- This topic has 41 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 8 months ago by
.
- Topic
Hello all,
This is going to be a long one but I ordered a bmw i4 msport back in September 2023 and it’s finally arrived at the dealership after much headache, no communication from the dealership and being given the wrong VIN for which was another issue.
So the correct car has finally arrived. We didn’t attend the dealership to place the order as the dealer was a distance away and we were completely unaware this is against the motability policy.
As a result motability have taken the submission off and we can no longer have the vehicle which is sitting at the dealership!
Since the i4 is no longer on the scheme we cannot order this car again it would have to be another vehicle.
I have put in a complaint to the dealership and spoken to motability as we feel this was the dealers fault for not letting us know we had to be there in person. We would have done so if we were notified of this!
Motability and the dealer are both passing the buck to each other. I do feel this was the dealers fault as they should have notified us!
We have had to now go directly to BMW to put in a complaint as I’ve been told only they can have a say now as to whether this can go ahead.
This had all been so frustrating as the car is literally sitting to be collected!
Has anyone had this kind of issue and what was the outcome, as we would possibly need to place a new car order for a different car and wait again.
We have already had our current vehicle for 5 and a half years.
So much more to say but I will stop here.
thanks
- Replies
There was an issue with one of the specs amongst many issues, so I had to tell them. This is because I was unaware it was against motability policy
I was dealing with Marshall’s Scunthorpe and Grimsby, originally Scunthorpe and then when the car arrived it was with Grimsby.
We’ve had massive problems with Marshalls at Grimsby which I’ve documented in another thread. I think they’re using Motability orders to sell the cars to retail customers. I got BMW involved but they were as much use as a chocolate teapot.
How does this work?
Im guessing they order a car on Motability and after arrival, if they have a retail buyer at the time which gives more profit they make up excuses to the person who ordered it through Motability?
Not had a great experience with Marshalls at all, just issue after issue and now I literally have no car!
I am raising complaints for this wherever I can.
I am so sorry to hear this. Someone somewhere is being a jobsworth.
It used to be the case that you could order remotely from any dealership, which many people did in order to take advantage of offers. About 6 years ago, Marshalls VW South Oxford (Didcot) were offering £500 off Tiguans and many of us on this forum ordered one from them if our local VW dealer wouldn’t match it (which they wouldn’t). Other dealerships complained when they realised that they were losing business and it became a condition that you could only order from a dealership if you went there personally.
However, other than this slightly petty Motability rule, there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to have the car. This is an issue that Motability should be able to resolve. The dealer won’t be able to, as if the order has been cancelled they can’t input a new order for a car no longer on the scheme. After @Elliot son’s problems, it does perhaps point to an issue with the dealership though, who may well have cancelled the Motability order themselves and blamed Motability.
It could well be that the dealer has nabbed it for a retail customer, but where that argument slightly falls down is that only around 25% of private buyers choose the 35 model and almost none would order a base car with no options, so a Motability order of a 35 model, especially if it doesn’t have all the desirable options, wouldn’t be that easy to sell. However (at the risk of contradicting myself) if they were going to be stuck with it you’d think they’d be fighting your corner for you.
My advice would be to speak to Motability again and if they won’t budge say that you wish to make a formal complaint (against Motability, not the dealership). That might get you through to a manager who may have the authority to overturn a poor decision made by a minion. In the meantime, let the dealership know that you are doing this so that they don’t sell the car, or pass it on to another dealership. If you make a formal complaint, you may well find that Motability come back to you and say that the order was cancelled by the dealership and not Motability. If that’s the case, make a formal complaint about Marshall’s to Motability. They have a fining system for dealers who behave poorly. Good luck and I hope that this gets resolved for you. Let us know.
You will have no comeback with this, or any resolution.
There are rules and procedures for joining Motability and if you have broken them, the contract is null and void.
No point in complaining as its obvious you wont get anywhere, just put it down to experience.
