what is it with some garages and being rude

[rainagain]

So on the hunt for a replacement for my Alfa I called a garage this morning about a trade in to clear they were selling as spares or repairs. When I first phoned I got through to the service department as the sales guys weren’t in yet, I had a chat with a nice service guy about the car and he said basically it needed the brakes overhauled to get through the MOT and it wasn’t worth them doing it given the low value of the car. He said he would pass my details to the sales department and they would call me back and let me know what was on the MOT failure sheet.

 

Nobody called me back so I called back again and asked for the sales department, the guy I spoke to couldn't have been more rude! I told him what the guy from service had told me and asked if he would let me know what was on the MOT failure sheet. He told me that “even if I had it in front of me I wouldn't read it to you as it is only a £600 carâ€Â. I then asked him about the ad where it said it needed to be towed away, this was a bit confusing as it also said in the ad it started and drove I asked him if there was a physical problem preventing the car from driving or if it was a legal problem as it had no MOT and therefore wasn’t road legal. He just snapped back if it says it needs to be towed then it needs to be towed.

 

I understand that the garage are just wanting rid of it as it was a trade in and they have already made their money on selling the new car, but there’s no reason to treat prospective customers so badly. I doubt first thing in the morning the show room would have been full of punters. If he couldn't be bothered answering my questions why didn't he just say I’m not sure, why don't you come round and have a look, he could have done this without being rude. If it wasn't for that fact that this car looks like such a good buy I would have told the guy to foxtrot oscar there and then. I really can't remember the last time someone was so rude to me on the phone!

 

Knowing a bit about cars people often ask my advice when looking to change cars, if anyone asks about this garage I will certainly tell them to avoid it! –rant over J

[spike60]

A lot of people involved in the motor trade are blunt, ignorant, unhelpful and rude. Not all, but above average percentage I'd say.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

You’ll have been speaking to some shiny-suited mid-20’s gobshite who spends his life coaxing clueless goons into signing finance deals every couple of years and who thinks dealing with an older car, and the doley scutters who drive them, as beneath him. Can you go to the garage in person and politely ask to speak to someone who isn’t a bellend about it?

[Luckythirteen]

Some people forget how their wages are generated. It costs nothing to be nice etc...

When Ma bought her current car, she walked out of one showroom due to the salesman's attitude. I remember that rant well!

[saucedoctor]

I'm not casting aspersions about rainagain, however some customers are pretty rude as well. A big fat bastard threw a starter motor at me when I worked in East Antrim Motor Factors.

[Junkman]

I would have hung up on him and never thought about the car ever again.

[mercrocker]

Apparently no less a person than Elvis was treated shoddily at a Caddy dealership by a rude bloke in a loud suit.   He bought the car anyway but asked the bossman to ensure that the sales commission went to the guy who cleaned the forecourt.   Our son went to look at an X5 on Sunday and encountered equally off-putting sales patter - upon asking the towing weight for the car the off-duty chav bluffed his answer to the effect that "they must be OK the fairground people use'em to tow catering vans dunnay...."  Nice pitch on a £30k motor sonny....

[Cavcraft]

You could understand them being a bit off if you'd have spent hours asking what colour the dust caps were etc, but they must be knobheads to treat you like that.

 

If you do find out which salesman it was and have some spare time on your hands, go down there, express interest in the most expensive car and ask about finance options. Let him waste 20 or 30 mins of his time then say you don't want it.

[rainagain]

You could understand them being a bit off if you'd have spent hours asking what colour the dust caps were etc, but they must be knobheads to treat you like that.

 

If you do find out which salesman it was and have some spare time on your hands, go down there, express interest in the most expensive car and ask about finance options. Let him waste 20 or 30 mins of his time then say you don't want it.

 

mind reader, quite tempted to do this, I'm going to have a look at the car on way home from work today so I will let you guys know if I get it or not, either way I noticed the garage doesn't have any reviews when you google it, but by tonight it will have  

 

With regards to the MOT history, if I can persuade the garage to let me see the V5 I can enter the details into the gov MOT history checker using my phone, does anyone know if this will also show the recent fail results? I'm planning on using this site:

 

https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history-vehicle

[rainagain]

I'm not casting aspersions about rainagain, however some customers are pretty rude as well. A big fat bastard threw a starter motor at me when I worked in East Antrim Motor Factors.

 

Quite agree, however I can assure you I was the perfect gent when I called  When I worked for Halfords years ago I lost count of the number of randoms who would treat me like crap just because they could. I was also threatened with a beating for not being able to make up someone's number plate as they hadn't brought their V5 with them.

