Coronavirus: Car showrooms will not open before June, but may be able to offer click and collect services

Published 13 May 2020

New Government documents released today show that car showrooms cannot open to the public until 1 June. However, while dealers will technically be shut for many weeks, the door has been opened for customers to buy and collect vehicles.

The Government has set out guidelines for businesses and venues which can soon reopen with social distancing measures in place. The strategy sets out a roadmap to to ease some existing measures of lockdown in phases.

Car showrooms are excluded from the list of retailers which will be opening. There are no exceptions in the documents, however, the document states that "Online retail and click and collect services may continue."

Click and collect could potentially mean that car dealerships can start to clear huge backlogs of car deliveries, though customers will not be able to enter showrooms.

The service might include a handover where the car is placed outside the dealership and sanitised. A customer will then be able to collect the vehicle at an agreed time and leave their part-exchange vehicle behind.

The updates also means that dealers, who have been taking online and over-the-phone orders and deposits during lockdown, would now be able to complete the transactions.

Comments

Coventrydriver on 18 May 2020

What are the buyer's rights if a car is bought in this way please? In particular a second hand car. My son put down a deposit for a car from Car Supermarket before lockdown and asked for the car to be moved from Bradford to Birmingham to go and view it. Lockdown then happened but he was contacted last week to say that the car is in Birmingham if he wants to complete the sale.

When he originally contacted them he was naturally expecting to be able to test drive the car. Where would he stand if there were any problems with it and should the price have reduced as this will be almost 3 months after the initial query, or is that just wishful thinking on my part. He is understandably wary about such a big purchase without being able to try it.

The car in question is a 2 year old i30 Tourer. They seem scarce. Is there anything else that he could look at in this price/size bracket?

I look forward to hearing from you in due course,

Kind regards,
Sue

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Farm Hand on 19 May 2020

Like all motoring journalists, there is never any mention of how a buyer is meant to go through the part exchange process to swap their car which I would have thought is the most common circu stance when buying a new car. We don't all just "click and collect" a new car you know!

This at the moment is a large barrier for the motoring industry to sell cars to willing buyers!

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bobber on 19 May 2020

I paid a deposit for a new Peugeot 2008 at the beginning of March, for a 20 plate. There was no stock in the UK of my exact spec, so the dealer said it would have to be a factory order, probably available in April. I am unable to ascertain when the car might be built. As things stand would I be within my rights to ask that the car be registered and delivered in September (70 reg)?.

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