There is a lot more going on than passing it off as “we did not know”. Any dealership insists you come in and sign up for the vehicle. There is a few people who have tried to order remotely and could not, they had medical issues and its too much for them.
Motability will try their very best to help their customers. But if you break the rules, then its on you.
Thank you for the advice glos guy. I have now put in a complaint wherever I can. With motability, with the dealership and also with bmw directly. I will also go to the motor ombudsman if I have too.
I’ll have to wait until next week now before I get a resolution. I was told to contact bmw directly as they may be able to let it go ahead.
thanks to everyone who has replied.
Thank you for the advice glos guy. I have now put in a complaint wherever I can. With motability, with the dealership and also with bmw directly. I will also go to the motor ombudsman if I have too. I’ll have to wait until next week now before I get a resolution. I was told to contact bmw directly as they may be able to let it go ahead. thanks to everyone who has replied.
Good luck. I genuinely don’t think that the dealership or BMW can help you unless and until Motability reinstate the order (if they are prepared to do so). The i4 is no longer on the scheme, so neither the dealership or BMW could reinstate the order, or let you have the car, even if they wanted to. Your only hope in this scenario is Motability and the power to overturn this decision is solely in their hands.
I’m not overly hopeful, but it’s always worth a shot. I am not averse to taking on large organisations when I feel that I have been wronged and the vast majority of times I get a positive outcome. It helps that I have some legal knowledge, but most organisations have escalation procedures. I rarely accept an initial offer and escalation usually results in a substantial improvement.
Your situation is slightly different as Motability are enforcing a rule, but IF you know as a fact that the order had been accepted on the Motability system then that would be your argument. If it had, there might be a weakness in their system that doesn’t ask for verification that the customer has ordered in person, even though that is in their written rules. Even if the dealer made a mistake, Motability accepted the order and therefore the fairest resolution IMHO would have been that the dealership incurs a fine or sanction from Motability but, as the customer, you still get your car. It could of course be that the dealer cancelled the order themselves when they realised that this might be an outcome, once the fact that you’d ordered remotely had been exposed.
On a lesser scale, Motability refused a lease extension on our current BMW as it didn’t meet their new criteria for permitting extensions (20,000 miles max, adaptations etc). I contacted them a second time and asked for their formal complaints escalation procedure and lo and behold an extension was then granted. There will definitely be someone at Motability who can authorise the re-instatement of your order. The issue will be whether you can get to them and whether they are willing. Good luck.
Wise words Glos guy.
But you are trying to advise someone with thier version of event, which on most cases misses out on critical information. Likewise I,ve seen arguments go to arbitration and only then do you get an accurate picture of both sides. Neither side is blameless.
This one reminds me of elliot, somehow he encounters problems with officialdom and it is never his fault. What I do get from reading the posts is that if you phone up officials and have an antagonistic approach right from the start, usually its doesnt go well for the complainant.
You are the agent of your own malfeasance.
This particular issue, I would suggest moving on and learn from experience.
I dont know why you would come on here and air your grievance when Citizens Advice have professionals who can help you. It just seems like common sense.
@Ioniq I agree (and should have said) that a calm and professional approach, rather than aggression, is always the best approach, but I detected from @cars123 posts that they would be taking that approach anyway. I also agree that there are always two sides to every story.
Where we differ, however, is that I wouldn’t just take that situation lying down and chalk it up to experience. The vast and overwhelming majority of people adopt that approach and, frankly, businesses rely on that apathy to save them from having to deal with issues that may cost them money. However, from my experience, when taken to task with a sound and reasoned argument, especially when escalated, most will see sense.
The annoying thing in this instance is that resolving this issue would not cost Motability any money. They had (presumably) already approved the order, so all they need to do is reinstate the admin of the order – the car already exists so it’s not as if they need to open up the order books for a car that is no longer on the scheme. Given the value of Motability’s business to both Marshall’s and BMW, they won’t get any issues with either if they are asked to honour the order.
