Disappointed in Lotus Birmingham (Servicing)

[aquiss]

On July 19th, I was asked to make contact with my dealer (Birmingham) as they were going to do a couple of updates to car and supply me with All Weather Mats. So I make a booking for today, 29th August, the first date Lotus had available after the mats were coming into them.

I was advised that my car would be picked up by covered lorry in the morning and back with me by the end of the day.

I got text messages yesterday, advising they would arrive at 8.00am. As I had no show, I chase them up today at 10:00am to be told my car is being collected at 1:30pm and won't be back with me until September 4th (at the earliest). As you can imagine, being left with no car for that length of time is unacceptable. I have cancelled the collection and they will refer it back to Lotus (you what?). I was also told they could not arrange for a new date, because of GDPR (what?!), so it looks like Lotus Birmingham use a 3rd party service centre....reading between the lines.

I've waited around for 6 weeks for this appointment, changed my plans (including a holiday break) to get unprofessionally messed around this morning. I have no idea why it needs such a long period of time to update software (as I was told this was not possible OTA), but it's the first time I feel well and truly annoyed with Lotus.

[C8RKH]

Sorry to hear this tale of woe. However, I am absolutely not surprised at the shit show you are experiencing.

Once again Lotus and its dealers struggle with the basics around customer service, and it appears here that you have been exposed, in some way, to a poorly designed back office process around booking services etc.  It's quite staggering when companies get the basics around what they do (or you could say why they exist) so wrong. You've spent over £100k on a "premium" car and so should expect a premium level of service. All lotus marketing BS about going all premier and upmarket is nonsensical blubber if they cannot deliver a "premium" service, surely.

Is your booking not a "contract for service" which has been broken? If so are you not entitled to recompense for your losses and inconvenience? 

[aquiss]

Just spoken to Lotus Customer Services, polite, but could not really grasp what I was trying to say. All he wanted to do is get a Enterprise Hire Car out to me today. I had to point out that my car was still with me and not being collected and I'm certainly not releasing it until i know what the heck is going to happen.

In the end I had had to signpost him to go and ask Lotus Birmingham to find out exactly what needs a week to sort and leave me with a car at the same time.

All this nonsense, merely for me following up a Lotus email advising All Weather Mats are available for free for customers. As you say @C8RKH I invested in over 100K, new to the brand as a customer and being treated no better than if I owned a Dacia.

[aquiss]

So just been called back from Lotus Customer Services to be advised that Lotus Birmingham can't now get me in until middle of October, however, I could take it over today and then can have a look. I pointed out I live 80 miles away from their centre and I'm not doing a 160 mile round trip to be told nothing they can do. I've told them to stick that where the sun don't shine.

I'm simply not going to get messed around. They made the appointment, they change the plans. If this is the servicing experience then they have real problems.

Most disappointed!

Edited August 29 by aquiss

[Chillidoggy]

Those mats will probably fade, anyway.

[C8RKH]

1 hour ago, aquiss said:

I invested in over 100K, new to the brand as a customer and being treated no better than if I owned a Dacia.

I know Dacia owners, and they get treated a damn sight better than you have been here.

As I said, totally fooked up back office processes with the arse not knowing what the sphincter is doing resulting in shit all over the place. The apologists will be along shortly to tell me not to be so hard on Lotus. Well, I never set these high expectations of a "premium brand or service", Lotus did!  Maybe they can add a new phrase to their marketing, "Hyper Shit" to go with the "hyper" everything else.

 

[aquiss]

Well after getting no updates from Rybrook (Lotus Birmingham) or a promised call from a manager, I've brought my relationship with Birmingham to the end and registered my details and car with Lotus Silverstone.

Just the conversations with Silverstone staff, promised call backs (that happened) and being frank and honest with their concerns about HQ atm, a light and day difference. They have me booked in for a couple of days and Lotus hire locked and ready to use.

