In that it will force companies who have a weak customer ethos to either sharpen up or go out of business. Quick example: local car dealer has all their cars advertised on their website, along with AutoTrader. The cheaper ones all have "0" entered for the mileage in order to solicit visits or calls about the car, when it's clear that they must have some astronomical figure.
Want to lie to me about that? No doubt they'll be lying about service history, faults, and offer shoddy aftersales service too. Just little things that can instantly turn you off a company.
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I hate that mileage thing. In our recent and ongoing search for a used car I've noticed it more and more. Some of them are crafty in putting 123mls when it is 123,000mls so when you refine your search to say under 60,000 these high milers still show on the shortlist.
Like you I would discount a car with such selling tactics however good it might look otherwise.
David
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I lost £100 deposit on a car I was going to buy, it was a lovely Corsa, with 74k on the clock, aircon the works, 1.4 16v. When I did a test drive he told me the light was just the service light but with advice from here I quickly realised it was actually the ECU fault warning lamp.
The service history was just stamped, all from his back street garage funily enough. I then started to think what if he has lied about that too, he lost the sale in the end and I lost £100 and learnt a lesson.
I see this Corsa about now as some poor pensioner has got it, and it seems to have some sort of HG problem as it just pours out steam to the excess.
So just a simple lie like that put me off, and now won't touch any trader who lies about something simple. One of my gripes is the Fiestas with the Endura engine or Micras advertised as having a new cambelt when they are chain driven.
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Years ago I was looking roud a dealers in east London where all the cars had 0 mileage showing. When I queried this with the salesman I was told "We like people to judge our cars on condition, not mileage". This was in the days when an engine was pretty much knackered at 80k. As most of the stock had also had a "blow over" I walked away.
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My simple rule is:
Any obvious lies on advert?
If so, what other lies or problems will be much worse.
So I refuse to deal with obvious charlatans.
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In reply to the OP, I can think of another one.
With the WTD, lorry drivers were led to believe that there would become a huge shortage of skilled drivers and that they would be able to command huge wage rises, along with demanding far better working conditions.
A lot of newer lorry drivers firmly believed this and I feel it has been reflected in their attitudes, both to the job, the employer and also to other road users.
We've never had such a bad reputation and sooner or later these guys will realise that it simply isn't going to happen.
As a result their attitudes may well change when keeping a job is the only thing to focus on.
Pat
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Pat, i hope you're right, but i shan't be holding me breath.
This attitude thing you correctly allude to has been the case for many years, i don't think the newer drivers themselves are any worse than the general population (but acting as a thuggish bully with a large truck does stand out some), though true to say that many thought there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
If they bothered to listen to some of us old hands, we could have told them that virtually any driver at the top of the wage tree works unbelievably hard for many hours in difficult, dirty and often dangerous conditions, and many of them are just not capable of that hard graft.
You mentioned in another thread having the aches and pains the direct result of years of that graft, i'm much the same, there's very few parts that don't hurt a lot of the time.
I wonder how many of the younger one's will be left once this recession really gets going.
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It tends to work the other way - good customer service and care is expensive in cash and there simply aren't the same margins around in a recession.
They can still chuck their goods out at a cheaper price and people will still buy.
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Very true Hxj.
No need to buy off any dealer who you suspect of any false or misleading information.
But 9 times out of 10 the sale (excepting nearly new, but including brand new, and older than nearly new) is made on price.
Its amazing what people will put up with if the price is better! And care costs money. may give thebetter deal in the long run, but.........
Edited by yorkiebar on 21/12/2008 at 16:58
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