Recommended VW salesman in Sydney

[BBP]

I bought my GTI from Lorelei at Barloworld Mascot.
It was a very good experience which was made better a month or so after the purchase when Lorelei took the time to ask how my car was going when she saw me at the service counter (booking it in for a rattle investigation). Lorelei was able to help me out with a loan car too.
Very pleasant to deal with, her great, professional service is the reason I'd recommend her.
Cam.

Mmmmm, is she the hot looking Italian/Lebanese woman ?

[raz]

i went to denlo parramatta today to find out if they have any gti`s 5 door dsg in stock and i waited about 10min before someone greeted me and said they were busy someone would attend to me shortly
sales people walked past me a few times including a big fat guy that looked like he was in charge .its funny when you have cash to spend and dont look like you can afford the car you looking at , how no one pays you attention.
i left and will take my business else were

looking to secure a gti by this weekend or by next friday

[hooba]

When I'm ready to deal, I call the dealership to speak to a salesperson before going. I let them know what time frame I'm looking at with regards to buying a car, and agree on an appointment. I've found that it is the best way to get the level of service I want for the purchase process.

[Zeke]

Mmmmm, is she the hot looking Italian/Lebanese woman ?

Wasn't Lorelei the name of one of the mythical Sirens that tryed to lure Ulysses onto the rocks and to doom with her song. Great name for a saleperson if you know your Greek Mythology

[Corey_R]

i went to denlo parramatta today to find out if they have any gti`s 5 door dsg in stock and i waited about 10min before someone greeted me and said they were busy someone would attend to me shortly
sales people walked past me a few times including a big fat guy that looked like he was in charge .its funny when you have cash to spend and dont look like you can afford the car you looking at , how no one pays you attention.
i left and will take my business else were

looking to secure a gti by this weekend or by next friday

As hooba said, if you don't call before going to a dealership then you risk turning up when they're already attending to other customers.

If sales guys are busy then it doesn't matter what you look like, you'll just have to wait.
I went to Barloworld Mascot in a suit and Oliver who BBP recommended had enough time to hand me the keys to a Polo and then that was it, didn't even have a chance to talk to me in the 20 minutes after I returned from the test drive and before I left. Does this mean he isn't a good salesman? No. I didn't have an appointment.

I turned up to Parramatta in cargo pants, tshirt, a raggy old trench coat and in desparate need for a shave, and yet I was served within a few minutes.

[hooba]

I turned up to Parramatta in cargo pants, tshirt, a raggy old trench coat and in desparate need for a shave

I know someone who can help you with that.

[GTICam]

Mmmmm, is she the hot looking Italian/Lebanese woman ?

I actually negotiated the price for my Golf over the phone and was impressed with Lorelei's professionalism. I only got to meet her when I picked up my car. She is an attractive lady with a great personality.

[Someone]

book! It takes a minute, and you should get much better service, than just walking into a dealership. Booking shows you are interesting, walking in just shows that you might be taking an afternoon walk.

Tried that at Chatswood. Booked a test drive in for a specific date/time mid week. Turned up on time, only to be told that the salesman was off sick. He hadn't briefed anyone else. The test car wasn't available.

So - I rebooked for the following week. This time I called before I got there. The same guy was at a training course. The lady I spoke to said there was no test car available. I wasn't looking for anything exotic - just a 118TSI DSG. She said she would call me back when they found a car. Never heard back.

[Corey_R]

And that's just bad service.

You need to look through this thread and take note of the trends of reports. If we had a "1 strike you're out rule", then every dealership in Sydney would be out! But if you read through, you'll see some trends.

The other point I wanted to make is (and this doesn't seem to apply to chatswood based on the last few pages), is that right now the dealers are swapped:
The new Polo just recently came out
The Golf GTD came out last Saturday
The highly awaited Golf R came out last Saturday too
They have the End Of Financial Year Sale running
It's two weeks to EOFY so even for the non-sale-models, people are in a rush to secure vehicles for whatever reason


So yeah - turning up to a dealership unannounced and finding no one to help you because the sales guys are all with customers or tied to their desks entering in previous customer's orders etc is NOT a reason to not recommend a dealership. You could argue it's the opposite. They're so busy because they're doing a great job and the customers are flocking in...

