No option other than to reject the car

[paulb]

My delivery date was Thursday 10th August - I spoke to Lotus customer care the day before at 16:30 enquiring on delivery times for my Emira. No such time could be given but I was told I would receive a call 1 hr before the car was to be dropped off. Nothing to worry about the car was booked in for delivery in the morning with Delivery Driver No.1.

So I'm waiting in for my car to arrive .....3pm arrives and no car - the tracker still shows the car in bedford. I call Lotus.... someone will call me back, 1 hr later I call again - this time i'm told the car wont be delivered as it has failed its pdi - needs a new power steering pump. I asked what my options were and was told the option is to "....wait". Management then get involved and am told I will be called back in the morning. Per my request, they are going to look into i) when the car will be available ii) the provision of a car in the interim iii) compensation for the pitiful customer service experience.

In the morning I was called when promised (so credit for that at least!!) - told no update on an interim car, no update on when my car would be available, but a car cover as compensation. A car cover but no car - ha ha

I appreciate these problems happen but the way Lotus has dealt with it not great. I feel i've been left with no option other than to reject the car and get my money back. To rub a bit of extra salt in the wound - the registration document arrived the next day.


**** Several days later and still zero contact from Lotus - I phoned again today and was told the head of Customer care would call me ****

 

[Cutting42]

Pitiful CS but to reject the car seems excessive to me. I would give it a day or two to decide.

 

[paulb]

Pitiful CS but to reject the car seems excessive to me. I would give it a day or two to decide.

I'd still be amenable to try and salvage the situation but without any clear date on when the car might be fixed or any proactivity from Lotus it's a difficult one. Especially as they have received full payment and CS say it's 14 working days from request of refund to getting it....

 

[Nick in Sydney]

Rejecting the car seems a bit dramatic to me. At least wait until they tell you how quickly the pump will be replaced.
It might just be a few days.

 

[paulb]

Rejecting the car seems a bit dramatic to me. At least wait until they tell you how quickly the pump will be replaced.
It might just be a few days.

I was hoping that would be the case which i why i slept on it overnight to give them some time to get a fix date - alas no - following my rejection i was told senior management would contact me with how to proceed. No contact received so far.

 

[kitkat]

The fact that the power steering pump issue is still a problem and hasn’t been resolved should be extremely concerning to everyone.

 

[Wonza]

Rejecting the car is the right thing to do. If you car breaks down when you get it on the first happy day, then think what will happen a few months down the line. Lotus are hopeless, I’m sorry I’ve said it. My car still stalls or lumpy starts every morning despite having the latest software updates. The dealer told me is Lotus problem, not theirs as they don’t know what the issue is?

They have had so many months of teething issues and still can’t sort it out even on the newer ones.

 

[DerTheDer]

My delivery date was Thursday 10th August - I spoke to Lotus customer care the day before at 16:30 enquiring on delivery times for my Emira. No such time could be given but I was told I would receive a call 1 hr before the car was to be dropped off. Nothing to worry about the car was booked in for delivery in the morning with Delivery Driver No.1.

So I'm waiting in for my car to arrive .....3pm arrives and no car - the tracker still shows the car in bedford. I call Lotus.... someone will call me back, 1 hr later I call again - this time i'm told the car wont be delivered as it has failed its pdi - needs a new power steering pump. I asked what my options were and was told the option is to "....wait". Management then get involved and am told I will be called back in the morning. Per my request, they are going to look into i) when the car will be available ii) the provision of a car in the interim iii) compensation for the pitiful customer service experience.

In the morning I was called when promised (so credit for that at least!!) - told no update on an interim car, no update on when my car would be available, but a car cover as compensation. A car cover but no car - ha ha

I appreciate these problems happen but the way Lotus has dealt with it not great. I feel i've been left with no option other than to reject the car and get my money back. To rub a bit of extra salt in the wound - the registration document arrived the next day.

I dont blame you one bit...a forshadow of whats to come. People dont understand that we as buyers have the power. And every little rejection helps them un f them selves...hopefully. I would have turned it down as well. I am not into playing games.

 

[Superman]

On first thought, that seems a bit rash to me, although having said that, I am not entirely sure how I would react if that happened to me.

I do get the annoyance, especially with not getting a commitment on a fix date, that seems like it should be relatively easy to sort and commit to. Lotus should be better at getting issues resolved and commitments in place. Very frustrating.

Not being in your shoes right now, I *think* I would give them a couple of days to resolve in such a situation.

 

[ADC]

Tough call... I'm tending to side with those who say just rejecting the car sounds a little OTT, given they seem willing and responsive to addressing the problem, but I also understand how disconcerting the whole thing must be.

