Rubbish Dealers.

[headless]

Just thought I would share this story with you guys, and ask the question, are the Smart dealers rubbish in America as well?

I went into my local main Mercedes/Smart dealers this morning, in Sheffield, you have to walk past all the £100,000 Mercs to get to the smart corner, where they have 4 smart cars.
I looked at the cars for a few minutes, nobody came , so I went up to the Mercedes reception and asked if I could have a word with somebody on the smart side, 3 phone calls later and a rather disgruntled woman came out of an office with a face like a bulldog chewing a wasp, she had obviously drawn the short straw.
So I introduced myself and told her I had started up a Smart car club in Sheffield and we were having a meet about half a mile down the road on Sunday and would they like to attend or do anything for us, I was'nt very hopeful at this stage and wished I had'nt bothered, but I was already there, but was shocked at her reply, she said, the woman who dealt with the smart side was off sick, so I said, is she on her own, is there nobody else I could talk to? A curt no was the reply. So my next question was, well if I was here to buy a smart car today, what would happen?, she said, well one of us would just have to deal with you, and muddle through the best we could.
Wow what customer service, I had trouble with said dealers four and a half years ago when I bought my smart, and things have not improved in the meantime, how can they keep selling smarts with that sort of an attitude?
So are the dealers as bad over there?
Ellis

[Jordon]

Other than putting useless/stupid add-on's and "accessories" on every orphan the one in Louisville is pretty good. We had some trouble with licensing, but we did buy the car from a dealer 200 miles away. They were polite, and the service guy is very helpful, even calibrated the fuel gauge on a Saturday. I can't believe any dealer would be like that and expect to have returning customers.

[forestacademy]

Im in a teritory where Smart and MB have nothing to do with each other. We have a Smart Center and the motor group that has smart here doesn't even have MB, So no attitude.

[Dunerunner]

Headless - smart dealers here are reallly pretty excited, you see; they are about the only one selling cars!! I would think though with the sag in sales here in the States almost any dealership, especially a domestic manufacturer; would be thrilled to have a buyer, any buyer; walk into the shop!!

[a2jack]

Headless. Wow that's the worst MB/Smart story I've heard yet.

Most of our dealers are independent Smart Centers. We do have a few MB dealers, some in very upscale areas (like Beverly Hills California) but they roll out the carpet for our Smart cars too.

The Canadians have had problems with some MB dealers as they are the exclusive seller of Smarts in CA. But most of that has been overcharging for repairs.

I would be pissed too. Best Regards. A2Jack.

[Piccola]

How about a quick email to whomever controls sales of smarts in England? They would probably like to know about that attitude with the world's economy lagging as it is!

[headless]

Originally Posted by Piccola

How about a quick email to whomever controls sales of smarts in England? They would probably like to know about that attitude with the world's economy lagging as it is!

Haha, not again, they would think I was some sort of weirdo after the letters I have already written to head office.
When I went to see the car I bought, the saleswoman said she felt as if she was'nt selling a proper car, great start, then when I ordered it, I payed for the paddleshift steering wheel as an optional extra, and when I went to pick up the car the next week, (yea I know, we don't have to wait months over here for our smarts), she had left(surprise surprise), and our car had no paddleshift steering wheel, so I arranged to take the car anyway but come back a few days later and they would fit the wheel there and then.
I took the car back and after about an hour they said they were having trouble fitting the wheel, so would I take a courtesy car and come back in the morning, well to cut a very long story short, it took them 8 days to fit the steering wheel.
We tried to get some sort of recompence from the dealers but to no avail, so we wrote to head office.
We once took our car in as arranged as they has sent us a letter about a safety recall, we left it there all day and when we went back for the car they said they had done nothing to the car as they did'nt have the part that the recall was for, another letter to head office, you see a pattern developing?
The car is absolutely brilliant and in the four and a half years of ownership, I have had not one issue with the car, the dealers though.......
Ellis

[JPaul]

Would you have traded with us and our long wait though?

[Old smart]

In the U.S. the setup is a little different. First of all, there were over 1,500 bidders for the 74 smart centers to be established; PAG had their choice. Even if a M-B dealer got a dealership, they had to construct a separate smart center not intergrated with the M-B sales area. Dealers will be dealers when it comes to squeezing as much profit out a vehicle as they can. But if they drive the smart customers away, they can't rely on covering with some other brand. smarts and nothing else can be sold in a U.S. smart center, not even M-B. They sink-or-swim on their own.

[NCC1701]

In May 2008 I visited a dealer to take a test drive. I was essentially IGNORED until I got kinda pushy. When I finally talked them into a test drive, an employee drove the car a mile (or less) down the road, then let me drive it back. Hugely dissappointing experience. I was glad when I was assigned to a different dealer to take delivery. This second dealer was a polar opposite from the first: Polite, responsive, enthusiastic, efficient. Taking delivery was a very positive experience.

So, it seems it depends on WHICH dealer you do business with. Or maybe what mood they're in, or the weather, or what you're wearing, whether their football team won the night before.