[mercrocker]

^I would have made up a couple of spare plates and got the local barriers to bust a few speed cameras....

[Spiny Norman]

As someone who worked in retail for a good 20 years and like to think I know how to train staff to treat customers, I can say without any hesitation that car salesmen are often the biggest dicks on the planet.
That said, their employers tend to be cunts as well.

+1 on the 'Go in on a busy Saturday afternoon and waste an hour of the twat's time" idea.

[cort16]

Spill the beans what garage was it?

[Jim Bell]

I don't know about "garages", but all car dealers are cunts.

 

You'd have to be, or you'd go bankrupt reasonably quickly.

 

*edit. Except Kinkersaab. He's a good egg.

[eddyramrod]

It isn't just garages, trust me!  My first call every day is at a sandwich shop, where I deliver two orders; he takes the second to his other shop himself.  You couldn't wish to meet a more textbook arsehole if you spent a week doing nothing but dream up the specification.  This week and next he's away on holiday.  Bliss...

 

How about googling the garage, finding out who the top man is, and calling him up directly?  That sales chimp needs taking down several pegs and there's nothing like seeing the boss come raging out of his office bellowing your name...    You might be asking about a cheapo trade-in today, but how does he know you aren't a millionaire who's mystery-shopping for a fleet?  Yeah lad, lose your boss the commission on 12 vehicles, good on yer.

 

+1 on naming and shaming the place too.  And, if the idiot still works there after you've spoken to the boss, have a happy Saturday afternoon wasting his efforts.

[sierraman]

What a prick! If its as much an incumbace as what he says he should have been falling about trying to curry your interest to take it off his hands. Now because he's been a tit he'll be looking at £150 putting it through the block.

[Split_Pin]

Most salespeople are rude when you ask them a queston that they don't know the answer to.

[Angrydicky]

You could understand them being a bit off if you'd have spent hours asking what colour the dust caps were etc, but they must be knobheads to treat you like that.

 

If you do find out which salesman it was and have some spare time on your hands, go down there, express interest in the most expensive car and ask about finance options. Let him waste 20 or 30 mins of his time then say you don't want it.

[lisbon_road]

Doesn't matter he's selling you something.  People should be reasonably polite regardless.

 

Have a friend who is a bus driver.  He says people of all ages can be rude, and the worst are the over 60s who now get free bus travel and think they should really be in their BMWs!

[purplebargeken]

Mrs PBK and I went to a Rover dealer in Enfield a good few years ago (1993). We had narrowed the search down to a new R5 or the Rover 25 in that odd pearlescent colour scheme they had at the time. We waited in the Rover dealership, and waited, and waited. We were patently ignored by all and sundry. I had a look at a Rover Tomcat to waste a few minutes but still no-one came over to us. 

 

I then got very fed up. When I get fed up, especially with rudeness being the driving factor I can be very blunt. I was very blunt and the whole place just went deathly quiet. We didn't buy a R5 either. We bought a little red Micra Shape. Grand car it was too. We px'd it a couple of years later for another one. The sale folk at Nissan were fabulous in comparison. The Hyundai sales chap was also brilliant. A couple of weeks later I saw a cop R25 get rear ended at walking speed in traffic. The whole rear end just caved in. Glad I didn't get one tbh as some stupid twat in a Mazda rear ended me whilst I was driving the Micra. It survived and was a good little runabout. 

 

I remember popping into a local used car dealer in St. Helens in about 1985 or 1986. They had a Mini in the forecourt and I asked about a trade in on my then 2 year old Fiesta Pop Plus. The bloke there said, we'll take yours plus a grand. I said a grand my way? No he said, a grand plus my car for the Mini. He then asked if the car had a respray as he had never seen a factory black Fester. I just laughed at him and asked if he was taking the piss. They struggled to sell the Mini and went bust a couple of years later. Shame*

[purplebargeken]

I reckon we should all call this dealer up and ask about the trade in car. 

[Vince70]

It could be the salesman has a nice little earner selling on the old trade in banger motors stuck out the back yard which don't get or can't be sold for next to nothing to " family members" so he may have someone lined up for your car already..

 

I knew a bloke who worked at a main ford dealer who did the same thing, he would make a few bob buying up the old bangers from the dealership he worked at and put a couple of hundred on each one and it was a lovely little tax free earner for him of course they could never be sold as there was to much wrong with them and no one would be interested which meant no one was going to get a look in on his nice little fiddle

 

He must have had a bloody big family as he would always seem to tell his boss the cars were for his uncles and aunts etc.

