Driven to distraction

According to The Times, ‘Car sales have plummeted during the third lockdown to their worst February levels since 1959, new figures have revealed.’

Leaving aside the obvious question, ‘Why were car sales so low in February 1959?’ (the month before I was born), I don’t think this news is any great surprise.

One, we’re in lockdown so showrooms are closed and it’s currently not possible to test drive any cars.

Yes, you can ‘click and collect’ a new or used car, or have it delivered to your door, but I’m old-fashioned and I want to test drive a car (or model) before I buy it.

Two - and I know this makes me sound paranoid - but if I’m going to hand over a large sum of money I want to do it at the dealership where I can see the car in question, secure in the knowledge that in a few minutes I will be driving it away.

Buying a car online may be the future (and even the present) but there must be a temptation for criminal masterminds to set up fake sites that purport to sell cars before disappearing with your cash in a cloud of burning rubber.

Three, February is always a slow month for new car sales because new registration plates are introduced on March 1, theoretically making new cars sold from that date more valuable when they are sold.

Anyway, the reason this interests me is because I need to replace my ‘old’ car that was written off two days before Christmas.

I say ‘old’. I bought it new in December 2018 and it had only done 31,000 miles when it succumbed to a flash flood in my village.

Thanks to lockdown I haven’t been in a great rush to replace it because I haven’t had to go many places and if necessary I can use my wife’s Mini which is great fun to drive if a little impractical.

For example, you wouldn’t get a Christmas tree in a Mini. Or even two large suitcases. Well, not in the boot.

But I digress.

The purpose of this post is to highlight another possible reason for the plummet in car sales in February - a serious lack of drive (no pun intended) among car salesmen that can be summed up in one word: ennui.

As soon as my insurance company declared my old car a write off I contacted the dealership I bought it from to get the current market value of the car for my insurance claim.

I spoke to the sales team - twice - and explained what had happened.

Bizarrely, no-one thought to ask if I was looking for a replacement or offer to help find me one.

Even when I informed them that the insurance company had settled my claim, no-one followed it up or sent me information about new or used vehicles in stock.

When, four weeks ago, I called the sales team for a third time, I made my position absolutely clear.

I was looking for a used or nearly new car. (I specified two models.) Could they please register my interest and keep me informed of any vehicles that met the brief.

This particular dealership has showrooms all over the south east but since that call I’ve heard nothing.

It’s true I told them I wasn’t in a rush and was prepared to wait until the showrooms reopen, but if I was a salesman I would have at least stayed in touch - not in a pushy way - and kept a potential customer informed.

Instead not a word or email.

As a result I’ve started to look further afield. A couple of weeks ago, for example, I called a dealership in the East Midlands and asked the salesman to send me photo of a car I’d seen online sans images.

Nothing arrived so last weekend I rang again and spoke to one of his colleagues who made a point of giving me his personal contact details.

I'm still waiting though for the photos I asked for.

I was told the car is currently being driven by one of the directors, which brings me to another issue.

I understand why demonstration vehicles are often used by employees prior to being sold but it seems to me that these vehicles are often more for the benefit of staff than customers.

Years ago I was put off a dealership in Peterborough when I was told that a demonstration car wouldn’t be available for two weeks because it was in France with an employee who had taken it there on holiday.

When I took a different model on a test drive I was distracted by a persistent clunking noise.

When I investigated I discovered some empty beer bottles in a box in the boot. The salesman driving the car for his own personal use had clearly had a good party the night before.

That was more than a decade ago and although I have changed my car twice since then I have never been back to that dealership.

Meanwhile I shall continue my search for a new car. I don’t expect much help from the motor trade though.