Lotus Appoints New Dealer for Scotland

[Bibs]

https://www.parks.uk.com/news/introducing-parks-lotus

[Guest]

Nipped in this morning on my day off to discuss warranty saga. Appears it will be sorted pretty soon. 
 

I was surprised to see the Evija sitting in the showroom. Was shown round in great detail by the guys from Hethel before their first booking at 1pm. 
 

😎  

[Toeside]

Heading over tomorrow to get the fuel rack recall done eventually and have a booking for the Evija look around. 😁👌

[Alan Thomson]

Congrats to Parks .. and a special Thank You to Laura. Arranged to get the recall done on my Elise today at Parks in Hamilton and at the same time got to see and get a seat in the Evija .. Great service from Parks, friendly helpful tech that took care of my car and explained what had been done. took no more than an hour. 

I thought the Evija looked good in the magazine photos but in person ... it's astounding ... if you get a chance to look at it properly I suggest you take it. Not every day I get to sit in a £1.8m (+tax!) Lotus  

Thanks Laura for sorting it all out ..  

 

 

Edited September 17, 2020 by Alan Thomson

[aJayMitchell]

Just chased up when Parks can start taking bookings for servicing/warranty work and been told they still don't have their Lotus ramps installed, and can't even confirm if a booking towards the end of October is possible.

As much as I'd rather not, I think I'll leave the work til spring next year now so I can get it off the road and SORN'd for the winter.

Strongly considering selling up soon - fallen out of love with the brand a lot now.

[Guest]

On 25/09/2020 at 22:17, aJayMitchell said:

As much as I'd rather not, I think I'll leave the work til spring next year now so I can get it off the road and SORN'd for the winter.

Strongly considering selling up soon - fallen out of love with the brand a lot now.

What are you needing doing? 
I had a chat with them last week and was told I was high up on the list of getting warranty work done but the set up looked a long way off, as did the showroom. 

[C8RKH]

My DRL's have stopped working so need them done under warranty (checked and replaced the fuse yesterday just in case).  Just going to email Laura and that way I have a "record" of the issue being raised within warranty period and then will wait until Park's are up and running to get them sorted. Unless it's critical I'd take a pragmatic approach and give them a chance.

[aJayMitchell]

On 27/09/2020 at 21:46, Andy Norman said:

What are you needing doing? 
I had a chat with them last week and was told I was high up on the list of getting warranty work done but the set up looked a long way off, as did the showroom. 

Funnily enough some blown DRLs too, and a possible issue with a sticky throttle when pulling away. As well as the outstanding fuel rail recall. 

I wouldn't have minded so much if Lotus had been upfront about how long it would take, but the messaging has consistently been "very soon" - and when the Parks deal was announced, servicing and warranty was going to be available in August. 

[twinrotor2]

Parks in aberdeen can do the fuel rail recall as i had mine done by them as Lotus trained one of there engineers on how to do the recall .

[aJayMitchell]

Aware of that, but don't really want to waste my time making two separate appointments. The car will be SORNed for the next 5 months now anyway.

[Guest]

6 weeks since my visit to Parks and still no news about them being ready to accept warranty repair work on the Cup. 🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️
Car is ready to be packed away for winter in a week or two. 
Bummer!  

[stephenwhyte]

Yeah not great Andy. They still don’t have ramps in place apparently - not sure if this is a Lotus hold-up or supplier issue etc but apparently they should have a solution in place in the next couple of weeks, I’m told. As I understand it they’re going to set up the Maserati workshops to accommodate - the height of most of the Lotus cars is the issue apparently and the reason they’ve been unable to get cars in up to now.

Like you, mine will be being stored away soon and I think the annual service I’m waiting for may need to keep until next year now.....

Hopefully next year we will look at this point up here in Scotland as a bump in the road for Lotus owners looking to use Franchise services.

Lotus however really shoulda two forward  and accept there a lot of owners up here who are left feeling abandoned and help us all out when things are back up and running. They are trying to rebuild a brand after all.....

[C8RKH]

How can the height of Lotus cars be an issue for ramps?

[stephenwhyte]

I think they’ve only got drive on ramps at present and will likely be wanting to use 4 posters for the low slung Exige. My guess is, it’s probably a Lotus Dealer standard 

[C8RKH]

To be frank Stephen I don't bloody care about what a "Lotus Dealer Standard" is. They've got ramps. They've got tools. They've got technicians. So get that bloody servicing centre open and let us bring our cars in for work. It's been too bloody long now.

