Delivery/Tracking

[Ima]

Glovis Century now on its way to Emden and arriving tonight. The trick then will be to work out what ship to UK

Buzzing. That’s the only thing I’m worried about, I’m confident my salesman has no idea how close my car is to the UK because he’s not made an phone calls off of his own back to say the location and update of the car as of yet. So... it could be that it’s a customer service job to see if they can help me rather than him

Let me know what you find out as I won’t get any dealer updates either so I’m relying on VW customer support for any updates.

[monkeyhanger]

@ monkeyhanger, the SEAT dealer I used is a family business that prides itself on service and that made all the difference. I’d built a good relationship and after multiple LEON purchases for all my family meant great deals and I’ve always done well on residuals on the cars I bought from them with good positive equity when changing. My local SEAT dealer the other hand was awful and a pile it high emporium.

Funnily enough when I went to buy my GTi this time he only let me test drive on the basis I was serious about a deal if I liked the car although not to the extent I had to agree before hand as like you I’d have walked away. Talking of residual value the worst I’ve had was from my old Polo GTI which ended up in negative equity. I think the Golf likely to be the strongest performer for residuals so it will be interesting to see how the Polo GTi performs this time.

The Golf GTI has the worst GFV in the performance Golf range, with the GTD and R faring a lot better. When the MK7 Golf performance models started coming through in mid 2013, a GTD was about 25% cheaper on PCP because it was marginally cheaper than the GTI, but had almost a 10% higher GFV.

The initial GFVs for the Polo GTI+ looked favourable at 50% of RRP, although I'm sure for those PCPing later they'll have eroded somewhat because of the deposit contribution VW gave from Summer last year.

I got £15k for my almost 2 year old one in p/x against the Audi A4. Considering I paid £20.8k for it, I don't think I did badly, it probably would've fetched £13k at 3 years old in p/x. Better than the Golf GTI on a % RRP basis.

The kast wave of MK7.5 performance Golfs saw huge rises. The Golf GTI TCR has a list price of £38k and a 3 year old GFV of £13.7k. As VW residuals normally go, that's shocking.

[Ima]

Thanks @monkeyhanger that’s interesting about Polo GTi vs Golf performance residuals and sounds much more promising then compared to my last Polo GTi. Fingers crossed

[monkeyhanger]

I’m confident my salesman has no idea how close my car is to the UK because he’s not made an phone calls off of his own back to say the location and update of the car as of yet. So... it could be that it’s a customer service job to see if they can help me rather than him

VW salespeople could learn a lot by reading forums ;

• get an understanding of the type of info that waiting customers would appreciate receiving.

• appreciate that the lack of information and updates, and not responding to customer queries can be very frustrating for the customer.

• find the answers to some of the questions they no doubt get asked many times over by customers.

• improve their product knowledge of the cars they’re selling - many forum members are enthusiasts and have better product knowledge than the salesperson.

Some VW salespeople may be members on forums and understand what’s important to many customers waiting for their cars. The majority probably won’t though.

Absolutely! It's not rocket science about basic customer service and the difference this makes to developing a relationship that in the longer terms maintains brand loyalty. Many small family dealers who rely on customer satisfaction and word of mouth have worked this out but the bigger dealers just don’t bother or seem to care. I’ve often known more about the car I’m buying than the salesperson and had to chase myself for any updates and it puts me off.

On the forums we all share our good and bad experiences that as a larger group can have a big impact on buying choices so it’s in the dealers interest to take notice. However when I mention that I have gained information from a forum I usually get rolled eyes from dealers and exasperated dismissive responses. My current buying experience is so poor I’d happily never go back to VW dealers again. My wife has just bought a Skoda Kamiq from a small family dealer and the experience has been stark in their efforts to meet her needs and far more communication already on car build dates, expected delivery etc than I’ve had and I know my dealer will have no interest in me until it’s time for me to sign the finance documents and once I pick up I’ll never hear from them again.

