I have been thinking about this for a while and was wondering if I am the only one who feels that car dealers get off very lightly? I am sure there must be some good dealers out there but I have not found one for a while.

I can only speak from my own experience but just as a ‘for instance’ if we buy a tractor the dealer comes to us, we don’t have go to them, we get to try their product for several day’s, normally a week and it is brought to us. When we buy it is delivered and then someone comes out to show us how it works, they then contact us regularly to see if we are happy with it. If it goes wrong the dealer comes to us to fix it, if they can’t repair it on site they take it away and leave another one in its place (and don’t charge anything for the insurance while we have it)

Contrast this to a car dealer, I have to go to them when I want to buy, if they can be bothered I get a ten minute test drive. I then get pressured in to ordering it, either the price is going up or if it's not ordered right now it will take an extra six months to turn up (possible exaggeration here). Then after I have bought and paid for it that’s the last I hear from them, if it goes wrong I am expected to take it back (normally more than once) and then pay for the insurance of the loan car.

I have to say that it seems to be getting worse as the smaller dealerships are gradually swallowed up.

Am I bitter about the way I was treated when I bought my new RRS? you bet I am  12MY RRS Orkney Grey HSE Lux
12MY FF Santorini Black VSE

Should have gone to LPR EF

It's a shame that you've spent the best part of £60k (if not more) and feel the way you do. I think it's a case that there are some good and some bad ones out there and you've just got to hunt around a bit

I suppose in your example, the tractor salesman does have to work harder for a sale as there are far fewer people taking delivery of tractors than RRS's I would imagine. Demand and supply and all that!

I can empathise though......
I initially contacted Lookers Chelmsford as that's the closest dealer to me, but I have to say I was less than impressed with the 'service' I received from them - in short LAZY. So much so, I ended up taking a trip further afield to Colchester Lookers, where, I'll be honest the dealer was a lot better - nice long test drive, very knowledgable, reasonable finance discussions etc , but unfortunately, they couldn't get me into a new RRS as quick as I wanted.

It was only through recommendations through this site that I dropped James/Steve a PM and I'm glad I did. They really went the extra mile for me and although I had to drive over 50 miles to get there (nothing compared to some, but bear in mind I had 2 within 20 miles), the whole experience from initial contact through to pick up was brilliant and not laborious at all.
Silly things like, full tank of fuel, carpet mats, flowers, chocs and wine for the Mrs all made it a pleasant experience and next time I'd definitely go straight back to them with no hesitation. ON THE WAY: BMW F21 M140i
MERCEDES GL350 - Metallic Navy Blue w/Grey interior

GOING: BMW F31 335D MSport+ xDrive Touring
GONE: Land Rover Discovery 4 HSE - Stornaway Grey w/Black Interior (wish we'd kept it )
GONE: BMW F10 520D MSport - Carbon Black
GONE:MY12 RRS SDV6 HSE Sumatra/Ivory/Grand Black Privacy glass

Last edited by Beancounter_74 on Tue Jan 24 2012 3:46pm. Edited 1 time in total

LPR +1 (twice)

I suppose their are more cars sold per year than tractors and due to that they can't come to you

Test drives could be longer, saying that my test drive was as long as I needed and he was shock when I turned back up a hour later, but I didn't test drive my current car but had a good sales experience via LPR

Im getting good service experience from my local dealer, but not ventured into sales yet with them

Don't JLR ever run a survey on customer satisfaction with each dealer? Perhaps james could answer this one i know my local dealer is part of perrys group and everytime i visit my dealer i get a follow up call from their HQ to see if i'm satisfied with the service ive been given which i think is pretty good and you know that they really do care about their customers because big brother is watching them

I'm very happy with the Local Dealer (Town & County Aberdeen) The Salesman (Gordon Rough) that sold me both my RRS & the Freelander 2 for my wife is a thoroughly decent guy. I was most impressed that when we were buying the Freelander he always spoke to my wife about the car and didn't fall into the typical salesman trap of ignoring the woman and talking to the man! On the aftersales side I have always found Bryan Borwick & his team a pleasure to deal with.  2013 Discovery HSE Luxury - 3.0 SDV6 - Santorini Black
2013 Evoque 5 Door Pure Tech SD4 - Orkney Grey with Panoramic Roof (Mrs E's new baby)

GONE - RRS - 3.0 TDV6 HSE - Santorini (2010)
GONE - RRS - 2.7 TDV6 HSE - Java Black (2007)
GONE - Porsche Boxster S - 3.2 - Black

I think I may have had some bad experiences with land rover dealers, by the time I collected my RRS the salesman had mysteriously left, he was there the week before when I went to look at it to make sure the spec was correct, while I was there he asked me thousand pound donation to a charity he was setting up (he had asked other customers for money as well I later found out) could this have had something to do with his leaving I wonder? Had he asked for this when I ordered he would not have got the deal. The handover was carried out by another salesman whose heart was really not in it. I did get one nice surprise a few weeks later, a refund of the six months tax my disco had on it when I traded it on, I really did not expect that.

