Awaiting code for govt. grant?

I'm a Fleet Manager for a number of local authorities, you wouldn't believe the lead time on a lot of vehicles these days. Forget Transits, if you want one. We had 19 Renault EV vans on order for around 5 months, only to be told there was a issue getting batteries and because they're now building for the Gen2 spec, they cancelled our 19 plus another 631 orders
 
I posted on the shipping updates thread (I think) a while back that we're still waiting over 12 months now for a few Transit Customs to show up.

If the vans don't arrive we'll have nothing for new recruits to drive (getting a hire van is a joke right now) and may have to defer their start dates (not good if they've already handed in their notice).

Our fleet tried to order a Ford Kuga the other day and were quoted 14+ months for delivery. It's certainly not getting any better yet.
 
So maybe @Ozzie1989 and @Madgermusso have a handle on why waiting lists are getting so long?

I understood it's a chip shortage but I guess it's exacerbated by pent-up demand. I did hear the story of car hire fleets who sold up during the pandemic and find they cannot easily get replacements - true or not, I've no idea.

I think in an odd way the pandemic has released a fair chunk of money for some. I was reading this morning how 2nd home and holiday home to rent purchases have gone up 40%. I see a lot of new cars on the road. There is so much house extending going on around here that every road feels like a building site. I wonder if many people at the right end of the end of their working life just decided to take early retirement or maybe redundancy during the pandemic.

And yet there are very hard times ahead for others.
 
I bought my MG5 LR Exclusive on affinity last September for £24,400, now done 15k (in for service next week) and Cazoo are now offering to buy it for £23,750. Not bad considering what I've saved in fuel at 6p per kwh!
 
mourneuk said:
I bought a pre reg MG5 the day before the govt. grant was scrapped. The car arrived at the dealership last Monday and all last week they were "We'll try to let you have the car for the weekend". Friday came and went and the Saleman said I could have it Monday at 4pm. This morning he called to say he would let me know when the car was ready as they were waiting for a code for the grant. I've just spoken to him now and they're still waiting for the code before his admin team will release the car.

Has anyone else had this? I am beyond annoyed at the dealership. When I pressed him on when the code was applied for he said last week. Why wasn't it applied for as soon as we cleared finance 12 days ago. the day after the grant was scrapped?

From start to finish this has been the worst buying experience I've ever had. Every step of the way I've had to chase them, and this is for a car that actually existed and was in the country. I was slightly taken aback that it took 2 days to get a reply from the finance company. Every car I've bought before has had an instant answer.

This isn't a one man show either. It's Glyn Hopkins in Chelmsford. I doubt I'll ever use them again.
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Any decent dealer would apply for the grant at the time of sale, as did mine back in December just before it dropped from £2500 to £1500.
 
weedavemac said:
Have you got your car yet?
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Nope. Sales guy had to run home because he'd had some bad news about his wife. It's understandable that he would't be there. However, their admin department had for some reason put tomorrow was the start of the road tax so the car wasn't ready and the Sales Manager wasn't expecting me.

I did my absolute nut. I've left my car there beause it's not insured after midnight. I've had a frosty lift home from the Sales Manager, who's off tomorrow but he's going to have his assistant phone me at 9am and arrange to collect me and take me to get my car. After him confirming that it absolutely would be ready tomorrow I told him that this had been my worst car buying experience and I wouldn't be using them again.
 
mourneuk said:
Nope. Sales guy had to run home because he'd had some bad news about his wife. It's understandable that he would't be there. However, their admin department had for some reason put tomorrow was the start of the road tax so the car wasn't ready and the Sales Manager wasn't expecting me.

I did my absolute nut. I've left my car there beause it's not insured after midnight. I've had a frosty lift home from the Sales Manager, who's off tomorrow but he's going to have his assistant phone me at 9am and arrange to collect me and take me to get my car. After him confirming that it absolutely would be ready tomorrow I told him that this had been my worst car buying experience and I wouldn't be using them again.
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That's pretty poor service. I exclude the sales guy due to his wife.

However, as a dealership, they have let you down repeatedly.

Hope tomorrow goes well and that once you have your car this fiasco is hopefully behind you.
 
If the price agreed then surely that is the price if not I think they will lose out as you walk away
 
weedavemac said:
Have you got your car yet?
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Finally got there, but had to throw another hissy fit in the showroom because they wanted to give me £300 less for my old car than we’d agreed. I’d had to get a new settlement figure because it took so long to get to the point of buying the car and then actually getting it that my original settlement figure expired last week and the new one was £300 less to account for the recent payment. The guy tried to tell me that I’d agreed to this on the order form (part ex figure falls in line with settlement figure), which might be true where you have to wait 4 months + for your new car but not when there was 2 weeks between agreeing a figure and getting the new car. He backed down pretty quickly and had to redo the invoice etc.

Anyway, got the car and hopefully never have to deal with them again other than chase for the mats that were offered yesterday as compensation for the faff, but which they don’t have a stock of.
 
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