 

Either that or he knows it's a goodun and wants to get it at rock bottom for himself.

[New POD]

I reckon I used to be a bit of a Vauxhall anorak. When my career in manufacturing engineering was going down the pan due to a bastard boss desperately trying to get me fired, I saw an advert for a car sales man in my local Vauxhall dealer.

I took advice and I decided that it would be a great idea to apply seeing as how I knew so much about the product range, had an absolute belief in the product, and love talking about cars, and everyone I KNOW asks my advice about what car they should buy and they best way to buy it.

 

So I rewrote my CV and spent ages on a covering letter, (on really high quality paper) which sold me incredibly well.

 

I followed up the paper based application with a call to the General Manager, where we had a discussion about what I knew about selling cars.

 

I obviously didn't get an interview.

 

Lucky, because I went contracting, and Probably make more profit than they did, as they closed down.

[brickwall]

I was in sales for years. Generally car sales is where the folk with no qualifications go, and stay.

[DSdriver]

I've got a pal who was a top Toyota seller. His technique was to make you feel you were the most important person in the world whilst he was dealing with you - no phone calls or other interruptions. He is a very nice bloke and deservedly made himself a lot of money.

[barrett]

This, more or less, is why Brian Sewell gets a brand new Mercedes every year, for free. Obvs it helps if you are an internationally renowned art critic, but it's still worth writing a strongly worded letter to the boss of the dealership. If you work in an industry that involves speaking to other people on a daily basis there is basically no excuse for not being civil at the very least.

[burraston2006]

At the moment I am a manager for a large supermarket and I can honestly say that whilst all ages are rude the rudest and most ignorant are generally the over 60's. It would seem that they  think that they are always right and that the world owes them something.They think that you are the lowest form of life and are not fit to be in work let alone be serving them. Some times I wish I knew where they worked so that I can go there and treat them the way they treat me and my colleagues. On the other hand the teenagers that come in are usually polite and pleasant. A gross generalization I know, but that is what I've experienced.

[rainagain]

Well I went to have a look at it last night, I took my OH who wanted a nosey at it as well, we meet the same guy I spoke to on the phone, he was in a slightly better mood but still came out with corkers like “I’m not going to spend any time on you with this car’. I understand why he would do this, he could lose potential commission from a new car sale whilst showing me round a shed, but there are ways of speaking to people. He could have just said “sorry I'm really busy with some paperwork do you mind showing yourself round the car here’s the keyâ€Â.

 

Anyway I got a look at the 3 page(!) MOT failure sheet which includes the following:

 

Rear handbrake not working (its mechanical, the hand brake was tight so the cables look fine, which means the callipers are probably seized)

o/s track rod end worn

n/s steering rack boot torn

 

I’m not too worried about the fails above as they all seem quite straight forward however I noticed that there was a lot of bulbs marked down as not working, more than six I think. Being a Citroen C4 is there some sort of nasty CANbus magic box that controls the lights that could have failed or was the previous owner just fond of carrots?

 

Also there was only one key with the car, it was an aftermarket one with no remote function so you had to unlock it via the passenger door. Anyone have any idea how much would it be to have a new remote key cut and coded to the car? The car has done just under 100,000 miles and I also noticed the clutch was biting a bit high.

 

The OH was completely put off by the sale guys attitude and told me I should just leave it because of that, I did try and haggle with him on the price but he said he wouldn't even take a pound off it, so I said I would think about it. I'm still not sure if I'm going to buy it or not, the OH doesn’t want me to as after the fun I had with our DCi Megane she doesn't want me to touch another French car and the guy’s attitude really annoyed her. On a plus note the interior and bodywork are both in good condition and it's wearing brand name tyres which to me always suggest someone at least tried to look after it. Decisions, decisions  

[dave21478]

I thought it was going to be some kind of interesting car, but a C4? no way. 

Unless its at a completely give-away price that is significantly below its value, then forget it - If you really want a C4 there will be others along soon enough in better condition and that dont mean dealing with that guy.

 

A trade-in like that will likely just get punted straight through their nearest auction house. They know that they are not going to make money on it - they have already made their profit on the new car sale and now just need to dispose of this thing quickly and most importantly avoiding any possible warranty or Sale Of Goods act liabilities.

 

And a replacement Citroen key seems to range from £100 - £150, from what I gather.

[barrett]

I'm amazed you're even considering it tbh. The car sounds like an absolute dog, and it's not like it's incredibly cheap or owt. Just go somewhere else and avoid having to 1. Buy a knackered Citroen C4, and 2. Speak to that total cock-warbler again.

Did you complain about him to his boss at the very least?