As some of you will know, my beloved Jetta was written off in August just before I headed off to Italy for a long holiday. Now that I’m back, I want to replace it with another VW but I’m having second thoughts due to the apparent lack of desire by VW dealers to actually get off their collective backsides and sell me a new car.

When I bought the Jetta in 2006 I felt the dealerships were somewhat arrogant. I visited 3 dealerships, one refused to give me a price unless I was ready to sign on the spot, another promised to get back to me with a price but did not do so and ultimately I bought from the 3rd dealership despite having to chase the dealer many times to get the deal done and even then, the whole process ultimately degenerated into a farce due to their incompetence.

I visited my local dealer’s showroom on Saturday September 21st and spoke to the salesman (the same salesman that sold me my Jetta), we discussed various cars and I asked what was available to suit my requirements. Whilst he was checking on the computer, the system failed and he promised he would look into it and call me to advise what was available. I did not hear back from him and eventually called the dealership on Tuesday 29th September, it was his RDO so I left a message for him to call me, I have heard nothing since and on principle I will NOT call again. I bought the car from this dealer, I had all the servicing done by the dealer and in return I am totally ignored when I want to buy another new car.

Having come to the conclusion that this dealer does not want my business, and not having a great deal of time on my hands, I sent an e-mail via their websites to four VW dealers in Sydney at around 4.30 PM Wednesday detailing the car I am looking for and giving various choices that I would accept. I received 3 auto responses promising to respond to my enquiry shortly, it’s now mid Friday morning and I have not had a single response.

I felt pretty cranky about this so on Thursday afternoon at around 4.00 PM I contacted VWA via their website, I’m interested to see what if any response there will be. The questions that come to my mind are why the hell should I have to pursue the dealers to sell me a car? Is my business not worth their trouble? Are they so flush with orders that another sale does not matter? If they treat me like this before I buy a car, how would they treat me in the case of any dispute after I bought the car?

I'll be checking out other brands of car this weekend.


Cheers

George