Thread: Dealer support.

Originally Posted by ATH

I visited the main stealer in Perth last Friday and the salesman (only 3 days with LR) told me that LRA are opening new agencies to service vehicles in Geraldton, Karratha and Broome.
All of these places, especially Karratha had successful dealerships in the not too distant past which LRA did away with, so can we really believe they are going to reverse what they did then and improve the out of town service for LR owners?
I personally will wait and see before I get back into one of my favourite vehicles!
After all, it may just be salesmans bullcrap.
Alan.

Geraldton & Broome currently have competent LR service centres, not official but LR service just the same.

Land Rover sales have improved with the introduction of the D3, RRS and the new freelander so with more vehicles getting about maybe opening dealerships to offer better service will slowly happen as the brand gains momentum again.

With all this crap over toyota hopefully a few people will look at D3's as an alternative for the extremely over priced 200 series.

All the dealershps were closed except those who were Ford at the time when Ford owned LR weren't they.

It may be different now that Tata are at the helm, Just a thought

There may be efficient private service people but what owners of new LRs want is official dealerships who can do warranty work etc. as they aren't going to want their new pride and joy shipped back to Perth for work to be done.
I heard that the last official dealer in Broome, ****zu Motors or something like that, couldn't wait to unload it when they got the opportunity and when I went in there when I had a Td5 Defender the attitude was offhand to say the least.
As I said, I'll wait and see before coming back from the darkside.
Alan.

I am ready to replace my D3. I tow a 3.5 tonne Kedron caravan and like to go off-road. This really limits me to the D4 and the LC200. I have been agonising over this decision for months.

On the one hand, I absolutely love the D3 even though it has had its issues. On the other hand I want there to be a dealer nearby when it has those issues. And therein lies the problem. Having authorised service centres around the traps is not the same as having a dealership that can do warranty work.

So, here I am at Karratha atm and the nearest dealers are Perth, Albany, Darwin and Alice Springs. Sheesh, that's 1500Km to the closest one.

On the other side of the coin, I reckon LC200's are butt ugly, lack character, ride poorly by comparison but......there is a dealer in almost every damn town in Australia.

I'm still torn but I'm sorry to say that the call from the Dark Side is getting louder and louder.......

Cheers

Russ

Originally Posted by Banjo_pluker

All the dealershps were closed except those who were Ford at the time when Ford owned LR weren't they.

It may be different now that Tata are at the helm, Just a thought

Had absolutely nothing to do with whether the dealerships were Ford or not.

As far as I'm aware, none of the dealerships in WA ever had anything to do with Ford - basically just another Barbagallo monopoly.

As far as I'm concerned, the best move that LRA could make would be to strip Barbagallo of all LR dealership rights, and give them to someone who is prepared to make a proper go of it, rather than just another string in his bow of "niche" car markets for city dwellers only.

At least one manufacturer, Subaru, seems to be listening to its customers in the country - they have recently stripped Westland Autos (the Ford dealers and probably worst service agents of any in Kalgoorlie) of the Subaru agency. Will be interesting to see who they appoint the agency to in their place (rumour is Goldfields Toyota).

Originally Posted by BMKal

Had absolutely nothing to do with whether the dealerships were Ford or not.

As far as I'm aware, none of the dealerships in WA ever had anything to do with Ford - basically just another Barbagallo monopoly.

As far as I'm concerned, the best move that LRA could make would be to strip Barbagallo of all LR dealership rights, and give them to someone who is prepared to make a proper go of it, rather than just another string in his bow of "niche" car markets for city dwellers only.

At least one manufacturer, Subaru, seems to be listening to its customers in the country - they have recently stripped Westland Autos (the Ford dealers and probably worst service agents of any in Kalgoorlie) of the Subaru agency. Will be interesting to see who they appoint the agency to in their place (rumour is Goldfields Toyota).

My dealings with Barbagallo were good. I walked in to purchase a pair of weathershields, they had nil stock but got them in and sent them to Port Hedland at their expense. Price was reasonable too.

Originally Posted by away

I
On the one hand, I absolutely love the D3 even though it has had its issues. On the other hand I want there to be a dealer nearby when it has those issues. And therein lies the problem. Having authorised service centres around the traps is not the same as having a dealership that can do warranty work.

So, here I am at Karratha atm and the nearest dealers are Perth, Albany, Darwin and Alice Springs. Sheesh, that's 1500Km to the closest one.
Russ

Have too wait and see if the authorise service centres happens and what they are able to do. In the eighties when Ford and Holden rid their dealer net works of the smaller sites doing (from memory) less than 10 cars a year they had the opportunity to stay as authorised service centres. There were actually a lot of them which had a large admin cost to the manufacturer. Most of these were petrol stations that sold a few cars on the side located in small country sites. These authorised service centres as well as providing that magic stamp in the service book were able to handle warranty work however with the low labour paid by the manufacturers for this work and the 90 to 120 days to be paid they were not inclined to do the work for nothing and so tended to pass on the offer. They also had to order their parts via another larger dealer which slowed down the time taken to repair / service a vehicle when the part was not on hand. Perhaps Land Rover will offer something more attractive as they have such a limited service network.