[red22]

I know what you mean and so does Lotus Birmingham themselves I asked them why they were so poor only to be told because the brand its self is so poor. Lotus UK dont give a damn about there customers, even the receptionist at Lotus Birmingham has an attitude. I have purchased a Eletre R (not taken delivery yet) and that its self was eye opener and when I hear these stories of how poor they are im asking myself do I really want to be part of this shit show.

[aquiss]

To be fair, to Lotus, I think a lot of the issues at Birmingham, need to be levelled at Rybrook themselves, as they appear to be heavily invested (or more focused) in McLaren, Rolls Royce and Maserati and the likes, at that dealership, with Lotus pushed up into the corner on the top floor. This is supported by, normally, only one person (Jade - she is polite, but on my handover, she forgot my appointment and my numberplates or handover details was not even ready) who is ever available for sales. I do also agree with you on the receptionist, there is a level of underlining attitude that I have faced in the past.

My review for you, the product, the car itself, has a ton of USPs, don't give up on the car, but maybe if possible, consider seeing if you can, transfer your order to another dealer (or move your relationship to another soon after ownership).

[exeterjeep]

36 minutes ago, aquiss said:

only one person

Someone suggested to me that Lotus Bristol also only have 1 Lotus person (sales), who was pretty busy and had little time to approach local businesses to drum up support/interest in Lotus EV's. (Including local leasing companies. )

[red22]

21 hours ago, exeterjeep said:

Someone suggested to me that Lotus Bristol also only have 1 Lotus person (sales), who was pretty busy and had little time to approach local businesses to drum up support/interest in Lotus EV's. (Including local leasing companies. )

When we were looking to Purchase Lotus UK put us in contact with a new dealer which was Lotus Manchester, after a week of chasing to purchase I gave up because no one would return my call or speak to me, anyway after 2 weeks I had the call to ask if they could help, total farse. It turned out that the dealer had opened but with no cars and no staff to sell them and was being managed by an sales manager that had just started. This would never happen with BMW or Audi so it just goes to show what how inexperienced and messed up the whole set up is. 

[C8RKH]

And yet @red22 Lotus Cars is, iirc, H.R. Owen is it not who have tons of experience as a dealer and who you would have thought wo9uld have planned, and staffed, their new dealership opening properly?  Whilst I am a vocal critic of Lotus 2.0 and its crappy business processes, in this instance if I was Lotus I'd be having some long serious words with a dealer who didn't open properly.

[PhilM]

You're suggesting Lotus dealerships are worse than Land Rover dealerships, surely not!!...

[aquiss]

On 02/09/2024 at 21:07, PhilM said:

You're suggesting Lotus dealerships are worse than Land Rover dealerships, surely not!!...

Coming from a Jaguar I-Pace previously, my local JLR group (Hatfields) were actually really very good. It was a bit sad to leave them, but depending on what comes out of JLR (especially on the Jaguar side)...I may end up back with them if Lotus don't show improvement in the next couple of years.

[kabre]

27 minutes ago, aquiss said:

Coming from a Jaguar I-Pace previously, my local JLR group (Hatfields) were actually really very good. It was a bit sad to leave them, but depending on what comes out of JLR (especially on the Jaguar side)...I may end up back with them if Lotus don't show improvement in the next couple of years.

My i-Pace dealer experience was also great and I would likely have stuck with the Jaguar brand had they not procrastinated about EV development half a decade after releasing the iPace!  JLR dealers needed to do a lot less to embrace the i-Pace than Lotus has had to for the Eletre given the seismic shift in brand strategy, but that shift is clearly still very much work in progress from a dealer perspective - and bad news always travels a lot faster than good news!

[exeterjeep]

Our local JLR was ok, but got a lot worse after being taken over by Vertu. We almost walked away.

Anyone taking on a new generation 'expensive' Jaguar EV when they get launched may be taking on a new set of issues, but hopefully the reduced number of Jaguar dealers will be able to fix things quickly - wait to see.

Lotus should have got the Emira right first time, but did not seem to manage that. As for the all new Electre/Emeya being so new and more advanced it was always likely to have issues. The thing though is how they have dealt (or not dealt) with them.