I think if I were standing in your shoes, I'd be struggling to weigh up what stings more - continuing to maintain the patience of a monk, and letting Lotus fumble around trying to get their shit in a pile, or feeling like I've wasted a lot of emotional energy over many many months and giving up on owning what could be a great car right at the final (ha!) hurdle. 🤔 😬

 

[Shahaf2911]

Rejecting the car is the right thing to do. If you car breaks down when you get it on the first happy day, then think what will happen a few months down the line. Lotus are hopeless, I’m sorry I’ve said it. My car still stalls or lumpy starts every morning despite having the latest software updates. The dealer told me is Lotus problem, not theirs as they don’t know what the issue is?

They have had so many months of teething issues and still can’t sort it out even on the newer ones.

It’s kind of your dealers job to find what’s wrong with the car and report to Lotus you know that right ? No automaker can know what’s wrong with the car without dealers diagnostic.

 

[Porter]

It’s kind of your dealers job to find what’s wrong with the car and report to Lotus you know that right ? No automaker can know what’s wrong with the car without dealers diagnostic.

I mean you're technically correct, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with the car. It's a brand new car. By definition it should be in perfect mechanical shape.

 

[ADC]

I mean you're technically correct, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with the car. It's a brand new car. By definition it should be in perfect mechanical shape.

I'm not going to defend too hard (this kind of known issue probably shouldn't be rolling off the production line by now), but it was picked up by a pre-delivery inspection... which is entirely the point of a pre-delivery inspection.

 

[paulb]

On first thought, that seems a bit rash to me, although having said that, I am not entirely sure how I would react if that happened to me.

I do get the annoyance, especially with not getting a commitment on a fix date, that seems like it should be relatively easy to sort and commit to. Lotus should be better at getting issues resolved and commitments in place. Very frustrating.

Not being in your shoes right now, I *think* I would give them a couple of days to resolve in such a situation.

I think the thing that tipped me over the edge was not a single attempt at proactive contact to tell me the car wasn't arriving and I was waiting for in for it to arrive and then it seemed like it just wasn't that important to them to rectify. If it had failed a pdi and they'd called me with an apology and a revised date we wouldnt be here.

 

[paulb]

I'm not going to defend too hard (this kind of known issue probably shouldn't be rolling off the production line by now), but it was picked up by a pre-delivery inspection... which is entirely the point of a pre-delivery inspection.

I just wonder when they did the PDI surely not on the day of delivery? And why didn't they let me know it had failed and give me a revised date.

 

[paulb]

Tough call... I'm tending to side with those who say just rejecting the car sounds a little OTT, given they seem willing and responsive to addressing the problem, but I also understand how disconcerting the whole thing must be.

I think if I were standing in your shoes, I'd be struggling to weigh up what stings more - continuing to maintain the patience of a monk, and letting Lotus fumble around trying to get their shit in a pile, or feeling like I've wasted a lot of emotional energy over many many months and giving up on owning what could be a great car right at the final (ha!) hurdle. 🤔 😬

I'm not sure I describe them as willing and responsive. I was sat in all day waiting for my new car to arrive. Had to chase them twice to find out what was going on and that it wasn't coming. A few years back I had an Audi coming and that was late by a few weeks. I got a call in advance to tell me and the offer of a car in the interim. It really shouldn't be that difficult for Lotus to get themselves organised. Surely they must have a process in place for if a car fails its PDI?

 

[Shahaf2911]

I mean you're technically correct, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with the car. It's a brand new car. By definition it should be in perfect mechanical shape.

I mostly agree (although it may happen, that’s why there’s PDI) that’s why I didn’t comment on that subject, but idk why he keeps going to the same dealer that tells him they don’t know how to diagnose the problem and he expects different results (reminds me of an Einstein quote), so he and the dealer blame HQ.

 

[KCMO68_510]

I mean you're technically correct, but there shouldn't be anything wrong with the car. It's a brand new car. By definition it should be in perfect mechanical shape.

The car was caught during PDI. This is what we WANT them to do. We want them to catch any mistakes before hitting your hands. In this case they did that. Does it lead to a bit more delay, sure. But we can't complain about issues making it to customers cars, and then on the other side complain that they will delay delivering a car until it's right.

 

[Wonza]

It’s kind of your dealers job to find what’s wrong with the car and report to Lotus you know that right ? No automaker can know what’s wrong with the car without dealers diagnostic.

I agree with you. But the dealer said to me they don’t’get paid enough by Lotus to do all the donkey work.

 

[ADC]

I'm not sure I describe them as willing and responsive. I was sat in all day waiting for my new car to arrive. Had to chase them twice to find out what was going on and that it wasn't coming. A few years back I had an Audi coming and that was late by a few weeks. I got a call in advance to tell me and the offer of a car in the interim. It really shouldn't be that difficult for Lotus to get themselves organised. Surely they must have a process in place for if a car fails its PDI?

I just wonder when they did the PDI surely not on the day of delivery? And why didn't they let me know it had failed and give me a revised date.

Yeah, you grievance is legit, and I do feel for you... l guess I have a touch of the old Stockhom syndrome 😬

What never fails to dismay is that Lotus just seems to be persistently awful at defining predictable customer service processes... they can barely even manage it when things are just ticking along on the "happy path", let alone when things deviate from that.