May 2007
Folk in Birmingham are simple. Any help therefore appreciated.
When looking for a dealer sourced diesel rep mobile with a decent warranty, the typical screen price is £1500 - £2000 more than the petrol variant. So, one needs to work out whether the premium is worth paying and whether the extra will be recouped through lower fuel bills over the life of the car. I'm OK up to this point.
However, If as I suspect, it would take say 3/4 years to recoup this premium, the car in my case will have done the best part of 80k miles and thus may be looking to get replaced. Plus, with diesel engines being more costly to fix in general, I'm finding it hard to see how it is a better financial option than petrol.
Am I missing something here?
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Top Turkey - the fastest hands in Brum Read more
[ edit - I don't think you really want the world to know your address. I can see from lower down the thread that HJ has a copy should there be any comeback. - PG ]
25th May 2007
Dear Sir/Madam
It is rare that I ever feel the need to register displeasure but in this instance I feel I have no choice. After no fewer than 8 Nissan cars since 1988, following my recent experience I can categorically state you have lost my custom for good.
In buying Nissan I came to expect a level of mechanical integrity, build quality, reliability and in turn a dealer network capable of fixing faults when they do occur quickly efficiently and painlessly. Cars are complex things after all, and it?s not unreasonable to expect things to go wrong ? it?s how these wrongs are rectified that makes the difference.
I was until recently the owner of a 2004 Primera 2.2 dCi ? a car I admired for its design, and specification. However its build quality was garbage (to give an example the doors shut with that reassuring clang that even Perodua would be ashamed of) and its reliability worse (to summarise ? two turbos, two recalls, one injector rail, suspension maladies, and one blown engine in 40000 miles). These woes were compounded by a dealer network whose workmanship is slipshod, who are unable to properly diagnose faults and who view customers as nothing more than a cash cow waiting to be milked. You used to have two excellent dealers in the {location deleted - DD} area in both {2 garage names deleted - no naming & shaming please- DD} yet you saw fit to defranchise them in favour of the rubbish we have had to since tolerate (I MUST emphasise ? this is not a criticism of an individual branch. Other branches/franchises from the same group are equally inept in our and others experience.) I do not have enough paper to recount the various tales of woe I have to tell, so if details are required I will gladly oblige ? dating back many years.
I cannot help but think that since the tie up with Renault component quality has gone down, as has quality control. The drive to reduce costs has impacted terribly on your product ? a short term view in my opinion as happy customers are likely to return and keep returning. As I was until now. Your recent terrible placings in various customer satisfaction and reliability surveys speaks volumes.
I don?t expect anything by way of this letter, but my disgust is such I could not just let it pass. From a now ex-customer I wish you all the best.
Yours sincerely
Steven Scott
Read more
Oh come on - how many clio 1.2 cam belts get thrown off before 40k?
If you treat a cambelt/water pump as a consumeable AT 40k the clio 1.2 lump
is solid and reliable..
And if you treat an entire engine as a consumable, just about every car is! Water pumps shouldn't need to be changed every 4 years to stop an engine from eating itself. Items of shoddy design like that could easily be resolved if they weren't so readily accepted by those easily parted from their cash!
Last century (!) when I first starting buying cars, the process seemed pretty simple. You went for a test drive, the dealer had a look at your p/x, consulted some mysterious guide in his top drawer, named a cost-to-change, a quick bit of bartering to get the price down by a few hundred and then sign on the dotted line.
These days, I seem to come across more and more car salesmen who don't seem to understand the basic principle that the process descibed above should be carried out within about 30 minutes and certainly before the punter makes any attempt to leave your showroom. Ruth Badger certainly had the right idea on last year's Apprentice but the two bozos (no naming or shaming unfortunately) at a MINI and at a Ford dealership somewhere in the North West of England would have been fired by Sir Alan in the warm-up.
I tried to p/x my Touran for an S-max earlier this year. The "salesman" refused to give me a p/x price on my car for TWO WEEKS!!!! In the end, I decided to stick with the Ran and wait until the S-max acquires the new 2.2 diesel engine next year.
This week I tried to p/x my Mini Cooper S for a new Mini. Dealer 1 was very straightforward - test drive then straightforward p/x offer, with a two hundred pound discount. I then approached Dealer 2 to see if they would give me a better p/x price. The car "salesman" looked over my car yesterday morning at 08.30, filled in a sheet and said he would get back to me later in the day. He then told me that he could only give me a p/x price if I was willing to do the deal the following day - which, by coincidence, I was planning to do although it seemed a little strange. At this point, I felt he was either going to give me a really good deal or going to totally waste my time. Needless to say, after repeated phone calls throughout today, I finally got his valuation on the Mini at 18.40. It was £1000 less than Dealer 1 who I will be contacting in the morning.
