Same with MB of Basingstoke - they were super for my previous two but they have recently been absorbed into Sandown Group so we will see what happens. My experience of MB Guildford was shocking and they are part of Sandown as well.
The Sandown Group....an interesting entity.
The Salisbury dealer is part of the group. It seems their loyalty to a customer is largely based on the customer's loyalty to them. As a family we have bought 9 cars from them since 1994 and it is noted.
But they went through a bad patch a couple of years ago when a new service manager proved to be a disaster. That actually prompted me to go to BMW...for a while.
The new one, Josephine Golden, is amazingly good. I reckon she will end up as a Dealer Principal one day.
The Dealer Principal, Chris, runs Salisbury and Winchester and there is a core of senior people who have been there since 2000 or before. The business runs well, does good deals and is hard to fault. That it is the closest dealership, just 3 miles from home, helps.
Interestingly Sandown UK was and may still be owned by Sandown Motor Holdings.
Mercedes-Benz South Africa (MBSA) holds a 62.6 percent share in Sandown Motor Holdings (Pty) Ltd, which owns dealerships in the Western Cape and Gauteng. 12.4% shareholding is held by Managing Director, Roy McAllister, with the remaining 25% vested in a BEE consortium called True Class Consortium.
Sandown Motor Holdings (SMH) commenced trading in May 1982 when it was awarded the Mercedes-Benz franchise for Sandton. The company’s head office is in Bryanston, Gauteng.
But last year there was a restructuring and UK Sandown Group established with just one Director, Mr John Guest, who worked in IT and is now semi-retired, dealing in antique prints. There is no other information on the Companies House web site. Prior to the middle of 2016 one of the McAllister family from South Africa was the UK Director.
