Auto100 - UK Trader in Sutton in Ashfield

[Orchardbike]

4 weeks to do nothing !!! Thats inexcusable

I don’t disagree. I spoke to Lotus CC and they just stated that they couldn’t force or push any dealer to prioritise anything.

I won’t be using Lotus Colchester again, when I eventually get my car back. I wanted to use Hilton and Moss, but they can no longer carry out Lotus warranty work.

 

[Beachbum]

Its amazing how bad Dealers can be, yet manufacturers seem to care little.
My previous experience of Bournemouth Hendy was pretty poor, but since they have moved to Southampton, they have been pretty good.
What other Dealers are nearby to you? Silverstone might be an option, straight up the M1

 

[Orchardbike]

Its amazing how bad Dealers can be, yet manufacturers seem to care little.
My previous experience of Bournemouth Hendy was pretty poor, but since they have moved to Southampton, they have been pretty good.
What other Dealers are nearby to you? Silverstone might be an option, straight up the M1

I’ve escalated it to Lotus Escalation Team (yes, apparently they have an escalation team!). I’m waiting on them ringing me back.

There’s Lotus Hatfield, but I didn’t get a good feeling about them when I went in. They seemed a bit up their own arse and the prices for servicing and spares were higher than anywhere else. Not to mention that they turned their nose up at my Evora and said they couldn’t service it!

At the moment. I think you’re right. Silverstone seems to be the best bet!

 

[Man.v.Cars]

I’ve escalated it to Lotus Escalation Team (yes, apparently they have an escalation team!). I’m waiting on them ringing me back.

There’s Lotus Hatfield, but I didn’t get a good feeling about them when I went in. They seemed a bit up their own arse and the prices for servicing and spares were higher than anywhere else. Not to mention that they turned their nose up at my Evora and said they couldn’t service it!

At the moment. I think you’re right. Silverstone seems to be the best bet!

JCT600 in Bradford have being doing warranty work for Auto100, collected my car yesterday after 9 weeks and mentioned Lotus offloading cars to Auto100 they knew and had done work for them.

 

[Orchardbike]

JCT600 in Bradford have being doing warranty work for Auto100, collected my car yesterday after 9 weeks and mentioned Lotus offloading cars to Auto100 they knew and had done work for them.

I spoke to the Lotus escalation team this afternoon. Apparently they can’t do anything as Auto100 are not an official Lotus dealer and classed as a third party (so how are they getting all the Lotus cars then?). The guy in the escalation team stated that they have had “numerous” complaints against Auto100 and he was going to give my feedback back to their head office. He’s also going to look into the history of my car as the V5 says the previous owner was Lotus and it’d only done 430 miles when I bought it.

 

[Man.v.Cars]

I spoke to the Lotus escalation team this afternoon. Apparently they can’t do anything as Auto100 are not an official Lotus dealer and classed as a third party (so how are they getting all the Lotus cars then?). The guy in the escalation team stated that they have had “numerous” complaints against Auto100 and he was going to give my feedback back to their head office. He’s also going to look into the history of my car as the V5 says the previous owner was Lotus and it’d only done 430 miles when I bought it.

And yet ex owners on here have seen their handed back cars on the Auto100 website. I've complained to Lotus Escalations about the offloading of cars to them and how its affected the resale price of Emiras. Yesterday they had 20 Emiras showing, along with a load of Eletres they've got it's clear they are taking overstock and hand backs.

 

[Beachbum]

I spoke to the Lotus escalation team this afternoon. Apparently they can’t do anything as Auto100 are not an official Lotus dealer and classed as a third party (so how are they getting all the Lotus cars then?). The guy in the escalation team stated that they have had “numerous” complaints against Auto100 and he was going to give my feedback back to their head office. He’s also going to look into the history of my car as the V5 says the previous owner was Lotus and it’d only done 430 miles when I bought it.

Did Lotus Escalations, not also help with the delays at Lotus Colchester?
Appreciate all the issues you had with Auto100, but your current problems see to be the delays with getting Colchester to do anything

 

[Orchardbike]

Did Lotus Escalations, not also help with the delays at Lotus Colchester?
Appreciate all the issues you had with Auto100, but your current problems see to be the delays with getting Colchester to do anything

No. Their response was that as the delays are labour related, they can’t get involved as that is Colchester’s issue. They did say that they would speed up any requests for warranty approval and dispatch of parts. However, all the warranty claims are already approved. Maybe they can’t get some of the parts despatched sooner. That’s about all they can do.

 

[freefall_junkie]

It was clear to me that Lotus had offloaded cars to them that it was unwilling to put through Lotus dealers. I would not buy a car from Auto100 under any circumstances.

This is an absolutely shameful practice by Lotus. They should either bring these cars up to an acceptable standard and sell them through their franchised dealers or send them to the crusher. The really annoying thing is that this type of inept mishandling of the market is bad for both Lotus and all of us. It tarnishes the Lotus brand and the impact on residuals will negatively affect both Lotus and their existing customers in the long term.

 

[Nick in Sydney]

It was clear to me that Lotus had offloaded cars to them that it was unwilling to put through Lotus dealers. I would not buy a car from Auto100 under any circumstances.