I have filled out three land rover satisfaction surveys on the RRS so far, two for faults and one general, none of which give you a chance to say what you really think but I have had a good try.

I fully understand that there are more cars than tractors sold and I don’t really expect the dealer to come to me, I was just using this fact to emphasise a point. 12MY RRS Orkney Grey HSE Lux
12MY FF Santorini Black VSE

Which dealer EF, either of the two I mentioned (Chelmsford/Colchester)  ON THE WAY: BMW F21 M140i
MERCEDES GL350 - Metallic Navy Blue w/Grey interior

GOING: BMW F31 335D MSport+ xDrive Touring
GONE: Land Rover Discovery 4 HSE - Stornaway Grey w/Black Interior (wish we'd kept it )
GONE: BMW F10 520D MSport - Carbon Black
GONE:MY12 RRS SDV6 HSE Sumatra/Ivory/Grand Black Privacy glass

No neither of them, I tried Chelmsford with no luck (we wont go in to that) and did not try Colchester at all, I went to Bishop Stortford in the end, as much as I have whined about them they did have the car ready on time and it was presented well. 12MY RRS Orkney Grey HSE Lux
12MY FF Santorini Black VSE

Essexfarmer,

I totally agree, 99% of stealers just want your money with zero interest in customer services. this isnt just a JLR issue I have had the same service with both Porsche and Aston Martin...

I honestly dont know of another industry where you hand over 30/40/60/100k+ and get treated with the contempt stealers seem to heap apone there customers..

Recession! What recession? Seems like business has never been so good for LR so they can treat there customers as they see fit! After all havent all LR prices just gone up??

Keep swallowing it and touch your toe's!

M

Asked my local dealers (Sturgess Leicester) for a test drive. Yes, I know that there are lots of time wasters, but I'm 54, Hospital Consultant so not on the breadline, and so I thought they might be interested. Practically had to beg them to set a date, and then got to SIT in one for five minutes, (engine off), and that was it.

Bought privately in the end.

^^^ That is shocking Timo  ON THE WAY: BMW F21 M140i
MERCEDES GL350 - Metallic Navy Blue w/Grey interior

GOING: BMW F31 335D MSport+ xDrive Touring
GONE: Land Rover Discovery 4 HSE - Stornaway Grey w/Black Interior (wish we'd kept it )
GONE: BMW F10 520D MSport - Carbon Black
GONE:MY12 RRS SDV6 HSE Sumatra/Ivory/Grand Black Privacy glass

I concur, that is shocking. When we bought ours, it was just on a chance visit doing the rounds looking for cars.
They offered us a test drive while we were there, took a copy of our drivers licenses and off we went.

In fact thats pretty much been the case with all the cars we bought, including the fezza. Asked if we wanted a drive, said yes, and they opened up the showroom sliding doors, slapped some trade plates on it and off we went. I was 31, dressed in jeans trainers and a t-shirt at the time, and look more like a doughnut than a footballer.

I dont know how some dealers sell cars at all sometimes. Mind you, its not all about the selling. The after sales service is key too, but unless you know a dealershio from experience or multiple reviews from others, it is very hard to judge this before buying. RRS 3.0D HSE 11MY - Fuji White, a few extras.

I wan't allowed to test drive my first RRS as I was just under 25 and they didn't have the appropriate insurance.....

When I turned up to buy my 2nd, 3 years later......at the same garage......in a RRS! They still looked at me like "are you sure you can afford this?"

Then when I handed over £10K deposit the dealer principal came over to thank me for my business with a vigourous handshake

The worst I had was when I went to Mercedes (about 26 years old at the time) looking at a £80K car.......the response from the sales guy...."you do know this won't be £200 a month on finance?"


I just walked out.

The arrogance of some of these dealers. Beancounter how comes you got all those gifts?  SVR 2018 in Santorini Black.