raysablade wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 4:11 pm
monkeyhanger wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:43 pm
raysablade wrote: ↑Mon Sep 16, 2019 2:22 pm
The dealer in Newcastle is taking the exact spec she wants from a cancelled order, that’s already in transit, and replacing the 18 inch wheels with the 17s she prefers. So that’s all good, especially if the wheels come with Michelin tyres. Given her red lines on spec it seems she’s been very lucky.
So long as any reduction long distance comfort is not huge and improvement is overtaking performance is I’m sure she’ll be happy. I’m guessing that 17” wheels might help slightly there. Her impression from test drives was a faster, better, Golf. Fingers crossed.
Would the dealership in Newcastle be Scotswood Road Lookers or Silverlink Lookers? I live near one and work a mile from the other. Are you local to Tyneside or travelling to get it?
For me, the 18" wheels look massively better - if you replace the Bridgestone Turanza immediately and buy the Michelin PS4 on an offer, the cost to change can be as little as £110 for the set. Michelin PS4 bought are massively better than the standard 18" Bridgestone Turanza and considerably better than the Michelin Primacy tyres that come as standard on 17" Parker wheels. Turanza and Primacy are touring tyres, not sporting tyres.
Could I ask what options yours has on and what level of discount you're getting? So often these sales people ask you what you can afford a month if PCPing, maki g it easy to give you little or no discount. If you are a cash buyer, I would be going in and being cool about it all. It's rolling towards a very quiet time of the year for car sales, don't pay RRP or even close to it (and it sounds like you might be if you're quoting £25k to buy a car with a basic £23300 (or thereabouts) RRP.
When's the car available for pick up? Make sure it won't be subject to Brexit tariffs if we leave before it arrives.
It is one of those and iirc the price is close to the configurator price. A few hundred less and over £1000 less than her budget
Cost to change is the key here and their trade in for one of their own cars is higher that other dealers, all of whom told her it would have to be a factory order if she could not consider any colour other than red. The dealer are also throwing in all the insurance products you might not want but that don’t reduce the price if you reject them.
Above all it’s a local dealer and easy to deal with in person if something goes wrong. That’s worth a lot to her
She wants climate, heated seats for very early winter mornings, a reversing camera and as much red as she can get inside and out. She actually turned down that spec on a car with a black roof because she couldn’t understand why anyone in their right mind would want to cover up red paint. Conversely she couldn’t care less about wheels. If the Brescias cost £400 more, the dealer is taking them out at the configurator cost, are harder to clean and need £100 worth of new tyres in her view it would be mad to keep them. Especially as Jesmond is Death Valley for alloy wheels; 15mm of extra rubber tyre wall might delay the inevitable. I’ll put it to her though, another tyre option might be Michelin Cross Climates for early winter starts, can see them fitting the performance profile though
It’s in transit so I’m guessing weeks away and Brexit not being an issue, we can ask them to confirm though. Would it be a risk anyway if it comes from SA? She’s very excited about that.
Coming from SA via Germany still would attract import duty if we got out of the EU sharpish with no deal. As you're paying pretty much RRP, I'd expect Lookers to swallow that cost if necessary. If it's well on it's way you should have it before Oct 31st, but factory to collection is generally 7 to 8 weeks.
Price to change is what really matters, but you may get more for the px selling privately on "Tootle". Sellers bid for your car to buy and sell on. My 46 month old Golf R got sold via Tootle for £2k more than Lookers would give and £1700 more than Pulman. Helped a lot in my cost to change. You're paying a lot for the privilege of not waiting for a factory order - that spec would be a £22k car on Drivethedeal. I got my GTI+ on a cancelled order - Red, Brescias, Nav (wouldn't have specced myself), camera (wouldn't have specced myself), Velvet Red inserts on dash (slightly prefer deep iron that my wife's white GTI+ has). I you haven't signed on the dotted line yet, might just be worth contacting Kim Draper at fleet sales, Listers of Nuneaton for a drivethedeal price, she has access to all the cars coming through the Listers group.
The Michelin PS4s have a very generous lip on them - you'd have to really clout the wheels against the kerb to scrape them.
I've had some horrendous experiences with Benfield (now Lookers) aftersales in the past, with both branches, although Scotswood Road have always been a little nicer to deal with. Both branches gave damaged my vehicles in their care and denied it - luckily I videied all round the car on my phone when dropping it off. When I got my MK7 Golf GTD (one of the first in the country), they replaced the top mount bearings after a week of ownership. Morning job, call at 11am to say it was ready to pick up, arrange to pick up lunchtime but it's not there. Technician took it out on a 37 mile joyride, doing the distance in 33 minutes (he reset the computer but Nav told a tale. So basically they thrashed my car with 170 miles on the clock. Complained to head office - nowt done about it.
Now they charge £14 a day plus £5 insurance to reduce the excess for their "free" courtesy cars (admin charge apparently) when you need warranty work - they charge for dropping you at work after dropping your car off too. I go to Pulman Sunderland now, they treat you much better - their courtesy cars are free too, as is picking your car up and dropping off.
