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My son decided to join the Motability Scheme at the start of the year and ordered a BMW i4 from Marshalls Grimsby. As he’s not 25 until a few months time the salesman said it wasn’t a problem as he could resubmit the order and delay the delivery date. In March we received an email from the salesman to say he was resubmitting the order with BMW to put the delivery back to where we wanted it to be. At the same time my son changed the spec and the salesman emailed us back to say this had been done. Last week we had a phone call to say his car had arrived, was the wrong spec and that the new order had never been done and it was their fault. However, Marshalls then said tough and to pick the car up straight away otherwise they would sell it on. I then got both Motability and BMW involved. Despite this we got an email today from Marshalls to say they had cancelled my son’s order without permission from us and that he wouldn’t be getting his car. I immediately contacted Motability who were as much use as a chocolate teapot and refuse to get involved.
This seems to be a running theme with Motability these days.
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@Elliot Could the reason that the car hadn’t been ordered simply be the fact that the Motability system wouldn’t have accepted an order for an i4 until your son was 25, or does it allow an order as long as the delivery date is after the customers 25th birthday?
In fairness to Motability, I don’t see what they can do to help. If the dealer has made an error then it is down to them to resolve it. Hopefully they might be able to nab a cancelled build slot from another dealership as my BMW dealer did with our current X1. This resulted in us getting our car in 3 months when, at the time, others on this forum were waiting up to 7 months. Either way, it’s a shame for your son. Getting a new i4 at just 25 must be very exciting for him.
@Glos Guy the order was confirmed by Motability but they’re not interested and neither are Marshalls. He is so disappointed having saved his hard earned cash to get his dream car. The attitude from Dan Gale at Marshalls has been disgusting. I asked them couldn’t they approach one of their customers who has a later build slot and their answer was why would we do that. They’ve simply sold the vehicle to a retail customer and now my son’s in limbo.
I’m trying to find out the email address for the CEO of Marshalls but struggling to get it.
I can imagine your son’s disappointment, but I’m guessing that he wouldn’t have wanted the car anyway if it was the wrong spec? I hope that you get something sorted. There are i4s sitting around in BMW showrooms, but they usually have lots of options (that you’d have to pay for) and dealers will usually want to place a factory order for a Motability customer. Good luck. Let us know how it ends up.
I can imagine your son’s disappointment, but I’m guessing that he wouldn’t have wanted the car anyway if it was the wrong spec? I hope that you get something sorted. There are i4s sitting around in BMW showrooms, but they usually have lots of options (that you’d have to pay for) and dealers will usually want to place a factory order for a Motability customer. Good luck. Let us know how it ends up.
They won’t place a replacement order now with it no longer being on the scheme.
I hadn’t realised that the i4 was no longer on the scheme. I can now see why it’s such a significant issue. I hope that you get a positive resolution.
I hadn’t realised that the i4 was no longer on the scheme. I can now see why it’s such a significant issue. I hope that you get a positive resolution.
They’ve all washed their hands of it. Motability’s answer is there are plenty of other cars he can choose from. Not exactly the answer he wanted.
If you change your order to a higher or lower spec, it should show up on your Motability account as a change in spec with a higher or lower AP payment?
Always good to check your Motability account if you change something and make sure the details are in order.
For the future ref – I believe you can order a car before your son is 25, so long as it’s you as the driver and on the insurance until his birthday.
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I immediately contacted Motability who were as much use as a chocolate teapot and refuse to get involved.
While i genuinely feel with your son (the i4 is a stunning car, so as a gearhead i can 100% understand how your son’s feeling), there actually isn’t anything MB can do. The model isn’t on the scheme anymore.
The absolute most they can do is to reprimand the dealership for being douches. That’s it. I don’t know if a bit of finger-wagging makes any difference – while i’m less a fan of MB than i was years ago, on this particular one, the fault and responsibility 100% lies at Marshalls in Grimsby.
The only thing to do is to take your business somewhere else and chalk this up as life experience.
They’ve all washed their hands of it. Motability’s answer is there are plenty of other cars he can choose from. Not exactly the answer he wanted.
I bet it isn’t, but it is the only answer they can give. It’s not MB’s fault that the car isn’t available anymore, and if BMW doesn’t offer it to the scheme, then that’s that. I’m genuinely not sure what you think MB should do, or why they would be required to straighten out mistakes/crookery by BMW Marshall. We all know that cars that are not being offered on the scheme are simply not available to order. There’s no reference number to them in the system, so even if they wanted to, their system doesn’t actually allow for it.
So, there’s absolute zero way for MB to order a i4 at the moment. So the only other thing for them to do is, well, to suggest alternatives. As much as it sucks, and i agree that it does, this one is in no way MBs fault.
As for your son, well.. Yeah. There are alternatives on the scheme. They’re not beamers (i personally certainly wouldn’t take my business back to BMW or any dealership that does me like that), but nonetheless. My suggestion would be the Ioniq 6 – while not as pretty a car admittedly, it’s much better spec’d out of the box, and not that far off in terms of quality. If it needs to be one “of the germans”, there’s always the CLA 250e. PHEV, but certainly enough e-range to get stuff done. Hell, i’d argue that the car he “needs” is the Megane E-Tech, and take the difference in AP to have a nice vacation in Spain for 3 weeks.
In the end, it’s 3 years. Gotta cross your fingers that in 3 years the i4 is back on the scheme, or get a cheap used runabout while hoping that it comes back next quarter.
Prior: SEAT Ateca Xcellence Lux 1.5 TSI DSG MY19, VW Golf GTE PHEV DSG MY23
Current: Hyundai Ioniq 6 Ultimate
Next: we'll see what's available in 2028.It sounds as if your son changed from Sport to M Sport if I’m reading it correctly.
Presumably there was a moment in time when it arrived and after the argument, he could have accepted the Sport?
I wonder what made the (admittedly useless) dealer change his mind.
But now it seems like a cut nose spite face situation.
I hope he finds another car he likes, the CLA Rene suggests is a good shout imo
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Thank you, much appreciated.
I would have expected Motability to definitely take the dealer to task and at least issue them a warning. As for him switching to a Megane, that’s definitely a non starter. Marshalls could have contacted their customers who were further down the list for a similar i4 and done a swap but in their words they couldn’t be bothered. My thought is they’ve got a retail customer for this car, something they haven’t denied. My son was even considering taking the car early but Marshalls decided to cancel the order before he could decide.
You really have to take your hat off to this garage, an excellent lesson in how to treat customers badly.
Come on people, with customer service like this why become a customer.
Easier to go elsewhere than deal with these hassles.
Perhaps if there sales drop off they might realise why?
Come on people, with customer service like this why become a customer.
because they offer £500 off the Advance Payment.
Come on people, with customer service like this why become a customer.
because they offer £500 off the Advance Payment.
The BMW dealership that supplied our current car were not advertising any offers, but when I said that I was happy to drive to a Marshall’s dealership if it meant saving £500 they agreed to match it. This was in 2021 though. The world seems to have changed since then 🤔
Come on people, with customer service like this why become a customer.
because they offer £500 off the Advance Payment.
The BMW dealership that supplied our current car were not advertising any offers, but when I said that I was happy to drive to a Marshall’s dealership if it meant saving £500 they agreed to match it. This was in 2021 though. The world seems to have changed since then
The last time I checked there where 3 garages offering this, one in Scotland, this shower and one in Bournemouth, however as it turns out £500 off the AP with no car isn’t a lot of money off anything!
Our best form of assistance to each other is the promotion of good dealerships and the identifying of the bad ones. That way we all can make better informed choices.
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