You may remember me writing in Business Car quite a while ago about cars we had ordered, and when they arrived, they were not quite as expected. It was in the bad old days when parts supply for new car production was a bit hit and miss. We had a couple of cars with specifications that didn’t match, it was just potluck if it had the correct spec. We had one car that came in the wrong colour, and was missing electric, and heated seats. The driver was not happy as he’d have to move the seat manually and couldn’t warm his bum on a cold winter’s night. The other should have had a digital dash, but due to the lack of components for this nice feature, it had a good old-fashioned analogue display. Again, our driver was not happy, but put up with it. We did, at the time, think ourselves lucky we had got any new cars at all. These mis-built, mis-specced cars were affectionately known as Covid Cars.
These Covid Cars are now coming up for change for new cars. Fortunately, we don’t own any of these cars, our leasing company do, and they, like our drivers, are not happy. They have cars to sell that don’t exactly match specification, and when they end up back on dealers’ forecourts, the used car buyer has generally done their homework and knows what spec a car should have. I’m sure these ‘Covid Cars’ are going to be difficult to sell.
I’m finding more and more that when booking a car in for service, repairs, or warranty work, it seems to be the growing trend to talk to an advisor who works nowhere near the garage you want to use. You call the garage phone number, press ‘3’ for service and then talk to someone who, in my experience has no idea about cars, or anything technical.
Give them the registration number, mileage, and then they decide what it needs, because that’s what it says, ‘on the screen’. Even the price, is ‘on the screen’. It used to be so much easier, and much more professional when you spoke to a service receptionist, who did have some idea about what you were talking about. Or ask someone on site. Now it’s just a robot in a call centre – I’m not impressed.
Smells in cars, and vans seem to be a growing problem. One of our drivers wanted to do a short-term swap with another driver, when they needed a bigger car to go camping. A change of cars was agreed after a meeting in the office one Thursday afternoon, and keys were exchanged. However, it wasn’t long before one of the drivers reappeared in the building. “That car stinks, I can’t take my wife and kids in that, it’s disgusting,” he said. I went out to have a smell and yes, it stunk of wet dogs, it was awful. The other driver, by now, had already gone home.
We did try calling him to return the vehicle, but he didn’t answer his phone, the driver outside was in a fair old panic over the state his car might well be returned in – would it too have the same pungent doggy aroma? He’d have to wait two weeks to find out, and have that worry for fourteen whole days. This isn’t the only car or van on our fleet that has a peculiar ‘fragrance’, and some of them are just not nice. I really need to buy a smell-ometer!
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