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.

 

[Elise111s]

I reserved an Emira from Auto100 last year and on arriving for pick up it had paint blisters on a door. There was no word of apology for the inconvenience caused to me for paying for and travelling to collect a car with a major defect. There was an embarrassing charade when the salesman went to inspect the car and pretended to notice the defect as if for the first time. I was offered a free service to compensate me for buying a car with a major defect which would take months to resolve and affect the resale value. I declined their offer and rejected the car. Although it had taken me minutes to transfer funds to pay for the car, it took Auto100 over a week and several phone calls to refund me the money.

Months later, the car is still on their website with no mention of any paint issue. I assume they are waiting for an unsuspecting customer to take it off their hands. A lot of their Emira stock has had the prices reduced by about £4k in the last 3 months.

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.

 

[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