[stephenwhyte]

If only - really don’t get how they feel they can put this out when you still can’t book an appointment for a service (or warranty work according to Andy) 

[Guest]

It’s another 4 weeks minimum until they’re going to be ready. It’s also you call us back, to see if we’re ready to accept cars,  rather than we’ll call you! Wow. 
 

Its weird as they have just serviced a 430CUP with someone on PH forum Scotland page? All very strange. 
 

On the plus side, I’m going to see a man about a 720s. 

[stephenwhyte]

I’m with you there Andy on the “you call us” nonsense - that’s not how you invite new customers to your business, is it?🤦🏻‍♂️
Really quite poor....and the wait to get up and running is poorer still!

[C8RKH]

My car has manufacturers warranty until April when she will be 3 years old.  It needs the DRL's fixing and I have sent Parks an email informing them of this to "report" the issue within the warranty period. Did not get a response, but hey, it's proof of when the issue happened and inside the warranty period. The car has been SORN'd for now due to the issues re COVID and visiting places and I'm not inclined to "unsorn" it for a 700 mkile round trip to a dealer who possibly could look at, never mind a 160 mile round trip to a dealer who can't be arsed to keep us informed properly re what is happening.

The length of time taken for Park's to get up and running is a joke. The lack of proper communications with customers is a joke. Yeah, yeah, I get it re GDPR so can't contact us personally, so, what's the excuse for not using a place like this, or ScottishElises, or both to provide some updates?  Let's be brutally honest here it's not that frigging hard to work out that your potential service customers will be getting more and more pissed of with you and more likely to go elsewhere for anything but warranty work.  I can't believe that the staff in the new Lotus dealer are THAT BUSY that they cannot take the time to look after the current base with some basic comms.

I'm also hugely pissed off with Lotus themselves as it would not have been beyond their wit to have provided some basic comms with updates either.  It's a pathetic situation and one that is really pissing me off and souring my view of the brand. If you don't talk to, or look after your customers, guess what, they DO go elsewhere.

So if Park's or Lotus are actually listening, no more bloody excuses and get some decent comms out there with an update on progress and when we can expect to be able to pay for a service that we need. It's not as if we're actually asking you to provide anything for free - other than some effort on comms!

[aJayMitchell]

Agreed - I made the decision to postpone the service til next year a while back now, and glad I did.

The continued lack of communication (and in some cases downright lies, such as the Facebook post above, and Laura telling me I could book a service months ago) is a complete shambles.

If there are any issues come March/April time then my short spell with Lotus will be finished.

[Toeside]

Just received another letter from Lotus asking me to get the recall done on the Elise. (Fuel rack). It asked me to go to my local lotus dealer.

I was rather frustrated by this letter from customer service at Lotus. I believed the recall work had been completed in September at Parks in Hamilton so I informed them of this. I also took the time to point out that the availability of a "local" Lotus dealer has been some what of a frustration for those living in the North of England and Scotland this year.

We will see what transpires!

 

[C8RKH]

I'm assuming if you've been holding your breath your now quite blue. At least the frustration is now over.

[twinrotor2]

I also got a second recall letter for the fuel rail on my elise, when I contacted lotus to say it was done by parks they had not informed lotus that the recall was done 

 

[Guest]

It’s funny as McLaren Glasgow, under the umbrella of Parks Group, is rated best in the country and they’ve been great at talking to me about a car even though I can’t go and see it yet. They’ve bent over backwards to answer my questions and responded to my emails straight away, discussed movement on price and inclusion of extended warranty deals to be had etc and will deliver all cars under covered car transporter including the services, at no extra cost. The car I’m looking at is only £40k or so more than I spent on the Cup. Makes me think is a Lotus thing, an ingrained mentality from the powers that be, that they don’t really give two shits once the car is sold, then that filters down to the front of house staff in these places.
 

Then look at CMC, has his own place, really cares about the brand and knows some horror stories of what he’s experienced with Scottish main Lotus dealerships. Lotus don’t give two hoots about him or his fantastic reputation. 

Its just crazy. 
 

 

[C8RKH]

Interesting points Andy re the difference in service from ostensibly the same dealer, just different brands. Both selling niche cars to "drivers" and McLaren being a logical "upgrade" for Lotus so get it right you could get people into a Lotus then upsell to a McLaren.