Don't think it was that Lotus was unwilling to put the cars through their dealers. More that they needed to move a block of cars quickly and were willing to wholesale them to Auto100 at a discount to do this. There were at least two reasons for this:

1. In the earnings call, the Lotus CEO said they'd made a decision to discount some cars to clear them off the books before 2025. They wanted to make sure that Lotus dealers didn't have stock being sold at discount when they launched TYP 134. This probably turned out to be a bad decision because it looks likely that TYP 134 is delayed until 2026.

2. I'm sure there was massive corporate pressure from China to hit the already reduced 2024 sales target of 12,000 vehicles. Auto100 gave them a way to quickly move a block of cars.

 

[Beardedbradley]

As a cancelled order and still wishing to buy though my local Lotus dealer in the UK I’ve been in regular contact with them about the availability of vehicles. In November they were in touch and I popped in to speak about a batch of vehicles they were going to receive from Lotus. After a week or so they emailed to say the deal had fallen through and no vehicles were available. It’s anyone’s guess what happened but it did seem strange to me that they couldn’t get or didn’t want the cars Lotus had available.

 

[Beardedbradley]

My first thought was maybe the parent franchise dealer didn’t want the stock when they already had stock (2cars) not moving

 

[Orchardbike]

After the hassle I gave Auto100 over mine, they may not want to get involved with more Emira’s lol! Alternatively, the sh1t I gave Lotus CC about Auto100 (and apparently I wasn’t the first), may mean that Lotus pulled the deal!

 

[Nova]

I don't understand the logic here. Was Lotus hoping that handing the cars as-is to Auto100 would help them avoid dealing with needed warranty work? If they bought back cars, they already have a run-down of what's needed, why don't t hey just have an inside team fix the issues - the cars are right there. Why involve yet another third party, an additional layer of cost, just to have to fork out the warranty costs anyway.

 

[Beardedbradley]

It makes no sense

 

[Orchardbike]

It makes no sense

Indeed. It’s almost as if they were thinking “now, how can we piss off our customers even more?”

 

[jonsealsportscars]

I dont have inside knowledge here at all but I would guess that Lotus had a large amount of cancelled orders in 22/23 I hear they haven't actually made a new V6 in RHD for over a year they has so much stock so a 24 car was made actually in 22 or 23. The dealer network mainly consists of smaller businesses although they are moving towards bigger multi site corporate dealers so when Lotus have all these spare cars sat on their books they have a bit of a problem as their own network didn't have the capacity to take them on. This was a big big mistake with Lotus that they ever did the agency sales method. When everyone mass canceled they couldn't do anything with the cars.

The other thing is Lotus became a retailer with no retail experience so during the time when people were cancelling orders I think what Lotus didn't have a clue about was that the didn't need to accept the cancellations. The Distance selling rules actually exclude goods that have been made "bespoke" ie a car specced to your own design. If Lotus had just operated a normal franchise arrangement the cancellations would have been far less as the dealers would have locked deposits in and people would have been forced to accept their cars. The while thing would have been much more tightly controlled. Because Lotus had to bin the agency method they had to resort to direct Autotrader sales from the factory and a last ditched thin was offloading inventory to an independent none franchise business. They even put cars on Carwow for any old dealer to buy! This move must have annoyed their franchises beyond belief. Indeed they lost 2/3 good dealers.

I would think that not all the Auto 100 cars are the rejects but its another crazy move that Lotus sell the Friday afternoon cars out to Auto100 but then they have to go straight back into the Franchise network for fixing. Auto100 can't touch the cars as they are under the manufacturer warranty and they risk voiding that warranty by interfering with them. It's a triple win for Auto100 this has been a great deal for them. There is zero chance they will have any interest in the Emira beyond this year or whenever they stop taking stock from Lotus.

 

[Beachbum]

I don't understand the logic here. Was Lotus hoping that handing the cars as-is to Auto100 would help them avoid dealing with needed warranty work? If they bought back cars, they already have a run-down of what's needed, why don't t hey just have an inside team fix the issues - the cars are right there. Why involve yet another third party, an additional layer of cost, just to have to fork out the warranty costs anyway.

I think it might have been due to the Q4 financial statement and the comments within. They wanted rid of the cars on THEIR Books, so got rid of them at a cheap price to a non-Franchised dealership, so they no longer had anything to do with Lotus. Legallly, they had sold them.

 

[Man.v.Cars]

Did Auto100 actually purchase the cars or got them on a sale or return basis? I would guess the latter as they had over 40 Emiras and Eletres, that is a massive investment for an independent dealership.

Auto100 are getting the bad rep and not the Lotus dealerships, the dealers are also getting the warranty work so a win/win for them.

 

[Nova]

I think it might have been due to the Q4 financial statement and the comments within. They wanted rid of the cars on THEIR Books, so got rid of them at a cheap price to a non-Franchised dealership, so they no longer had anything to do with Lotus. Legallly, they had sold them.

Geez, you are right. They booked the revenue and assumed some nominal "warranty" liability.