I do think the VW are going to get a bit of a kicking shortly. They've always been able to justify their sky high RRPs with high residuals. Lately though, the German built Golf (VW's most popular car) has got silly expensive and the market won't bear sky high residuals to match. Unless they go down the BMW route of offering 20-25% off list to soften the blow of low residuals vs high RRP, people will probably be leaving VW in droves, especially as the MK8 Golf has a very ugly low sloping front end and a slightly cheaper interior.

Lots of talk already on the Golf GTI forum of people looking to get a BMW 135M instead of a MK8 Golf GTI.

VW customer service in the UK has been dire since at least 2007 (my first experience of VW UK not giving a toss about a major issue to me as a customer). Their cars gave always appealed to me over the non-German competition.

[MrTomOates]

Glovis Century now on its way to Emden and arriving tonight. The trick then will be to work out what ship to UK

Buzzing. That’s the only thing I’m worried about, I’m confident my salesman has no idea how close my car is to the UK because he’s not made an phone calls off of his own back to say the location and update of the car as of yet. So... it could be that it’s a customer service job to see if they can help me rather than him

Let me know what you find out as I won’t get any dealer updates either so I’m relying on VW customer support for any updates.

Vice versa pal, if you hear anything let me know. Do you reckon every car due to go to the UK from the Glovis Century will all be on the same ship from Emden to the UK?

[ShockingIce]

Buzzing. That’s the only thing I’m worried about, I’m confident my salesman has no idea how close my car is to the UK because he’s not made an phone calls off of his own back to say the location and update of the car as of yet. So... it could be that it’s a customer service job to see if they can help me rather than him [emoji23]

Let me know what you find out as I won’t get any dealer updates either so I’m relying on VW customer support for any updates.

Vice versa pal, if you hear anything let me know. Do you reckon every car due to go to the UK from the Glovis Century will all be on the same ship from Emden to the UK?

Nope! It’s all about where in the UK it’s going. Currently the ship for Sheerness and also the ship for Tyne is at Emden so is small possibility that when Glovis Century arrives it will go straight on them.


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[Ima]

Will do. It’s a mystery to me. I’ve read that VW specify that a car has to leave Emden within two weeks but usually less so hopefully our cars won’t be too far away whichever ship,it ends up on

[Ima]

Nope! It’s all about where in the UK it’s going. Currently the ship for Sheerness and also the ship for Tyne is at Emden so is small possibility that when Glovis Century arrives it will go straight on them.


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I thought VW also used Grimsby ?

[ShockingIce]

Nope! It’s all about where in the UK it’s going. Currently the ship for Sheerness and also the ship for Tyne is at Emden so is small possibility that when Glovis Century arrives it will go straight on them.


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I thought VW also used Grimsby ?

They do but it’s rarer. The ship that goes there goes to Tyne and then Grimsby but doesn’t always go Grimsby everytime. Since it went last time to both I’m sort of assuming it won’t this time


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[Ima]

Cheers. I can see Malacca Highway is a vehicle carrier leaving to Grimsby on 18th so wondered if that might be the one but maybe not. I guess it’s harassing customer services again once ships leave

[ShockingIce]

Cheers. I can see Malacca Highway is a vehicle carrier leaving to Grimsby on 18th so wondered if that might be the one but maybe not. I guess it’s harassing customer services again once ships leave

Malacca Highway goes to and from emden to sheerness every single time. The one you need to watch out for if you’re Grimsby is CITY OF ROTTERDAM.


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[ShockingIce]

Cheers. I can see Malacca Highway is a vehicle carrier leaving to Grimsby on 18th so wondered if that might be the one but maybe not. I guess it’s harassing customer services again once ships leave

I stand corrected! It never goes Grimsby but it is for first time in months!


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[Ima]

Cool how do you know all of this

[ShockingIce]

Cool how do you know all of this

A whole lot of ship tracking and waiting [emoji23]


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[Ima]

I guess you have bought lots of new cars then