer has an attitude the very opposite. Grassicks of Perth. Can't do enough. ALWAYS pleasant, courteous, helpful. . . and all the things you'd expect from a top quality dealer. I've used them for years now (buying and servicing) and have never had a complaint.

Have to say on Jaguar's defence, I got treated very well when I visited Jaguar Perth (Pentland Jaguar).

[HighlandPete]

Originally Posted by WullieD20

LOL. . . . ..

My dealer has an attitude the very opposite. Grassicks of Perth. Can't do enough. ALWAYS pleasant, courteous, helpful. . . and all the things you'd expect from a top quality dealer. I've used them for years now (buying and servicing) and have never had a complaint.

Have to say on Jaguar's defence, I got treated very well when I visited Jaguar Perth (Pentland Jaguar).

I use Grassick's. Colin Grassick and his team are what all dealers ought to be. I drive a 180 miles a visit to use them, even though my 'local' dealer would be less miles, at 120 miles a visit.

It is a shame dealers are all over the place, whatever the marque. To be fair, it isn't always just the garages, customers can be part of the problem. I'm all for developing relationships, brings out the best in human nature.

HighlandPete

[rich100]

Agreed I would prefer to deal with someone I knew as long as I could still get a decent deal.

I don't really have a relationship as such though and have tended previously to buy used cars and went to whichever dealer had what I was looking for.

Had a very good experience with my f31 though. Salesman very helpful. Keen to deal but not pushy at all and kept me updated and informed throughout. I'd go back there.

Had a similar experience to some of the ones above however with a VW dealer and left with a very negative view of the dealership.

On another occasion with a VW dealership I was enquiring about a mk7 gti which had just been released.

The person I spoke to was quite helpful but it appeared that I knew far more than she did about it regarding specs and performance. She didn't really sell the package either just have me an ipad with some pictures and product features.

She then told me that she'd need to "qualify me" before taking it any further. I'm afraid I was confused by this as I had no idea I had to pass a VW entrance exam.

She asked me how much I wanted to pay each month and was then confused when I said £250. I was planning to put £10k in which made this achievable via a pcp but I believe she assumed that I was a dreamer.

When I enquired about discounts and referred to a broker quote that flummoxed them completely and there was zero interest at all from them in continuing the conversation.

This prompted me to return to Bmw

[rich100]

Originally Posted by WullieD20

LOL. . . . ..

My dealer has an attitude the very opposite. Grassicks of Perth. Can't do enough. ALWAYS pleasant, courteous, helpful. . . and all the things you'd expect from a top quality dealer. I've used them for years now (buying and servicing) and have never had a complaint.

Have to say on Jaguar's defence, I got treated very well when I visited Jaguar Perth (Pentland Jaguar).

Apologies I wasn't intending to tar all jaguar dealers with same brush and I'm sure that as with any other marque there are good and bad ones.I have not had any dealings with them personally but this thread seemed to be painting something of a picture of them.

Whilst I think I'll be sticking with bmw I do really like the F type. Practicalities however mean it's no good for me at the moment and whilst i would like to have a look around one (and maybe even check out the boot ) I fear if they detected a time waster they may ask me to leave.

"Perhaps sir would like to test drive our main entrance on a one way basis?"

[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by rich100

Apologies I wasn't intending to tar all jaguar dealers with same brush and I'm sure that as with any other marque there are good and bad ones.I have not had any dealings with them personally but this thread seemed to be painting something of a picture of them.

Whilst I think I'll be sticking with bmw I do really like the F type. Practicalities however mean it's no good for me at the moment and whilst i would like to have a look around one (and maybe even check out the boot ) I fear if they detected a time waster they may ask me to leave.

"Perhaps sir would like to test drive our main entrance on a one way basis?"

The reason for the thread was I had to go an extra 20/ 30 miles to another Jaguar dealer as my local ones were crap to say the least.

I was then to my delight treat like an interloper even though the dealership was pretty empty.

If anything I would have thought I was the perfect customer they want to poach.

I drive a BMW and I am interested in an XE 3.0 S, while there my wife even expressed interest in an XF sportbrake.

Now to my layman view of sales, I would have thought being able to turn round to your sales manager and say you managed to get a bloke out of a BMW and in to a jaguar a bit of a coup?

I was equally as scathing with my local ford dealership offering my £500 discount on an already built Fiesta ST, even though I showed him the figures from Drive The Deal... I think around £2500 at the time.

It just astounds me that someone whose main purpose in life is to sell cars and give that 'Customer Experience' fails so badly.

[TouringPleb]

My partner had a XF from Marshalls in Cambridge. Had great service from the sales guy. Service side was only above average, nothing special.

