I recently (yesterday Mon 18th Aug) approached a Citroen main dealer (Exeter) in order to obtain a current price (ie Citroen are advertising a 'VAT free price' at the moment) on a Citroen Berlingo 2HDi Desire. I was informed that this would not be possible as Citroen would be unable to deliver such a vehicle before the 30th September - ie they could not honour the VAT free offer which supposedly runs to 30th September even if I was willing to place a deposit on the 18th of August!
I ran JamJar who confirmed Citroen's delivery problem - Jamjars line on this was that the delivery period was 4 to 6 weeks - meaning that I could 'take a chance' on paying a deposit - if delivery was prompt I 'could' buy the vehicle VAT free - if however delivery and hence registration of the vehicle fell after 30th Sept I would have to pay the larger amount!
According the the Citroen Dealer at Exeter he was in the process of ringing the 15 customers who had placed orders for Multispaces to inform them of this 'new' situation (Citroen had emailed him about this the previous Friday [15th Aug]) which they presumably were not aware of prior to placing orders.
Needless to say my confidence in Citroen is fairly low at present - despite the fact that I still want a Berlingo - however I hope this message saves other people a disappointment or worst a large unexpected bill / lost deposit!
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I had exactly the same problem with Citroen's VAT-off offer before Christmas. They could sell me a Berlingo with the old 1.9D engine inside the offer, but not an HDI. In the end I bought a Peugeot Partner Combi--the same asic vehicle as the Berlingo but with slightly higher base spec and a funkier front end. I am well pleased with it.
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You might have seen my recent ramblings prior to my purchase of a Corolla Verso. I was looking at the Picasso as an option. Whilst in the showroom I compared the Berlingo Hdi with the Picasso Hdi. In short - I honestly thought that you might as well get the Picasso Desire from a broker at £10,080 OTR and get the ABS, Air-Con etc rather than have the Berlingo and pay extra for them and finish up paying about the same. There's more room in the Picasso and it *might* hold it's value better than the Berlingo. It'll certainly give a better ride and has a better driving position.
Ultimately I was put off of Citroen by repeated tales of woe regarding the electrics (dashboard and central locking were two of the frequent apparent offending items)and the Citroen Sales Manager telling me that Citroen were sold as being good value for money but were NOT sold on the basis of their outstanding reliability and quality.....and this was the Sales Manager remember. I appreciated his honesty and got another Toyota instead. At least I can sleep at night, which I might not have done with a Citroen out the front. There must be plenty happy Citroen owners, but for me, I felt happier with the Toyota.
KB.
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A few months ago, I posted here that a friend had to pay more than the original order price for his brand new Merc S600, because the list price had gone up by the time the car was delivered.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=12474
This forum's resident legal & car-valuation expert (DHM, not HJ) and a few others insisted that that was illegal or words to the effect and refused to believe that the purchase contract allows dealers to do this.
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Note: {P} = telling you my profile is ON. You can add pictures at groups.msn.com/hones
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