i visited some car dealerships and my opinion of them

[Brembo]

over the past 3-4 days ive been accompanying a friend as he wanted to buy a luxury suv. Inspite of the fact that there is a recession going on, i was shocked by the behavior and attitudes of most of the car dealers in Dubai.
1st we called couple of dealer over the phone range rover, bmw, lexus, porsche just to enquire about prices and if they have stock. over the phone i can understand if they seem non interested and vaguely and with great difficulty answered our questions as im sure they get many calls a day from even non interested parties.

so we thought we would head over personally to the dealerships to get more details and boy was that experience bad lol.

range rover salesman atleast answered our questions and gave us additional info without any hesitation. he even started the car inside the showroom to show the range rover suspension and then thew the keys in the small fountain to show it was waterproof then proceeded to drive over it to show it was indestructible.

bmw had atleast 5 salesmen on the floor idle and still none of them even approached us, once we caught hold of a guy he was completely non interested to answer any of our questions and most were answered with just a yes or no or 'im not sure' or 'il have to check on that'
he did give us a brochure though

lexus salesman had a smile which none of the others had which was pleasantly surprising and was knowledgeable about the car and even offered us a test drive without us asking for one

porsche guy was under the impression cars would just sell if he sat at his desk browsing the net and all the customers questions would be magically answered by the tooth fairy

audi guy too prefered to sit at his desk talking on his phone (nothing car sales related i can assure you) but he did also offer a test drive if we made an appointment and gave us a sheet with all the detailed specs.

overall their had very poor customer service and were not really concerned if they sold a car and didnt bother answering questions and did not give out information freely, we had to probe and ask 100s of questions to get somewhat vague answers.
isnt this the time for the stealerships to up their game and sell cars? they dont want to reduce prices cant they atleast give these so called 'salesmen' some training?
In North America they would be treating customers and potential customers like kings whereas here we get treated as some kind of outcast from society haha.

good thing was my friend is now convinced he would rather save up for a few months and import a car from the US and enjoy a nice vacation there while he is car shopping.

thanks for nothing uae car stealerships

[root]

Haha! This is funny to the extent of also being sad!

But, you at least got offered to take the cars for a test drive. This would never happen before unless you asked them, and even then they'd tell you to come back later on.

Porsche..they are just totally spoiled! Their attitude to sell is like the real-estate guys in Dubai before the crash....do you want it, take it, don't ask questions, just pay! Otherwise there are a hundred others waiting in line! The sad reality was that porsche has had a long waiting time to justify that attitude. I hear now they have actually a piled inventory...but they still claim we have a "waiting time". It's a great tactic to not have to discount as they'll do you a 'favour' by giving you a car straight away or without too long waiting.

BMW..AGMC...well, they deserve the stealerhship name for sure as cars are on average 50% more expensive than they really should be! The Abu Dhabi dealership is allegedly better.

All in all..unless they put in sales targets on all sales guys, and the one that does not sell his quota gets the boot, the attitude will not change.

[Brembo]

porsche got tons of cars sitting unsold, i think these are ones customers ordered 6-9months ago, and once they came in the customers either left the country or couldnt afford the car. so unless you want a very specific configuration, there are models available.

usually in US, Canada etc when you step foot into the dealers lot and just walk among the cars parked outside, the salesguys swarm you like vultures especially when there are 2 different car dealers side by side. here though even after spending 15-20mins inside the showroom, they werent even bothered to come see us, and they werent doing anything else either. had to march upto their desk and then they go up with great difficulty as if he was doing us a favor lol, pathetic.
if i was the owner, id fire the lot, hire some smart non lazy people and give them huge bonuses for the cars they sell

[root]

You're absolutely right! A car dealer will pay upto $100 just to get a customer in to the showroom in the US! These are what referral fees are like.

Over here, they would not recognize a customer even if he crashed into the showroom with a tank!

[T.N.T]

thew the keys in the small fountain to show it was waterproof then proceeded to drive over it to show it was indestructible.

Surprising, lol.

[Brembo]

yes even i was surprised by this lol was quite entertaining.

[root]

Now, that is a great selling pitch!!! NOT!

[ewap8]

Agree with you Brembo - I've been looking around for cars over the past 10 days and my experience is very similar.

Mercedes and BMW were pathetic (SZR showrooms). Infiniti was quite the same. Mitsubishi was lousy and very slow. Volvo and VW were alright.

What was striking was the margins these dealerships have on the cars they sell. I checked the US prices of the cars they sell and there is no justification for the thousands of dirhams they are charging over the base price.

In fact, Oman is a better market then Dubai - I'm actually contemplating buying from there and driving the car back to Dubai. At least I save several thousand dirhams...

[root]

how are the dealers in Oman? Any more hungry to sell than Dubai?

[ewap8]

well, they don't sound desperate. what's important is that their prices are way lower than the Dubai prices.

[Brembo]

hmm well i called the buraimi, oman lexus dealer to check on the lx570 price and he quoted me 350k same as dubai but then again its sold out all over uae
ewap shed some light on the oman prices which you found cheaper? and what about the import duty? even if you pay the extra 5% is it still cheaper?

also wanted to add the oman dealer i spoke to over the phone was the nicest dealer ive spoken to in the middle east, answered all questions spoke slowly with no hurry, even took my number down and said he would contact me when they get more stock and maybe then the prices will also go down a bit.
a very pleasant conversation and the guy seemed geniunely interested in making a sale.

[T.N.T]

hmm well i called the buraimi, oman lexus dealer to check on the lx570 price and he quoted me 350k same as dubai

It is exactly 363k here.

[Brembo]

are you sure? i was at the lexus dubai dealer few days ago and he said 350k and maybe 2 months waiting time

[root]

Omanis in general are very nice and soft-spoken people!

[docaam]

Man I have been to many dealerships in past few years the best i found was buraimi Nissan and VW abudhabi....rest were all crap