The reason that I am sadly not hopeful that this situation will be resolved satisfactorily is because whilst Motability are the only people who could now resolve it, my hunch is that it wasn’t them who cancelled the order. I don’t think it’s coincidental that two contributors to this forum have had almost identical issues over the same car with the same dealership. My hunch is that they accept orders from Motability customers but don’t order the cars until several months later (which explains the lack of communication). In all fairness this happens all the time with many dealerships (as they are waiting for their build allocations to open up), and customers are never told, but what the dealer must do is input the order on the Motability system even if they haven’t ordered it from the manufacturer. If they are tardy in doing this and the car suddenly disappears off the scheme, the order cannot progress. The dealership may have fallen foul of this and is using the remote ordering excuse to get out of a hole. We will never know.
I know for a fact that in my case it was Motability that has cancelled the order.
when I spoke to the customer service representative I was told to contact BMW directly because they are very strict about these things, I do feel like I was just being told this to get me off the phone though.
As frustrated as I am about this my complaints were not aggressive at all and I have kept it professional and made all the points I needed too. It was not one sales person at Marshall’s Grimsby that placed my order over email/phone but 2. So this is something that didn’t just slip through but clearly happens at the dealership.
When I spoke to the sales person that is dealing with me after this transpired he was very hesitant to provide any details about raising a complaint,
I can understand I have some minimal blame in this as I should have read the rules but I also feel as Motability customers we rely on the experts to some extent at the dealership to advise us on issues like this.
Thank you again.
Wise words Glos guy. But you are trying to advise someone with thier version of event, which on most cases misses out on critical information. Likewise I,ve seen arguments go to arbitration and only then do you get an accurate picture of both sides. Neither side is blameless. This one reminds me of elliot, somehow he encounters problems with officialdom and it is never his fault. What I do get from reading the posts is that if you phone up officials and have an antagonistic approach right from the start, usually its doesnt go well for the complainant. You are the agent of your own malfeasance. This particular issue, I would suggest moving on and learn from experience. I dont know why you would come on here and air your grievance when Citizens Advice have professionals who can help you. It just seems like common sense.
In my case they never had any intention of supplying my son the car. As soon as it arrived at Marshalls they put it straight on the BMW website as being available for retail customers. They took the approach that we wouldn’t take delivery of the car and every time we tried to call the dealership principal he was either on holiday or in a meeting. They kept saying they would call us but even though they knew we all worked full time they only rang our landline despite having all of our mobile numbers. I even emailed them to say we might be left with the decision of having to take the car but their answer to that was that they had already cancelled the order and were selling the vehicle to one of their retail customers.
Motability were absolutely useless. When I told them what was happening, their answer was they can’t sell a Motability order to a retail customer. When I told them this goes on all of the time they claimed this was the first time they had heard of this happening and there was nothing they could do about it. How about sitting down with the manufacturers for a start seeing as Motability are their biggest customer. BMW were just as bad. They claimed that they had no control over what their dealerships do.
In other words, they are all happy to take our money but none of them including Motability give a stuff about us. You only have to look at how long it takes you to get through to them on the phone these days to see they are not what they used to be. But they have a monopoly so makes no difference to them how they treat their customers.
As for my son, he’s ordered his new car and the treatment from the dealership so far has been first class.
I did read up on your story @elliot and it’s just such a shame not more can be done in situations like this.
There needs to be much stricter rules on the dealerships so they can get their act together.
I may be naive but I am still hopefully that my situation can be resolved because well I have no other choice but to be hopeful at the moment.
In my situation as a customer who’s been honest with my dealings and the dealership who has been dishonest, it feels honesty is being punished in this situation.
I will continue to push through in fighting this at the highest level I can. Even if nothing is done if as many of us log our dissatisfaction when something like this occurs then at least in the long run these things may not happen again to other customers.
