We have looked at Toyotas twice in the past 8 years (not at Listers) and our experience was very poor.

One garage insisted the wife looked at a car she did not want and refused to show her the one ouside the door she was interested in.

We booked a test drive at one garage in a diesel and when we got there the sales person was unavailable and his replacement presented us with a petrol.

The third garage told us they had sold all the demonstators and none wouild be available for a month. Blatant lie when they had a forecourt full of cars.

In both cases we had money to spend and spent it elsewhere.

No problem - sage words indeed!

Decent sales people at car showrooms are not exactly ten a penny these days, so when you do come across one it can be quite surprising. I've also come across a few, even those employed in dealerships for Japanese makes, that are not very good. The best one, good in all respects, was at a Honda dealership in St. Albans (when I was looking for a car 10 years ago) - just a shame the cars on offer weren't quite what I wanted.

I wonder if any sales people in the motor industry are actually employed on a proper salary (if they ever were), given proper training in both sales and client handling and in detail about the cars they're selling. I'd personally rather buy from a make (as long as the car ticked all the right boxes) that made the dealership experience far better and made honest and worthwhile suggestions (even including about alternatives from competitors - that shows a certain confidence).

Not the same dealer network, and i can't comment on the sales side presently, but since our superb and almost priceless local family owned Toyota dealer was taken over by a group their slightly overzealous service sales techniques, especially the bombardment of texts on both phones since they did a (very good and fair priced) cambelt replacement job on my Landcruiser, was really too much and we are most reluctant to go back and submit ourselves to more of the same.

The same group dealer 60 miles away tried to charge approx £700 for a new clutch on daughters Aygo, which was done with LUK parts at my local indy for £280, and whilst this might have been a standard price they have lost another customer in her too.

I trust in Toyota's products (even if they and Lexus regularly batter their new models with the ugly stick) and am impressed by the way the maker stands by their product, maybe their troubleshooters at Surrey head office need to get out more?

Edited by gordonbennet on 09/01/2016 at 21:40