Saw some interesting news for those of us who have had issues with Colt Car Company, the official UK importers.
Mitsubishi have taken full control of them. It was run by a father & son, the father has retired and the son is no longer involved in the business.
Let's hope that means a more professional approach and response in the future.
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Maybe Mitsubishi will now achieve the sales that their fine, good value motors deserve now.
I've never owned one but my neighbour was a devotee to the marque until his recent sad death and I was always impressed by his cars. I especially liked the Colt that he bought for his wife to use.
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Dealers ought to be hosing out Colts but I wonder if people are put off by the list prices looking high?
You can usually get the 3dr for £6-£6.5K and the 5dr with a/c that we got for £7.5K has been sold as low as £7K - I honestly think that's pretty remarkable for a car that, in practice, does everything our Jazz does yet costs a good £4K less.
However the facelift Colt just released looks pretty weird!
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That facelift makes the car look as if it's feeling very very sad. I think I can see a tear rolling out of one of those strange headlamps.
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I think Mitsubishi could be in a good position to profit from the credit crunch. Our local dealer is in a small garage (does Kia as well) in a semi-rural area. No flashy glass emporium to maintain. The cars are cheap when new and great value. Used lancers are really cheap - I can see people who would normally buy a Niissan, Honda or Toyota looking at them when it is time to change (if they are bothering to change at all, of course). I think Mitusbishi running the whole show will be beneficial as well.
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First thing MMC need to do is get the parts prices down. This is putting so many people off that I speak to -- folk are terrified that if anything goes wrong it'll cost an arm and a leg to put right.
Whether this is justified or not, it needs sorting -- and publicised.
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First thing MMC need to do is get the parts prices down.
...and servicing!
The dealer we used seemed a very nice old fashioned sort of dealer and they also do Suzuki across the road. I was happy with the deal when we bought our Colt.
First year service on Colt, they called us about a month before to remind it was due and quoted as £125 plus VAT - I should have been suspicious by "+VAT".
I called and booked it in and was quoted by a different person £125-£130 +VAT.
Actual bill presented was £199!! That's for the first year oil change!!!! They have an insane schedule of changing the pollen filter every 12mths. They also refused to stamp the body warranty check as that's an extra 30mins labour, despite being told when I booked the car in that part of the service was the body check.
I'm dreading the 2yr service, where they actually have to do some work. For the first time on a car in warranty I'm seriously considering using the village garage - the owner has already said he will do it and will use Mitsubishi parts.
What makes it worse for me is that 3mths after we bought the car, Mitsubishi introduced their 3yr servicing deal for £150 (£185 now) - so that's less than we were charged for 1 service. I contacted Colt Car company and they flat refused to sell us the service package and were actually pretty rude.
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Bill - Would that happen to be the dealer on the roundabout whose trading name sounds a bit like an upmarket shoe ?
If so, my father in law had an unhappy relationship with them. He has a Fiesta now and is very pleased with it and the dealers.
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Yes.
To be fair, when we bought the car (for daughter) I was getting a bit fed up of looking and she wanted that car so I just bought it. Dealt with their Sales Director.
When we got home wifey noticed straight away that we'd paid £500 too much - they hadn't worked off the latest reduced price. I rang with some trepidation and they unhesitatingly changed the price. So that felt very good. We did have some issues with the car on collection though, and then they messed up with the servicing pricing.
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didnt nissan go from strength to strength when octav botnar went as the the sole importer.
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Changes at the Colt Car Company can only be a good thing, lets hope they pull the dealers socks up.
Recived through the door this morning a postcard of the Colt facelift, not impressed, its the old one with the styling removed. The front is bad, but the rear on the 5dr is awful compared to how it was. It has a new interior but they've removed the trip computer from the centre and placed it next to the dials, centre display was the best part of the interior! They should really have improved the engines to produce less than 121g Co2 rather than fiddling with what was quite a nice shape on the outside.
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It is about time that Mitsubishi took control of The Colt Car Company. The product was always very desirable and easy to sell right up to the point the Managing Director changed following their restructure in the late 90's. Bringing in an ex Ford Director who instantly set about surrounding himself with fellow ex Ford employees and putting the owners son in as Aftersales Director was never going to last.
A normally good product became the type of thing so many are complaining about within these forums because of the arrogant 'pile um high, sell um cheap' attitude. Huge sums of money were squandered in sponsorship deals despite a low sales volumes.
Complaints are not answered because the key customer care people were all either made redundant in the late 90's or pushed out to make way for the ex Ford people.
Maybe it should be called The Nepotism Car Company!
Edited by dealer on 05/11/2008 at 18:04
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So tell us, dear dealer, are you just an interested observer or do you have an angle here?
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As a dealer I would have an angle. Take a CAP or Glasses guide to the auctions these days and you may as well be reading car values from the Sun newspaper. Have you seen what a Rover is worth these days now that the dealers have all switched to independants or other franchises.
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What does that have to do with Mitsubishi?
Are you a disgruntled Mitsubishi ex-franchisee - you sound like one?
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just to touch on some points, dealer does has a point about a few things there!
colt cleartec, thats under 129g/km @ 119g/km
parts pricing has had something like 70% of all lines decreased
service plan does actually offer amazing seriving costs
vehicle costs have come down too, i mean 13k for an l200, never before this year would that have happened.
it is mitsubishi corporation that bought colt cars, not mitsubishi motors corporation, believe it or not there is a difference, they all pretty much own stakes in each other anyway.
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Are you connected to a Mitsubishi Dealer or to the Importers by any chance ?
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Are you connected to a Mitsubishi Dealer or to the Importers by any chance ?
He/she has said in another post that he/she is a Mitsubishi dealer technician.
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The takeover was revealed more than a fortnight ago:
tinyurl.com/ykw6qjg
It was a very successful business in the 1990s, aided by a first class PR team but, like the drop in interest in the excellent television sets from Mitsubishi, for some reason buyers started to look at other marques.
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I just wish Subaru would take comtrol of their importer and drop the prices of their cars. The new Outback is about £36,000. That's crazy money. No-one would pay that for a Subaru however good it was - I wouldn't and I hope that my next car will be a new model (but second hand) Outback - but it won't be for at least 18 months I reckon.
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The takeover was revealed more than a fortnight ago:
It was a YEAR and a fortnight ago!
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Correct. That's why I said more than a fortnight ago...:-)
Just saw October 3rd and concluded two and two make five...:-(
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Correct. That's why I said more than a fortnight ago...:-) Just saw October 3rd and concluded two and two make five...:-( >>
The OP is dated November 2008 which might have given a strong hint!
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Mitsubishi's are good cars - I could ever understand why didn't sell more, though I think the small number of dealers didn't help. You only have to look at the number of cars that Hyundai and Kia seem to be shifting though, to see that Mitsubishi could easily have bee picking up those customers.
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