If I were told at the time I would have to give up the car I wanted in order to get the car offered that day I wouldn't have done it. You can hardly make a rule after the fact and expect me to like it. I suppose you can complain that I don't care enough for my fellow man to allow them to take my reservation,(and you'd be right) but this is a CAR we're talking about. I'm not taking extra rations of food away from starving children. I'm simply saying I want the car I RESERVED and am still waiting for.
Make sure your dealership is entirely clear that you do still want your reserved car. There are a number of people (myself included) who felt the exact same way you do, only to have the dealership go right ahead and sell the reserved car when it comes in without even offering it to the reservation holder. I'm still working with smart to resolve this, but the party line is that if you take an orphan, you give up your reserved car. Even if you don't request they cancel your reservation and get your $99 back. Be warned, and be very VERY clear with your dealership.
Make sure your dealership is entirely clear that you do still want your reserved car. There are a number of people (myself included) who felt the exact same way you do, only to have the dealership go right ahead and sell the reserved car when it comes in without even offering it to the reservation holder. I'm still working with smart to resolve this, but the party line is that if you take an orphan, you give up your reserved car. Even if you don't request they cancel your reservation and get your $99 back. Be warned, and be very VERY clear with your dealership.
I don't know what you mean by "party line", but I don't believe what happened to you is standard operating procedure for most smart dealers.
I followed your thread with shock! Am still anxious for you and fingers crossed that smart does the right thing and spanks your dealer for this behavior, after you get your car, of course.
Just to be sure, I was down at my dealership the other day and spoke to my salesman and made sure he knows I want my car. (DDE Oct-Dec 08).
the whole point is that if those of us who reserve a smart are REQUIRED to give up our reservation for an orphan, i believe less people will be willing to do so and keep the cars they ordered. this could only speed up the entire process for all of us.
I suppose you could make this rule now, but you couldn't hold the people who weren't given the choice to the same standard as those who were. Also, I can't imagine in a million years that you'll ever have a dealer voluntarily give up reserved customers. Where's the incentive for them to have less people waiting for a car?
Got an email from Ethan at smart center Seattle that I think most of you would like. It listed several orphans and asked for those interested to respond by the end of the day and stated that cars would go to respondents with the lowest reservation #.
This seems to be the fair system many have been asking for and I'd like to commend smart Seattle for leading the way on this issue.
Sorry I deleted the email before seeing this thread or I'd have pasted here, but the jist is represented above, hopefully other dealerships will adopt similar methods in the future. Those of us lucky enough to live in the NW have one more advantage today!
There is a line of people holding reservations, when you take reservations you honor reservations.
When there is a cancelation, it goes to another reservation holder to honor their reservation.
If I was waiting in a restaurant for my reserved table and the hostess kept coming in the bar saying we have had a cancellation but this table is no longer for reservation holders it is for those willing to take a table that comes with a $200 bottle of wine. I would not like that either.
It's a matter of honoring reservations, and dealers ignore reservations when they have an orphan. It is transaction outside the reservation system. It should be a transaction within the reservation system.... or Jerry is right ;)
you know how to TAKE a reservation, you just don't know how to HOLD a reservation.
Last edited by LeLapinBlanc; 07-16-2008 at 04:18 PM.
If I were told at the time I would have to give up the car I wanted in order to get the car offered that day I wouldn't have done it. You can hardly make a rule after the fact and expect me to like it. I suppose you can complain that I don't care enough for my fellow man to allow them to take my reservation,(and you'd be right) but this is a CAR we're talking about.
well, i agree that those who have already accepted an orphan should NOT be asked to give up their ordered car. that is not fair either. i'm only saying that this policy would take affect, say at the beginning of 2009 and anyone on the orphan list would be 'grandfathered in'.
so let me get this straight....are you saying that if smart had, for example, a limit of ONE smart per household from the beginning, you wouldn't have reserved one?
"I don't care enough for my fellow man to allow them to take my reservation,(and you'd be right)"
Got an email from Ethan at smart center Seattle that I think most of you would like. It listed several orphans and asked for those interested to respond by the end of the day and stated that cars would go to respondents with the lowest reservation #.
This seems to be the fair system many have been asking for and I'd like to commend smart Seattle for leading the way on this issue.
Sorry I deleted the email before seeing this thread or I'd have pasted here, but the jist is represented above, hopefully other dealerships will adopt similar methods in the future. Those of us lucky enough to live in the NW have one more advantage today!
Dave
sounds like smart center seattle is a great dealership.....kudos to them!
Jeepster. Highlighting in bold certain one sentence quotations is the same as the media using soundbites of a partial conversation to make someone look bad. I stand by what I said as explained in my previous posts. I don't think smart has been fair to their reservation holders in the way orphans have been sold. I am a proponent of a system similar to the way it's apparently being done in Seattle. I think we mostly agree on how things should be done. You have given up your option to get an orphan based on what I feel is a misguided sense of altruism. I can be altruistic. I give to charity, I give to my family and friends, I've even paid for medication for those too poor to buy it for their kids, but I don't feel any obligation to make sure someone else gets to buy a car. I follow the same guidelines as everyone else who wants to buy a smart. If you want to create different rules for yourself that's your prerogative. If you feel my abiding by the rules and buying a car that is (as you stated) the dealer's and their right to profit on it is a bad thing then we disagree.
so let me get this straight....are you saying that if smart had, for example, a limit of ONE smart per household from the beginning, you wouldn't have reserved one?
I'm not sure where this question is coming from. I never said anything like this. What I said was if smart had told me I couldn't have the car I ordered because I was buying the floor model, then I wouldn't have bought the floor model. I would have waited for the car with all the options configured exactly as I want them.
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