Truth is, most of these guys work on commision and profit sharing. There’s no room for them to score extra with a motability order – I’ve heard from £150 to £500 profit for the dealer on Motability orders depending on the source, I believe it to be in the £250 range. With a private sale, they can negotiate on price, so the higher they get the better, they can push extended warranties, service plans, finance deals, try to score points on a part-ex deal etc. and potentially put a lot more in their own pocket.
Not saying it doesn’t suck as a customer for us, but I do kinda understand why they aren’t as excited to deal with a motability customer as they are a retail one.
I personally have only had one bad “I’m a motability customer” response from a dealer and quite happy to name and shame, VW in Sunderland, Tyne & Wear, but it was over 4 years ago when I was looking at Tiguans – I was trying to get them to match a £500 off deal being offered elsewhere, based on the fact that they had a blue Tiguan on the showroom floor with huge motability stickers along both sides, and their price-match promise stickers on the bonnet of the same car. Guy just point-blank said “No, we don’t do that on motability cars” – I’ve never been back as this was my second bad experience at this dealership and the first one was as a retail customer when my son was looking for a brand new car and the salesman (might have been the same one, not sure) said “You don’t want that car (the one he asked about), you probably can’t afford the insurance, look at this one instead”
To this day, I still drive 30-odd miles round trip to Lookers in Newcastle for all servicing and repairs because I don’t want to ever put a penny in thier pockets. Hell my work van is a Caddy and if I need anything for that I order from TPS in newcastle for pretty much the same reason. I did ONCE buy a single bolt from them for the caddy as the van was off the road without it, but in the last 5 years, they’ve had £7 out of me because of those two experiences.
"Man is born in freedom, but he soon becomes a slave, in cages of convention, from the cradle, to the grave."