Test Driving

[tmac450]

cro, my advise copy and paste that write up and send it to fpv, see what the f*ckers have to say about you going to 3 dealers and not getting a worthy test drive

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Top idea!

Just sent them this:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am currently in the market for a new car, and I have a great amount of options at my disposal.

Having owned two XR6 Turbo's, and having been a Ford supporter my whole life I have a soft spot for the FPV range of products, no matter how under-equipped they may seem. I can comfortably afford your Force6/8/GT/Typhoon products, and as any normal customer I would like to test drive them back to back, under the same conditions as their competition.

To my dismay I had to visit four Ford/FPV dealers (2 x Wollongong, 1 x Bowral, 1 x Warick Farm), all of which had stock available. Each dealer had basic product knowledge of all the offerings, and kept referring to their brochures for more information. The first three dealers refused to offer me a test drive of any vehicle, based upon the fact that it was too much effort in getting the cars out, illegal; my request for a drive outside their designated route (around the block) was unreasonable.

I felt relieved when Warick Farm finally offered me a test drive. I was however restricted to 4000rpm. As you can imagine, I declined the offer.

This is in stark contrast to the VW dealership that knew the vehicle operating manual word for word, and threw me the keys to their flagship Golf R32 and said see you in 2 hours. 2 hours & 150km’s later we had coffee waiting for us, along with a friendly chat about the finer details.

The HSV dealership that also knew the operating manual for their Senator and GTS, and allowed me to drive each car up a mountainous stretch of road, adding 50km’s each to two brand new cars that haven’t as yet been driven in a spirited way.  I was in fact very surprised by all the Holden/HSV dealers I have visited. All have excelled in their customer service approach, and I’d even say some of them offer a level of pre-sales service that equals the likes of Lexus, Audi, BMW, Mercedes, VW, Alfa Romeo.

It is a shame to see Ford/FPV sales departments taking lessons from their “service” departments. I fear that if I can not find a Force6/8, GT, Typhoon to test drive up the same stretch of road I took the HSV&VW offerings, for the first time ever my next performance car may not have a Ford/FPV badge. I am after your help in finding a dealership that wants to sell me a car.

Kind Regards,

Ivan Horg

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Well said.

Can't wait to see if this gets you a response.

I found the Ford dealers to be next to useless when looking for my T. I visited 5 dealerships. Their product knowledge was pathetic. Not one of them knew anything about the factory specials Ford was advertising. Only 2 of them actually had a BF with ZF in stock, 2 didn't even have any Ts at all. When I did finally get to test drive, it was with a guy who'd been working there for 3 days after spending 10 years with Mitsubishi. He had no clue of colours, options, power, economy or even how to read his price lists. I dropped into a Expensive Daewoo yard for comparison and they had at least one of every model to see. Yust another reason why Ford is loosing so much ground in the market.