a dealership manager asked me why I chose to buy from another dealership instead of giving him my repeat business. All righty then, here's my rant why

I live in San Diego, and there are 4 Hyundai dealerships here.

The reason I bought my Veloster from you in 2011 was because your store wouldn't or couldn't exchange it with a San Diego dealership.

 So I had to drive the 200 mile round trip to buy from your store.

That wasn't cool. It won't happen again if I can help it.

 I have no animosity about this, but there is simply nothing to cause me to waste the gas, and the time, to do business with your store instead of one of the 4 I can be at in 5 minutes.

 Also, I learned that it took 5 or 6 hours to buy a car from your store, in Oct of 2011. It took me 3 hours, just a week ago, to buy from Penske in La Mesa. I am sure I have no idea why your store needed that long to get the Wells Fargo line of credit with my 720 credit score, and then print a sales contract... I'd think you have lots of experience at creating the paperwork necessary to sell cars... that would be all you do all day long, 360 days a year.... but it seems I can figure out how to get a customer in and out in 30 minutes and car dealerships need to waste the time.

 For pete's sake, the car is there, the customer says I'm buying it, where's the paperwork, now get it cleaned up, and then the finance guy seems to be a 3rd person and I don't know why, to have to step in and complicate things... I'm buying, a salesman is selling, and what does a 3rd person need to show up for?

I'd think you dealerships could train the salesman to tell the customer where to sign, but apparently they aren't capable of that. Oh, and then you had a nice young woman show me what the car features are... again, I'd suppose you could train the salespeople to do that... they have all day, every day, to learn the features of the cars they are selling, and yet all they do is take customers out on a test drive.

There are only about 6 models of cars on your lot, with maybe 4 levels of trim. That ought to take a couple days to get familiar with, and they only change maybe once every other year to a new model, with similar features to every other Hyundai sold for the past 7 years. Windows, steering wheel, and tires haven't changed much in 50 years. So what is so complicated that a sales staff can't master the details? Don't they drive the cars they sell? Grocery store employees can tell me what is on every aisle, and the product code for every vegetable, and what is on sale. Maybe you need more intelligent or versatile salespeople. And all this took 6 hours from when I arrived to when I left. Ridiculous, and twice as long as the people at Penske needed.

Response to Anon - National Tyres and Autocare

Someone "Anonymous" left a comment on my post "Experience with National Tyres and Autocare". He or She said:

"hi there i work for national, the advert is not mis leading !! if you bother to read it properly it states, ON A RANGE OF BARUM AND AVON TYRES, SELECTED SIZES ONLY !! as for the tracking, the vocher (sic) sheet also states that prices are subject to change at any time, plus where else are you going to get tracking done for £15.00 any way ???"

In response to Anonymous, I am so sorry I forgot to read the SMALL PRINT. It does say that. Regarding the Wheel alignment offer, they have now increased the price to £12.50 from £11/ If it costs £15, why don't they just say so instead of misleading consumers.

This is precisely the reason why so many companies in the UK are unable to retain customers. They are so focussed on getting new customers by any means possible (including misleading ads). However, the most important part - retaining customers, is forgotten.

I left them a complaint on their web site and I am still waiting for their answer. A simple apology would have been enough and I won't have written the post and even if I had I would have written it in a more positive tone. Maybe "National Tyres and Autocare" got back to me and they were willing to even do the alignment for FREE. Amazing company". Unfortunately that didn't happen and I will go to the tyre shop near my house who are friendlier.

Remember it is cheaper to retain old customers instead of getting new ones. The old satisfied customers will bring new ones along with them.