Every so often in the Backroom, I read general comments about Citroen dealers, or VAG dealers, or Renault dealers or . . . .
These generalisations are rarely complimentary.
Can one really generalise that way about all the dealers for a certain marque? I can understand generalisations about dealers for certain manufacturers which are very good, e.g. Lexus, because I have no doubt that Lexus exercise strict quality control over their dealerships. I can't, however, understand how ALL dealerships (or even the vast majority) for certain brands could be bad, since I have never come across the concept of negative quality control!
Or is it simply the case that where there is no quality control from above (i.e. the manufacturers), ALL (or most) dealerships will give poor service - i.e. that local management in dealerships very rarely cares about quality or customer service?
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I suspect it comes down to how generous the manufacturers are with honouring warranty claims from the dealers; if they wriggle out of reimbursing dealers for time spent on whatever grounds they can come up with ( customer misuse for example ) the dealer's not going to be extra welcoming when the umpteenth customers walks through the door with the exact same problem.
Conversely if the manufacturer backs the dealer to the hilt he will be happy to practice his very best customer service attitude on even the worst customers.
Should a note of cynicism have crept in I do apologise, never worked in the motor trade, but once was a white goods service engineer, suffered lots of warranty calls....
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It goes both ways, it is by no means unknown for a dealer to "patch up" a car pre-sale knowing that the manufacturer will have a large warranty claim and a disgruntled customer some weeks down the line. And then the dealer can simply stand back and blame the manufacturer...
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I think it's down to margins. The market is so competitive, they are not making huge profits on selling new cars. That translates to low pay for the dealership's staff who are undoubtedly put under a lot of pressure to perform. Leading to high turnover and unhappy staff.
So the quality of the staff is likely to be less than brilliant, and yet the complexity of the cars gets greater by the year. Meaning that if there is a problem, it's quite likely the mechanics will struggle to fix it (just read the backroom for a few months to see what I mean!)
Add to that, the customer is making a very expensive lifestyle purchase and expects to be treated accordingly and you can see where the problems start to creep in.
You're right about Lexus. I have never had such great service anywhere. I was paying through the nose for it, of course... the car itself was mediocre and totally outclassed by vehicles costing a third as much.
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You're right about Lexus. I have never had such great service anywhere. I was paying through the nose for it, of course... the car itself was mediocre and totally outclassed by vehicles costing a third as much.
Pray tell me the car 'costing a third as much' that outclassed the Lexus. I could be in the market for one.
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Lexus ES300 - $36,000 Base
Pontiac G6 - $20,000 Base
Alright, I should have said a bit over half as much.
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Codefarm - that's cheating! The price of cars in the US is totally different to Europe and we cannot buy the Pontiac here - not that most of us would want to.
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Espada III - well if you have a family and need a Lamborghini, what else do you drive?
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Can't buy the ES here either, as a matter of interest.
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I think the Lexus ES is the Toyota Camry with different trim.
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