I told an American friend about my S-max experience and he was incredulous. Stateside, it is impossible to get out of a car showroom without being offered a deal. What is it with UK car salesmen? Are they only fit to do a job where the main question is "Do you want larges fries and a milkshake with that"?
Perhaps someone in the trade can explain this new pyschology of car selling because it has me totally baffled. I have certainly learnt my lesson - if the dealer can't give me a valuation on my car within 10 minutes of seeing it, I will just walk out the door and move to a more competent dealership. I will never waste my time making or receiving phone calls to car salesman chasing down a p/x valuation that has so far proved universally disappointing. Read more
Reading the Edmunds.com book (article?), reminded me of a book I read a couple of years ago in much the same vein.
'California Dreaming' by Lawrence Donegan - a very good read - the life of a used car salesman in America.
Also read 'Quiet Please' the life of a steward on the golf circuit by the same author, another good read.
motoring.aol.co.uk/motoring-insurance/600k-ferrari...1
Ferrari owner sues bus company for crash.
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Its not what you drive, its how you drive it! :-) Read more
How do work out the cost of a crash?
Selby is now quoted at £32M/ 46M Euros
Mont Blanc tunnel 100M Euros
The accident in the St Gotthard tunnel in 2001 also rates very high 10M Euros but if you take into account all the cost of diversions for a long period.
e.g.
"The San Bernardino normally only sees around 500 trucks a day, but since the closure of the Gotthard more than 4,000 have been using it.
The San Bernardino route is also longer than the Gotthard, so there are increased costs in extra fuel and extra driver hours.
Planzer, like other Swiss companies, has followed the advice of the Swiss Hauliers Association, Astag, in passing the increase on to the customers.
?Often in the past the haulage companies have absorbed a price increase,? said Astag spokesman Beat Keiser. ?But not in the case of the Gotthard closure. This time the users of road transport will pay, it works out at about SFr200 per journey.?
Some figures:
www.guycarp.com/portal/extranet/pdf/ExtPub/Day1_Ba...f
i got a astra 94 1.4 its done 100000 miles now my query is that do shock absorbers need to be replaced as the ride is getting firmer the car is sensitive to minor bumps on the road Read more
Wheel bearing is separate. No drive shaft as your car is front wheel drive.
Hi All
Have just got back from work and for the last 10 minutes of my journey the red battery light was flashing on every 20 seconds or so. The car drove fine and i didnt notice any difference but it was worrying. I Am about to start looking for my car manual but has anyone else expierenced this or not what the problem is?
My car is a t reg bmw 316i with 66K.
Any advice much appreciated
cheers Read more
its flashes up for about 1-2 seconds every 20 seconds or so. The manual says it could be a defective ribbed v-belt.
I'm not sure how to remove the alternator regulator so will prob have to get it into a garage.
Hi all,
I use to car to commute to work, roughly 500 miles a week (not paid for by work), and I'ts almost all on motorways. I have 2 dogs so I'd need something with a big boot/estate. The question is, should I go for a newish car or something older. I was set for spending a couple of grand but I didn't know if I should spend more money for something newer, or is this a waste given the miles I'd be doing ?
Cheers
Rich Read more
I agree with Jase1 - either warranty or bangernomics. There's another element to this though - assuming you can afford to go with the warranty option, do you buy new or nearly-new?
I think that depends on the make of car and how well it's going to hold its value. I'd never buy a new Ford or Vauxhall, as they drop quickly and there are lots of nearly-new ones around. But for cars like ours - Mercedes and Mini - we bought new because there really wasn't much of a saving on a nearly-new one. And you also avoid the risk of getting one that's been caned, or been got rid of because it was a troublesome one (or both of those).
I heard a story today about a £300 Renault clutch slave cylinder. Apparently the master, slave and intermediate pipe are one-piece with no bleed screw.
Do other BRs know about this, or is it another rumour to put me off PSA? Read more
New Transits and Iveco vans have similar one piece systems, the Transit still has to be bled though.
My son complained about his fiesta brakes not feeling quiet"right"
I took the car for a drive ......any hard braking is causing the front near side wheel to skid violently?????????
Are we talking a seized o/s caliper or something more serious?
Have not the time to look at it yet , but any help much appreciated. Read more
If the cause is not obvious then run it down to local MoT station and pay them £10 to drive it onto the brake tester - that should help diagnose the problem.
Hmmm. Thinking of one of these but not sure it look much different from the current one :-(
I am sure the 'spy' shots last year showed a more glamorous body.
Renault playing too safe IMO :-(
tinyurl.com/362enz Read more
I think Pugs are even worse, that gaping maw. Ugh!
"Low down grunt" is irrelevent if you have a decent Autobox.