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Sales: Official Porsche Dealers in North West England

isysman

Well-known member
Joined
22 Apr 2011
Messages
6,627
I wrote this at the end of my Boxster buying thread but I thought I'd post in the appropriate section.

Here is my recent experience regarding the 'service' I received from various Porsche dealerships during the process of buying a car in the last twelve months (2018)

I contacted four Porsche dealerships for help sourcing a car over the last 12 months or so. The following dealerships:

Wilmslow
Bolton
Chester
Cardiff

Of the four, only one of them ever contacted me to offer potential cars for sale.

WILMSLOW
Wilmslow was the biggest disappointment for me as I have been a customer there for the last 5 years buying my 997 there and spending over £20,000 in parts whilst doing the conversion.

I made many attempts to get someone to try to source a car, and I even went in there and complained to two different salespeople to try to motivate them into action. At no point did any of the three people ever send me details on any car. I even turned up at the dealership on occasion to see a 981 Boxster in the showroom but no email or call ever.

(NOTE: Service and Parts guys are still awesome here and I'll continue to use them for those services)

BOLTON
I've already explained what happen at Bolton, selling two cars from under me whilst waiting for Oliver the salesman to get back to me with details of a price for a trade in on my car (still waiting). See below letter I sent to dealer principle.

CHESTER
I even broke my promise to myself and returned to Chester to look at a GTS they had and to talk to a chap who said he would be happy to source a Boxster for me and that he would be in touch in approx a week. I had no further contact from him or anyone else at that dealership.

CARDIFF
The dealership that actually did its job was Cardiff. After contacting a chap call Ben Voden about a white Boxster, he sent me a personal video link, showing me around the car and talking to me about it and the differences between it and my 987 (which he had clearly researched). I decided the car just had too few of the options I was looking for so passed on that car.

Today he contacted me again about another car - he left a voicemail for me and and followed up with an email with details. I replied that I had found a car privately but that I appreciated his help and told him briefly about the experience I had with the others.

If and when I'm in the market for a new Porsche I'll be contacting him first as it seems he actually does his job. So bravo Porsche Cardiff.

I did buy a car in the end but privately with a great spec.You can see details in the following thread.

http://911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=130579
 
This is what happened at Porsche Bolton. This is in the form of a letter I sent to the dealer principle

Good day,

I wanted to email you to tell you about my experience at your dealership last week as I'm very disappointed and angry about how things transpired.

I am a long time Porsche owner currently owning two cars, a 911 Turbo and a Boxster. I was looking to upgrade my Boxster to a 981 model. I had been in touch with Oliver Dixon in your sales team over a period of a few months as I work away but was watching a silver GTS on AutoTrader.

On Sunday 23rd Sep I came to place a deposit on it. However during the course of our conversation Oliver pointed out he had an Agate Grey Boxster S coming in the next day that I might be interested in and to bring my car up and he would evaluate it whilst I test drove the car. I did this and I decided I liked the Agate Grey Boxster S and wanted to purchase it. The offer on my car however was not the best, so Oliver told me he would contact a third party garage you sell trade-in cars to and get back to me with a price.

I waited...

I had no call back that day nor the next, nor a call or email to say 'sorry but I'm still trying to get the info'. I emailed Oliver and asked what was happening. He said he hadn't had a reply from them. I'm not sure how he made contact with them but how long does it take to get a figure or to tell me they were not interested?

The following day (3 days later) after again having no contact from Oliver and having chased him with three emails. I emailed him again and said I wanted to put down a deposit as someone had offered to buy my car privately. He replied the car had been sold. He still had not called me or emailed me with this figure from the third party.

He asked was I still interested in the GTS? I emailed him about it the next day, he auto replied he was on leave and not back until the 3rd Oct. I made a general enquiry through the info@porschebolton email address, and had a reply from another person who told me the GTS was sold as well.

Oliver never did get back to me with the price he told me he would. He never replied to my email either asking of the GTS was sold when he came back off his leave.

Terrible service from a marque that should be better. I do a lot of business with Wilmslow Porsche and it should be better than this no? I get that you are in the business of making money but you need to treat your customers better.

Regards,
 
Preston OPC will be open soon and run by a local family business - http://www.bowkermotorgroup.co.uk

Will be intersting to see how they do as they have a decent portfolio in the prestige market and seem to have a good reputation.

Kendal OPC is also relocating from Cumbria to Lancashire. So Lancashire will go from zero OPCs to having 2 :)

I've also heard good reports about Kendal.

Shame you've been treated as you have mate - 21st century customer service from Porsche should be better than that.
 
Did you get a reply from the dealer principle or is he as bad as his sales team.
A lot of people these days have no social skills. I work in the oil industry & find that emails just go unanswered in the hope you go away or find someone else to answer your query. Also they will send an email to someone 2 desks away rather than phoning them or heaven forbid, walking across to their desk
 
wow isysman

I'm speechless at their anti-sales approach


:weed:
 
I get the impression from a lot of dealerships that they are very proactive in selling cars to current owners, they wait till they've found someone who's say looking for a certain model, they know you have that car so they upscale you to a new model and sell on your trade in that they have already found a home for.

