What a day! I’ve just returned home after spending the past few hours of this glorious Sunday wandering around used car showrooms. Not my ideal way of relaxing, but it needs to be done.
Anyway, in almost 25 years of driving, I have purchased a number of used cars and spent many hours in literally dozens of showrooms, shopping. In all that time, I cannot remember ever encountering the strange and rather illogical way in which Wilsden Autos (Wilsden is a village just outside of Bradford in West Yorkshire) do business. Perhaps they have their reasons, but I’m damned if I can figure them out, or more to the point, am willing to put up with them as a “customer”.
I had a twenty minute walk around Wilsden Autos this afternoon, looking at the cars they have in stock. All well and good. They do have one make and model in particular that I’d been looking at for a while in general and knew I’d want it.
The car they have in stock is around about the right money, age and spec and I have the money sat in the bank waiting to be spent. I’m fairly easily pleased and would hardly have been a difficult person to make happy as a customer.
So, after a quick sit in the car, I asked the hovering salesman when I could make an appointment to test drive the car. He asked when I’d want to? After a brief discussion with my wife about working times, we agreed any evening next week and suggested as much.
The salesman said “So, are you happy with the car, spec and price and can we do a deal?”. Not so fast. I decided not to say what I wanted to in response, as I really detest pushy sales people. I asked him how much he’d be willing to drop the price and he said a couple of hundred.
Anyway, this is the punchline and the part of the very short conversation when I thanked him for his time and walked away….
Apparently, Wilsden Autos don’t let people test drive their cars until a deal is already done. Nope, this isn’t a joke! This guy actually wanted me to do the paperwork and agree to purchase a car for £6,500 without my actually driving it! Erm, hello?!?! I don’t know what the weather is like on his planet, but it’s sunny here today.
He flatly refused to let me test drive the car until I did a deal and just said “That is how we do business. No deal, no test drive. That’s it”.
Now, here’s a direct quote from the front page of Wilsden Autos website. Which in light of their salesman’s comments, is very misleading: “We welcome any trial or inspection of our vehicles…“. Call me picky, but doesn’t the word “trial” mean “test drive”? How can you “trial” a car without driving the damn thing? Isn’t that the whole point?
Here’s another I found quite ironic under the circumstances: ” We are committed to providing the very highest level of service to all of our customers…”. I wonder if anyone imparted that little gem to their salesman?
I said my goodbyes and will spend my money elsewhere. Perhaps I am a little niaive, but it seems fairly reasonable to me that I should be allowed to have a go in any car I may wish to buy before signing away such a huge amount of money?
Anyway, my wife and I are still quite perplexed by the business philosophy of Wilsden Autos. So, I’ve decided to email them with a request that they comment on this blog post with an official explanation as to why they choose to lose customers in this way. Perhaps their salesman just couldn’t be bothered moving a few cars (at their convenience!) in order to let me test drive it? Was he suffering from sun stroke?
Never let it be said I don’t give people a fair crack at the whip. I will give the people at Wilsden Autos a chance to balance out this post with their take on it. As I have done in the past, I will post their reply (within reason) here for all to see. I sit with baited breath awaiting their reply. Definitely watch this space…!
The really disappointing aspect for me is that I always try and support local businesses if possible and would rather buy from a local independent dealer like Wilsden Autos than one of the multi-region franchises. I also do have the money to spend and would have bought the car without a second thought after a decent test drive as I did fall in love with it. Oh well, maybe Wilsden Autos make so much money in this booming economy that they can simply put people off who are cheeky enough to ask for something so fundamentally obvious as a test drive up front!
Jim.
The Rant Man 