[ep22jg]

Maybe it's as much to do with the individual person as the dealership??

I've generally had good sales experience from BMW and average from the servicing department. Although when I recently bought my 335d, the sales guy was good while I was face to face, but let the show down with communications outside of that.
My servicing experience with Audi was very good. Sales not so good .....

I do find it annoying, as to me, the bits that make a good experience are the easy bits ....... just talking to people and keeping them informed ...... is that not the job??

[....,,,,..,,..]

Originally Posted by TouringPleb

My partner had a XF from Marshalls in Cambridge. Had great service from the sales guy. Service side was only above average, nothing special.

Marshals have always been pretty good.

Handily its around 25% mil discount (or was) with an XF and similar with an FType.

At one point they did over 25 on XK.

Ford in both Northallerton and Huntingdon both give excellent sales service and discounts.

With the former we had a Ford track day at Croft when we bought the car, even though technically we bought from Ford UK,the dealer did all the leg work and everything was painless.

With the latter, we received and were driving our MK4 a week or so prior to the official launch - booked a meal out for us at a local resteraunt.

Synter BMW Oldbury, excellent sales service - even though not local dealer and aware I would buy from Park Lane happy with test drives, service / parts department great service, again even though not my 'official' dealership.

[allachie9]

When I lived and worked in South Yorkshire I had an excellent relationship with Wheatley Hall BMW, Doncaster. Which I believe is now Stratstone. On my retirement, 12 years ago, I moved up to North East Scotland (Speyside) and was approximately midway between John Clark at Aberdeen, and Calterdon at Inverness, both being around 60 miles away. I tried them both when I was buying an X5 and the difference was amazing. I have to say the staff at John Clark couldn't have cared less about me or my impending purchase. I suspect they had it all too easy with all the oil money about. So I went to Calterdon at Inverness and was delighted with the service I had, and subsequently have had there. So much so that I bought my X5 from them and have since bought/ part exchanged 3 more from them.
Fairly recently Calterdon have been bought out by the Arnold Clark group and now trade under the Harry Fairbairn banner, I was delighted to read positive things about Harry Fairbairn earlier in this thread.
I'm already planning another change for March next year, so I suppose that when I go in to place my order in October / November, that will be the time to find out how much has changed at my favourite dealership. As most of the staff are still the same, hopefully I will still get a great deal from them.

ps. In case Brigand is wondering, I moved from Speyside to the Moray Firth Coast a couple of years ago.

[swissfraser]

Originally Posted by f1swk

you drove past perth to go to dundee bmw
i drive past dundee to go to perth

Never been to the garage in Perth but would have no problems going there. Bit far for a service too! Reason I went to Dundee was because they had a car for sale that tickled my fancy and they offered me good money for the 3 series I was trading in.

If anyone in the Glasgow area is needing any work done on their car I can recommend B for BMW in Clydebank, brilliant experience and super friendly guys - and of course much cheaper than the official BMW workshops.

[swissfraser]

Originally Posted by HighlandPete

I use Grassick's. Colin Grassick and his team are what all dealers ought to be. I drive a 180 miles a visit to use them, even though my 'local' dealer would be less miles, at 120 miles a visit.
HighlandPete

Excellent, another vote for Perth. Both my parents are from Perth so I'm happy to find an excuse to go there. Just need to wait for the second hand 640d Gran Coupe's to come down to sensible money....

[JustChris]

Yeah I had an odd experience at Jaguar. No problem for a weekend XF test drive but almost zero salesman follow up??? Very strange but I appreciated their relaxed approach, I would stop by again so the softly softly softly approach might work....eventually!

[AP_75]

I had a similar experience at Festival of Speed couple of years back, was looking at an XF Sportback and was completely ignored while other people I took to be time wasters were mobbed when looking at a £90k XJ. I then went next door to the BMW stand and a member of staff was immediately helpful on looking at a 5 series.

I was prob 38 at the time so hopefully not seen as unsuitable for the brand ;-) That said Guy Salmon in Thames Ditton were very good when I went to the showroom though they never followed up with a phone call, esp when Jaguar announced a used car special event about a week later with the kind of finance I had been asking about.

If they're going to expand sales with the XE they must surely broaden their appeal.

[Chompers]

Originally Posted by AP_75

If they're going to expand sales with the XE they must surely broaden their appeal.

And this is where the problem is for Jaguar. The XE will do well no doubt in the fleet market as do 3er's, C class and A4's. However Jaguar dealers are going to struggle in the retail market if they carry on treating potential buyers as some of the above have. This is where BMW do the job better (generally) This has only come about in the last 10 years or so tho. I'm sure some of us can remember walking in to a BMW dealer and feeling very awkward and dare you ask for a discount