Used car salesmen

I went to the garage to buy one of these (see right) today. A one year old VW Touran. I had previously visited the VW main dealer and priced up the car that I wanted, but on the website of Arnold Clark garage, the same car comes in significantly cheaper, so I went there to see what they could offer.

While they could offer a couple of Tourans which I had a look at on their forecourt, what they couldn't offer was customer service.

I had been impressed by the sales-manner of the guy in the VW garage, he had been nice, approachable and had offered me slightly over the odds on a trade in on my current car against the 56 plate Touran. The guy at Arnold Clark on the other hand just complained the entire time and completely refused to even hint at a trade in price for my current car. Without that vital bit of information I was unable to decide whether to buy from them or from the main dealer. It seems that Arnold Clark will only give you a trade-in price for your old car once you have committed to buying a new car from them. How useless is that?

Oh, and I wanted a blue car. They had several on their website but when I asked in the showroom they said they couldn't find any blue ones. And the showroom prices are completely unrelated to the online prices.

In the end I gave up on them and went and bought a car from the VW dealer. OK, I might have ended up paying a small percentage of the cost more there, but at least the service was good (and they had a blue one). If the pre-sales service is bad at Arnold Clark, I have no confidence at all regarding their after-sales service.