[VWR032]

-1 for Bill Buckle in Brookvale

Have had some pretty terrible service from them on the service side already, but thought I'd give the new car section a go and take the feedback provided in this forum and ring to arrange a test drive of the R. First question are you going to buy one, which is fair enough I guess, but then I also asked a valuer to have a look at my R32 for a trade in price to which he responded I can give you an indicative but I'm not going to get someone to look at it for the sake of it.... Conversation continues with me clearly indicating that I was interested in buying one and I wasn't going to drive the car and get a trade in value unless I was interested in purchasing a car (and I probably would have bought one!) but he still just said lets see how we go. In the end I just said don't worry about it and that I was going to call another dealer instead and he just said ok no worries!

Maybe i'm expecting too much, but sure as hell didn't make we want to go and spend $65k there!

[neil]

I think from all the threads over the years re dealers and salespeople recommendations it simply
not possible to recommend anyone, one member gets great service and another not from the same dealer/salesperson.

I certainly would not recommend any even though I had great service from number 5 dealer I visited who was actually
interested in selling me a vehicle unlike the others.This same dealer gets bad comments from others.
So I think its hard to get good service overall from all.

Can't understand why VWA does nothing about it as they must be reading these forums.

[guest12345]

neil is right, not everyone gets the same experience as the next person. Not everyone is looking for the same experience or type of service from the next person. So it is hard to define a "good salesman"

Some people think, a salesman who offers coffee and tea and be all nice to be "good". Some people think, the salesman who hand them the keys the quickest to be "good" and some people think the salesman who offers the most discount is "good" and if it doesn't fit their category they are "bad"

Every person in this world discriminate a little, and sometimes i'm pretty sure salesman are told not to waste their time, if they judge a person doesn't look like they are going to buy.

One thing i can tell you is, majority of the Volkswagen dealers are examined through mystery shopping, therefore their staff should be performing all the time, because at any point it could be a mystery shopper, which is conduct every fortnight.

[VWR032]

I agree and disagree to a certain extent with recommendations.

I think it is clear that it is hard to recommend an entire dealership as an organisation is only as good as its people and you will obviously get different service based on who you deal with. The other thing that has come through in this thread though is that I think you can recommend an individual sales rep. From what I can tell no one has disagreed with the the recommendations of individuals only on experience with the broader dealership and in fact those individuals that have been recommend have generally had the support of a number of other people.

I also think that different sales styles are one thing, but rude and judgmental behavior is another and things like being left at a counter for minutes on end whilst people are clearly available or being treated with very little respect is probably illustrative of the culture of that organisation and clearly not somewhere I would want to support or spend my money.

Sales styles aside, at the end of the day surely all people are looking for is to be treated with a bit of respect, shown that their sales person has a demonstrated understanding of what you want by asking questions etc, and a good deal on a car. I think if you tick those boxes there would be very few people that would be unhappy with the experience.

That said, I still appreciate that it is a difficult job and that no one wants to deal with time wasters. I just think sometimes that it would be nicer to treat everyone as a potential buyer until shown otherwise rather than to treat them all as a tyre kickers until the wallet is taken out!

[Corey_R]

I think it is clear that it is hard to recommend an entire dealership as an organisation is only as good as its people and you will obviously get different service based on who you deal with. The other thing that has come through in this thread though is that I think you can recommend an individual sales rep. From what I can tell no one has disagreed with the the recommendations of individuals only on experience with the broader dealership and in fact those individuals that have been recommend have generally had the support of a number of other people.

I could also highlight several other paragraphs or sentences over the past few posts.

But yes, you have to look at trends. We're not dealing with robots, and we're not robots ourselves. We're all human. Everyone has different expectations as customers, and every salesman will be under different stresses/workloads/energy levels/moods/emotions/health etc each day.

Hence why I posted earlier to say you need to look at trends. If a particular dealer has 10 recommendations and only 1 negative comment, and especially if that negative comment is "I didn't have an appointment and no one served me because they were too busy", then you could deduce that it's a good dealership. If the one sales person has been recommended multiple times, and no one has been "whatever enough" to come in here and say something negative about them, then you could deduce that they're a good sales person.

Don't ever take a single person's word on a recommendation or criticism (for anything).

[areamihc]

I actually negotiated the price for my Golf over the phone and was impressed with Lorelei's professionalism. I only got to meet her when I picked up my car. She is an attractive lady with a great personality.

I got the exact opposite treatment from her recently. I found her to be rude and obnoxious. It's not as if I'm wearing beggar clothes and buying a ferrari, and even so, you shouldn't judge me. Everyone is a potential customer solely from the fact that we made the effort to come in to the showroom. If I'm not the least bit interested in the cars, why would I be there in the first place.

I've had better service from Macdonalds then I did here in Barlo mascot. Irony isn't it?