The new above company has now been in charge of Speeds- Volvo for a while now, has anyone had any dealings with them? are they as good- better than |Speeds? I know PENDRAGON are the overall organisation of Stratstone (who also own BMW, and other leading car dealers!):sorry:
Used to use Speeds Mansfield for Parts, but not been since it changed to Stratstone, i tend to buy from Marshalls now:)
stratstones is a very large group, in fact, i believe the largest motor group in the UK, (as said above, Pendragon), but lets say that size isnt everything.
The Stratstones near me sell Volvos, Jaguars, Land Rovers, Corvettes and Astons...all taken over in the last few years from other well known dealers
Stratstone took over the dealers in Brum - Staff remained the same - good bunch of people, in my experience.
Generally their not that good, definately not a good company to work for from what I hear, cars they have for sale have shed loads of margin across them aswell and they are a nightmare to get discounts out of.
Not impressed with Stratstones Aston Martin in Wilmslow or Ferrari/Maserati in Manchester. Both failed to even manage to arrange test drives...I gave up in the end and took my custom eleswhere, but it looks like Im stuck with them for servicing just to keep the main dealer stamps up to date.:troutslap
speeds was the last of the decent companies to work for in the motor trade, i worked for them for 13 years. Size does not make pendragon better either, the lads at mansfield are good though, as i have known them for years.
[QUOTE=Rufe]stratstones is a very large group, in fact, i believe the largest motor group in the UK[/QUOTE] Must be an English company coz a aint heard of it up here..... Arnold Clark is the biggest car company in Scotland i'd say....
[QUOTE=JASON 60SE]speeds was the last of the decent companies to work for in the motor trade, i worked for them for 13 years. Size does not make pendragon better either, the lads at mansfield are good though, as i have known them for years.[/QUOTE] Couldn't agree more, when i had my 850R few years ago, they did me a full service printout and read fault codes, & reset service light for nowt! Mind you, our youth bought a brand new V70P2 T5 the year before so they may have expected some repeat business, LOL:)
[QUOTE=fraz13]Must be an English company coz a aint heard of it up here..... Arnold Clark is the biggest car company in Scotland i'd say....[/QUOTE] Possibly, but in England and Wales i would say that its Pendragon group, though i have been told that they are the largest motor delaer in the UK, but maybe they dont have much in scotland? They do go under various names, pendragon, paramount, stratstones, baytrack, evans halshaw as well as some other random family names, are examples of names they have used around here alone.
Evans halshaw avoid like the plague, its just reg vardy re named and they havent done anything with them yet so not a good company!
Tried to get my car into them in Nottigham West Bridgeford, they were definately NOT as accomadating as Speeds, but then it was because I wanted a curtosy car from them and they dont do thier own insurance, my stupid insurance company wouldnt insure me short term on one of thier loan cars either! dont know why I have a T5 and they offered a 20T! ah well ended up taking it into Norwich so I had the wife's XC90 for a week while she had the loaner from Inchape, everyone was happy :) apart from when I got the bill at the end of it, would you believe the bl00dy roof strips are about £60odd a piece and I needed both replacing along with an ABS sensor :O
The car your taking in for a service has no influence on what courtesy car you get. Service departments will typically run between 2-5cars at most depending on the size of the garage, they dont have access to a full fleet of cars like some people think and basically have what they are given. A courtesy car also costs a service department alot of cash as they have to stump up the depreciation over the 3-6months they use them for so are very much a privilege people seem to see past.
They were VERY POOR for me. I took my C70 in with a wind noise and leak issue. They said 2 hours labour. Got the car back having been told it was fixed. Got the hose out straight away and found it still leaked and the wind noise was as bad as ever. (Having paid £188 YES £94 per hour). Took it back again, to then be told it needed another 2.5 hours labour to lift the windows in their casette! So It was a no, and I said to them either fix it for no more cost or refund me. They chose the refund option, stating it was almost impossible to sort this problem, etc, could offer no guarantees. Went to Derby Transit Centre, and for £116.50 they did what Stratstone couldn't do. No leaks, and not even the slightest wind noise, even at autobahn speeds!