- Joined
- 11 Jan 2004
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Mrs S and myself have had some serious discussions and decided that we should replace our much loved Honda FRV.
I started making a list of possibilities, using the Honda as a comparison, eg length, width, wheelbase, boot size etc...
I was very keen to see, sit in and test drive all the cars on our list.
What I was not expecting was that we were turned off certain cars by the salespeople being less than professional.
A Hyundai salesperson, who despite being told we had arrived for our appointment, kept us waiting, then strode over to us without any introduction or handshake and asked bluntly, "What is it you want to drive?"
I later left a message for him telling him it was ironic that their manufacturer's logo symbolised the customer and dealer shaking hands.
A Kia dealer who did not have the model we wanted to test drive and made no effort to get hold of one.
Another Kia dealer who, when told we had already had a test drive of one car (at another dealership) but would like a second, responded "Why would you want to drive it again?"
This was after talking on the phone to a different member of the sales team who assured us that both would be available for us to drive.
I'm sure they would buy a car on the basis of one 15 minute test drive.
Two Vauxhall sales staff who both called me "mate" and who didn't have the car we were interested in available to test drive. We ended up driving a second hand previous gen model from their lot.
The Skoda dealer who couldn't even be bothered to show us round the car.
Several dealers told us the waiting times were at least 12 months, some more like 18 months.
I ended up suggesting that one of the sales folk really didn't want to sell us a car. I seriously wondered what they were doing in that job.
The two keenest salespeople on our shortlist represented Nissan and MG.
We were both amazed and a bit over-faced by how cars of today's generation compare to the Honda which was in development 20 years earlier.
The biggest change is that so many of today's cars feature touchscreens and have fewer physical buttons.
LED lighting is a big thing.
There are also oodles of driver assistance systems now, some very helpful (like 360 cams and blind spot detection) and some less so, like lane departure that takes the wheel if you stray too close to a white line (God help you if you change lanes without indicating in good time first) and adaptive cruise that brakes unexpectedly or too harshly.
So, it was a bit of a culture shock for us.
I started making a list of possibilities, using the Honda as a comparison, eg length, width, wheelbase, boot size etc...
I was very keen to see, sit in and test drive all the cars on our list.
What I was not expecting was that we were turned off certain cars by the salespeople being less than professional.
A Hyundai salesperson, who despite being told we had arrived for our appointment, kept us waiting, then strode over to us without any introduction or handshake and asked bluntly, "What is it you want to drive?"
I later left a message for him telling him it was ironic that their manufacturer's logo symbolised the customer and dealer shaking hands.
A Kia dealer who did not have the model we wanted to test drive and made no effort to get hold of one.
Another Kia dealer who, when told we had already had a test drive of one car (at another dealership) but would like a second, responded "Why would you want to drive it again?"
This was after talking on the phone to a different member of the sales team who assured us that both would be available for us to drive.
I'm sure they would buy a car on the basis of one 15 minute test drive.
Two Vauxhall sales staff who both called me "mate" and who didn't have the car we were interested in available to test drive. We ended up driving a second hand previous gen model from their lot.
The Skoda dealer who couldn't even be bothered to show us round the car.
Several dealers told us the waiting times were at least 12 months, some more like 18 months.
I ended up suggesting that one of the sales folk really didn't want to sell us a car. I seriously wondered what they were doing in that job.
The two keenest salespeople on our shortlist represented Nissan and MG.
We were both amazed and a bit over-faced by how cars of today's generation compare to the Honda which was in development 20 years earlier.
The biggest change is that so many of today's cars feature touchscreens and have fewer physical buttons.
LED lighting is a big thing.
There are also oodles of driver assistance systems now, some very helpful (like 360 cams and blind spot detection) and some less so, like lane departure that takes the wheel if you stray too close to a white line (God help you if you change lanes without indicating in good time first) and adaptive cruise that brakes unexpectedly or too harshly.
So, it was a bit of a culture shock for us.