Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Classic Morgans (pre-CX) Stratstone Stourport

If the written material is factual and the opinion left out, it's hard to argue on either side. Posts that run along the lines of 'Don't go to company X 'cos they're a bunch of tossers' is a lot different to 'When company X serviced my car they didn't change the oil'.

It can take companies years to get a good reputation, and minutes for the internet to destroy that.

The phrase 'I wouldn't return to company X' should suffice without discussing detail..

I rather agree, the dealers I would suggest in most cases do their best to care for their customers and do their best for them, after all it is in their best interests to do so. If they do not then they will not retain customer base. It should also be remembered that they are sometimes the middle man between the customer and the manufacturer, this can lead to difficult and an unclear position, which leads the customer to believe it is the dealer that is not fixing the issue when actually the manufacturer is the bottleneck. There have been various examples of this sited on the forum in the past.

Absolutely. Clearly it is no-one's interests to make unqualified defamatory statements about any individual or organisation, but one can hardly be sued for making provably accurate statements of fact, neither for expressing a personal opinion.

The trick is to understand whether by so doing, one would help either the dealer to improve their service, or the person to whom one is offering the opinion.

It's generally a good rule that unless one can say something positive one should say nothing, but if by so doing it places a friend at risk, is that such a good thing?

For me, I think the best thing to say in this circumstance might be along the lines of "If you are close enough to Mike Duncan, then take it to him, because he's a Morgan man through and through and provides truly excellent service".

Legal .????? OMG all I did was ask if anyone had any experience of/ with the Stour dealership .

What happened?

So sorry to have started this thread.

Perhaps there is a place for a website like "Trip Advisor", a sort of "Dealer Advisor" site!

I am reluctant to use any of the big dealer chains as I have never had more than adequate service at best from any of them. I have had a better general experience from single site dealers overall and when things have gone wrong, they have been more amenable to sorting it out.

I think people are being over sensitive over the legal ramifications of general criticism on the forum. If it is fair comment or fundamentally true or in good faith, then there would be minimal consequences. If the subject wanted it taken down, then to do so will minimise consequences to the forum.

For the likes of the big dealer chains, commercial concerns override most things; suing a forum or user will be expensive and provide too much bad publicity over a much wider spectrum than just the forum users.

I know what you mean. The Honda main dealer I use for my CRV is fine, if somewhat anodyne, but our recent experience with the local Fiat dealer in Gloucester left us really rather bemused at their attempts at 'service'.

Mrs Hamwich wanted a Fiat 500, so off we toddled to the local dealer, a combined Kia/Nissan/Fiat outfit. They didn't have a TwinAir model in stock, so we took a normal 1.2 model out for a test drive. It was fine, so we decided to order a new TwinAir on the strength of it.

The response from the chap at the dealership was "Sorry, I can't take your order, you'll have to wait until a salesman can see you"
"How long will that be?"
"Two hours or so"
"Blow that for a game of soldiers, get him to call me"
Two days go past before the salesman rings.
"Sorry, there aren't any Twin Airs in the colour and spec you want. Have something else or wait until the end of September"
Me: "But there's one available in Cardiff, in exactly the right spec. Can't you get that for us?"
Dealer: "No, they're a different company. We don't do that sort of thing"
So I rang the dealer in Cardiff, explained that it would be a pain for us to get down there, could he do something?

"Sorry mate, I want it gone this weekend and I can't arrange delivery in time. If you get to me I'll knock another 200 quid off for you." This meant we would now be paying 10250 for a car that the Gloucester Fiat dealer had listed at 14600, so naturally I bit his arm off and we went down to collect it. Only downside was that it was a used car, pre-registered on March 31st, and it had 9 miles on the clock, hardly a problem.

So they're not all bad...

It does make you think that so many "cannot be bothered"!

Our local BMW dealer is very good - always very professional.

Just goes to show how these things vary. I've issued a Fatwa against my local BMW dealership & vowed never to buy a new car from them EVER again because of their complete lack of interest when I had a problem once the car was out of warranty, despite having bought the car from them new and having had it serviced there.

It wouldn't stop me buying another car from BMW - just not from that dealer.

If an Independent will do, there is a former Morgan employee now set up on his own, near Upton upon Severn. A number of SpotMog members seem to be very satisfied with his servicing...