@cars123 If you are 100% certain that it was Motability who cancelled the order, then this confirms that it is only Motability who can resolve it. Complaining to Marshalls or BMW will get you nowhere if that’s the case.
It is unreasonable to expect every Motability customer to know all the ins and outs of the rules of the scheme, especially as Motability have a habit of changing the rules without consultation or even communication. We also know from personal experience that sales advisors in dealerships, including those who are meant to be Motability specialists, often know less than we do!
IMO your strength of argument with Motability hinges on the length of time that has elapsed since your order was accepted, which is almost a year. Had they cancelled the order within days or even a few weeks of you placing it, due to this rule, then fair enough, but to leave your order open for almost a year and then, as soon as the car arrives, cancel the order defies all logic and as well as being incredibly petty seems very nasty and not customer facing. They should just let you have it and wrap the dealership across the knuckles and tell them not to do it again. I’m really struggling to understand why Motability aren’t adopting this approach as they are usually quite accommodating, which is why I strongly suspect that there is another factor at play here that you aren’t being told. The fact that Motability and Marshall’s are blaming each other also tends to point to this fact IMHO.
Whatever happens, do let us know. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you. We aren’t interested in an EV and the i4’s coupe styling was too impractical for us, but I think it’s one of the most exciting cars to have joined the scheme in recent years and had that happened to me I’d have been devastated.
@Elliot What did your son go for in the end and was it still through Motability?@glos guy The reason for raising this with all parties is because Motability seem to be passing the buck onto BMW. I have raised it with the dealership and BMW direct because if they conclude that the order can go ahead with motabilities permission then it will then be clearly motabilities decision and they will not be able to tell me that I need to go to BMW anymore.
I’m hoping that once Motability see this they can overturn their decision and let the order go through again.
This is all the dealerships fault mainly and Motability have acknowledged this aswell. For this reason they really should let this go through.
Ill keep the forum updated to how this goes when I heard back this coming week.
Keeping everything crossed for you @cars123
If you want this sorted look up the email address of the ceo of Motability group because EVERYONE you will contact at Motability will be USELESS.
When I was facing no car after an accident as the new car was taking so long the helpline said tough. I emailed the ceo it was sorted the next day they changed the hire car to a PHEV to help me run it and promised me they wouldn’t leave me stuck (at the time as well as my health my 15 year old son had just been diagnosed with diabetes, fatty liver, possibly ASD and probably Coeliac too so lots of long hospital trips).
So if you’re facing anything out of the ordinary I strongly recommend emailing the ceo
Thank you for your input @rich44 I will put a complaint through the CEO, do you have the details for the ceo complaints channel, I have googled this but have conflicting information.
Thanks
No problem I just checked thru my sent items this was the address I used.
andrewmiller@motabilityoperations.co.uk
That was in April so I guessing he’s still the CEO now if not I’m sure they’ll have it redirected anyway. I got a email from him almost immediately and next working day I got the exec level complaint person who held my complaint all the way thru as a single point of contact (way it should be for everything like accidents etc).
Good luck if anyone can sort this out fir you it’s these guys. I was told I’d had a hire car for 6 months nothing they could do blah blah blah they’d return my PIP money but it’d take up to 6 weeks (funny how they can take it with 3 days notice). After emailing them it was sorted inside 24 hours and they stayed with me until I got my Enyaq
Thanks @rich44 I have now emailed Andrew miller. Motability are useless I seem to get the usual oh no poor you I’ll get this escalated, then nothing happens.
Thanks @rich44 I have now emailed Andrew miller. Motability are useless I seem to get the usual oh no poor you I’ll get this escalated, then nothing happens.
Have Marshall’s agreed to hold the car until you get a final answer from Motability? My worry would be that Motability finally say you can have the car that was ordered, but by then it will be too late as it will have been sold or transferred to another dealership looking for one. I suspect that the chances of them letting you start all over again with another new order for a car that hasn’t been on the scheme for some time now are vanishingly small (if indeed you’d even want to, given the lead times).
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.