Car talk

Lots to write about, from football to nicotine, but this post has been sitting around unpublished for a while. I’ll get back to more important things shortly.

You may recall that my car was written off two days before Christmas when our village was hit by a flash flood.

Thanks to lockdown I wasn’t in a rush to replace it so it wasn’t until February that I started looking around.

I began with my nearest dealership, the one that sold me my previous two cars, then broadened my search.

After a few weeks, frustrated by what I felt was a lack of help, I began firing off emails. For example:

Dear X,

I have been trying without success to get further information including photos of the vehicle (registration number xxxx xxx] that is advertised on your website with a view to making an offer for a quick purchase.

My first call to you was on Tuesday 23 February. Two weeks later, despite several further calls (and one email), I still don’t have the information, including photos, that I requested.

Meanwhile my efforts to see the car, let alone buy it, have been frustrated by the excuse that it is currently being used by a director or regional sales manager (the explanation varies).

I appreciate that your colleague’s interests come before those of a potential customer but if the car is unavailable, despite it being advertised for sale online, could you please tell me and I will look elsewhere? 

Another email read:

Dear Y,

The vehicle you are selling (registered in March 2020) is almost £3,000 more expensive than a very similar vehicle (registered in Sept 2020) that is being sold by another dealership.

I offered £x for your vehicle which I appreciate is almost £2,000 less than your current valuation. However I also discovered, via the DVLA website, that your car has been off the road since December 2020 and has no road tax, unlike the other vehicle which is taxed until September 2021.

When you rejected my first offer I suggested a very modest reduction of just £500 on the advertised price (that you yourself admit may drop in a few weeks). You rejected that offer as well and instead offered to reduce the price by just £90. Frankly I would prefer to pay the full amount than accept such a derisory offer.

Car sales have been in freefall (February sales are said to be the lowest since 1959) and diesel sales are said to have collapsed in 2020 yet you won't offer any reduction (apart from a paltry £90) on a diesel vehicle that hasn’t been on the road since December and is still, I believe, over-valued. All I can say is, good luck with that!

Seriously, though, what was I to make of the fact that after six weeks I was no further forward finding a dealership that would sell me a car even though the model and spec I was looking for was in stock?

I heard nothing from the recipient of email #1 so I assume his colleague is still driving around in the vehicle I was interested in buying.

The recipient of email #2 did call me back but only to explain that his manager wouldn't budge on the offer of a measly £90 off a car that had been sitting unused and unsold for at least three months.

I said I was surprised but if that was the best they could do I'd leave it (or words to that effect). He said he would talk to his manager again.

An hour or so later he rang to say his manager had agreed to knock £250 off the price. I wasn't bowled over by their generosity but to get the deal done I accepted.

Was I pleased? Not really. I got the car I wanted but the art of a salesman, surely, is to make the customer think they’ve got a good deal even when they haven’t.

The story doesn't end there because I subsequently received a Customer Satisfaction Survey from my local dealership, the one that sold me my two previous cars but showed no interest in selling me a third.

It read:

Thank you for your recent enquiry ...

We strive to achieve outstanding customer satisfaction. To help us continually improve our service we’d like to hear about your recent experience.

Our Satisfaction Survey has just four questions, which can either be completed on a PC, tablet or smart phone.

Thank you for your time.

There was a box for 'further comments' so I wrote:

Having purchased my two previous cars from you, when my last vehicle was written off I contacted you not once but twice to explain what had happened and get a market valuation for my insurance claim.

I spoke to your sales team yet no-one thought to ask if there was anything they could do to help find me a replacement vehicle.

In February I formally registered interest in purchasing a car to replace the one that was written off. I spoke to one of your sales team and although I said I was in no rush, given that it wasn’t possible to test drive any vehicles during lockdown, I nevertheless asked to be kept informed of any used cars that might be available throughout your group.

That was six weeks ago. Since then no-one from your sales team has been in touch so I have had to contact dealerships further afield ...

I didn’t expect a reply and I haven’t had one. (I've completed these customer satisfaction surveys before and even if I mention something I’m unhappy with I never get a response.)

Anyway I finally took delivery of my ‘new’ car a few weeks ago and even that didn’t go according to plan. But that’s another story.

A week or so later I was asked by the manufacturer to complete a ‘Used Car Sales Satisfaction Survey’. Rather than wasting even more time I think I’ll send them a link to this post.

PS. A member of my family (I won’t say who) expressed surprise that I was replacing my ‘old’ car with another diesel.

She and her husband are planning to go electric but our circumstances are very different. Most of their journeys are local which is fine for an electric car.

It would happily suit a hybrid too, most of which do no more than 30 miles in full electric mode.

Outside lockdown however many of my journeys are long distance. Goodness knows how many hours it would take to drive to and from Dundee, for example, if I had to plug in and re-charge every 200 miles, assuming of course I could find a re-charging point.

Annually - again outside lockdown - I usually do around 25,000 miles. Although fuel consumption has never been the number one factor (for me) when buying a car, it is a consideration and the higher your annual mileage the more it makes sense to drive a diesel.

Plus I enjoy the extra torque a diesel engine provides.

Anyway, I’m not against electric cars at all (I recognise they are probably the future) but until it becomes prohibitively expensive to drive a diesel, or re-charging an electric car becomes faster and a lot more practical for long journeys, I’m not budging.

It’s still diesel for me.

Update: If anyone is interested I wrote about my car history here.