I wouldn't jump the gun there with assumptions based on one visit to buy parts. They may have been rearranging their stock which could have been why cars were all over the place. Also, regarding their charging point, its possible the reason double yellows were there was to prevent anyone from blocking access to it. Or possibly, the charging point was a recent addition and they haven't got round to changing the road markings. Also, they may be planning to move to a new premises soon so there would be no point in spending large amounts of money on the current one.

I'd be much more interested in the service offered, that would be the clincher for me.

In December i was forced into buying a replacement van for work. For various reasons i ended up travelling from North East Scotland to Blackburn (Lancashire) to buy what i was looking for. Because of my circumstances i was essentially committed to buying the van, unless it was an absolute dog, but i took comfort in the excellent Autotrader dealer reviews of the garage in question (Globe Motors). I was picked up from the bus station by the proprieter and he apologised about the state of the side road you have to drive down to get to the garage, it really looked like something you'd see in a war zone with massive potholes and a patchwork quilt of mismatched tar!. The garage itself was nothing to look at from the road either, but the service was 1st class, the van was immaculately prepared, all the paperwork was gone through thoroughly and most importantly, 5 months on i'm still happy with the van.

Edited by badbusdriver on 29/04/2018 at 12:04

I must admit, this same dealer did give me a good test drive almost 10 years ago. They pretty much just handed me keys, gave me a brief explanation of the controls and said see you later. Much better than having a salesman doing a short (and very poor) demonstration drive first... as if I'm unable to drive without watching somebody else drive first.

A problem common to most dealers unfortunately. Even my local VW dealer which I rate as excellent has a major issue with customer parking, so bad in fact that twice staff have damaged cars we’ve put in for service.

I think this is completely unacceptable, I wouldn't want my car going anywhere near them!

In my experience, it's the same dealers that generally don't seem to be bothered about selling you anything that also have problems with parking. I've been to dealers on large sites where the used car stock is taking up all the spaces marked "customer parking", despite there being plenty of other ways they could have lined up the used cars. It's perfectly reasonably park stock in bumper to bumper two or three deep, but some places don't seem to bother and wonder why potential customers drive in, can't find anywhere to park and drive out again.

At the other end of the scale, there was a dealer I used to use when I was living in North-East London ten years ago which had the smallest site I'd ever come across for a franchised main dealer. The showroom part of it had space for about three cars and a couple of desks, and you drove through a narrow tunnel between the two sides of the showroom into a small yard behind for servicing, used cars and customer parking. I'd guess there was space for about 20 cars at most in the back yard, with most then blocked in. Despite this very limited site, I never had a problem parking there. The moment you drove through the tunnel, a member of staff turned up and asked what you were there for. If it was for servicing, they either put it straight into a workshop bay if one was free or someone took the car off you and drove it off site out of the way. If you were looking at buying a car they somehow always found somewhere in the yard where you weren't blocked in, often by moving one of their demonstrators.

I thought the corporate branding blob would have got rid of them by now or forced them to move to a bigger site, but I've just checked and they are still there on the same site. Presumably this is because their efficiency and interest in serving the customer means their sales figures are too good to force them to do so.

I recently left a company whose sales staff were with one exception unpleasant and dysfunctional. I lost track of the number of times I was verbally abused by one of them for no reason whatsoever. He would enter the room and insult me.. .

You must have had your own reasons to have to put up with that - like needing the job to pay the bills. But was there nothing you could have done to head that sort of behaviour off?

A dealer local to me let weeds and rubbish accumulate across their frontage over the last couple of years. I figured that if they can't be bothered to pick up the rubbish they simply don't care.

+1

Like entering an office and stopping at reception. First impressions tend to exemplify the business's approach to customer service.