Cash buyers are also very few and far between and they love to sell you on 'tick' as they get a hefty kick back from the finance companies.

Our local OPC's told us they were desperately looking for stock, so I asked for a price on my car, the buyer told me it would retail at about 79,995 and yet I was offered less than 70k for it. I got the usual, well we need to put a warranty on it and it will need thousands spending on it to get it up to our stringent standards! It was in for a thorough 111 point check recently and the only advisory was that the N/S tracking was at the limit of tolerance and 'may' need adjusting!
Then when you sell it elsewhere they grumble that you never gave them a chance!
 
isysman, I do hear good things from Cardiff, which is a lot like my OPC Bristol experience


easternjets said:
I get the impression from a lot of dealerships that they are very proactive in selling cars to current owners, they wait till they've found someone who's say looking for a certain model, they know you have that car so they upscale you to a new model and sell on your trade in that they have already found a home for.

Cash buyers are also very few and far between and they love to sell you on 'tick' as they get a hefty kick back from the finance companies.

Our local OPC's told us they were desperately looking for stock, so I asked for a price on my car, the buyer told me it would retail at about 79,995 and yet I was offered less than 70k for it. I got the usual, well we need to put a warranty on it and it will need thousands spending on it to get it up to our stringent standards! It was in for a thorough 111 point check recently and the only advisory was that the N/S tracking was at the limit of tolerance and 'may' need adjusting!
Then when you sell it elsewhere they grumble that you never gave them a chance!

and so what Eaternjets, OPC's have a price spread between trade and retail, so does everything else in the world

but which OPC is this?
 
Once you take the warranty out, plus putting it through the workshop and fixing anything outside of the 111 point check, and were down around the 10% gross profit. Add in rent, staff and all the rest of the costs associated with running a dealership, I don't think that sounds too bad.
When they offered to take my car off me it was at around the 20% mark, but at a lesser value that yours.
 
This is the reply I had from Bolton.


Thank you for feeding back the recent experience you have encountered here at Porsche Centre Bolton, I can only apologise if this has obviously not been up to your expectations.

I do not intend to try and defend any of our actions or activity, the only thing I would like to say, knowing that you have been dealing and communicating with Oliver for some time now, I'd like to think and that has not been your experience throughout and the recent communication lapse, has not been typical of how Oliver generally tries to look after customers.

Both myself and Oliver would be delighted to have the opportunity to rectify this, if allowed, but completely respect your decision if you choose to locate a vehicle elsewhere.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Steve Webb
Centre Principal
Porsche Centre Bolton
 
easternjets said:
I get the impression from a lot of dealerships that they are very proactive in selling cars to current owners, they wait till they've found someone who's say looking for a certain model, they know you have that car so they upscale you to a new model and sell on your trade in that they have already found a home for.

Cash buyers are also very few and far between and they love to sell you on 'tick' as they get a hefty kick back from the finance companies.

I have been a customer of Wilmslow for 6 years with two cars. they have known for at least two years I've been flirting with buying a new Boxster. And I was a cash buyer. None of this seemed to interest them. They never tried to do this with me 'move me into a newer car,' although I have heard salesman saying this very thing.
 
isysman said:
This is the reply I had from Bolton.


Thank you for feeding back the recent experience you have encountered here at Porsche Centre Bolton, I can only apologise if this has obviously not been up to your expectations.

I do not intend to try and defend any of our actions or activity, the only thing I would like to say, knowing that you have been dealing and communicating with Oliver for some time now, I'd like to think and that has not been your experience throughout and the recent communication lapse, has not been typical of how Oliver generally tries to look after customers.

Both myself and Oliver would be delighted to have the opportunity to rectify this, if allowed, but completely respect your decision if you choose to locate a vehicle elsewhere.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards

Steve Webb
Centre Principal
Porsche Centre Bolton

They are clearly reading this thread !

but what I've highlighted in black above above does't make sense

:what:
 
I love the way they say 'we would like to rectify this' so they screw up massively then invite you back to see if they can still sell you a car! Brass neck or what!

As for OPC's and their profits, it's the way they talk your car down telling you how they 'might' need to replace condensors. radiators. tyres, service it and then this huge warranty cost of thousands before they can sell it. I was actually offered £4 k more by an independent dealer but as the deal on the car I was looking at fell through I kept my car.
 
Cardiff has been good to me. Bought a 2S and a Cayman in the past from them
 
I'm currently in the process of buying a car from Wilmslow and must say that (so far) they have been very professional, courteous and hospitable. I've spoken to various people from the Business Manager (the shortest of all the conversations since taking finance offered me no financial incentive) to their Detailer (who also does the Ferraris next door). They seem keen to make me happy, but then again.... I haven't paid the balance yet.....!
 
squelch said:
I'm currently in the process of buying a car from Wilmslow and must say that (so far) they have been very professional, courteous and hospitable. I've spoken to various people from the Business Manager (the shortest of all the conversations since taking finance offered me no financial incentive) to their Detailer (who also does the Ferraris next door). They seem keen to make me happy, but then again.... I haven't paid the balance yet.....!

Well I'm glad you are getting good service. Are you buying a car you saw in the showroom, or did you ask them to find you a car?
 

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