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Lotus of West Covina No Longer Servicing Lotus Cars
I was told today (5/20/17) that "Lotus of West Covina is no longer servicing Lotus cars as of a couple of days ago". I was extremely disappointed when Eduardo, the Lotus technician, recently left the dealership to work for another vehicle manufacturer since he was by far the best customer service person that I've done business with anywhere. It's a dark day. Any suggestions for other service providers? I previously used Galpin, but they are far and much more costly, plus certainly not as thorough as was Eduardo and Lotus of West Covina.
This is surprising. How can they continue to sell Lotus cars without servicing them? Here's hoping you just got misinformation from some uninformed employee.
Stay away from Lotus (Rolls-Royce) of Orange County.
When I called and left a message for their service writer (Freddy), I was totally blown off; so I showed up to the dealership in person and I was told I'm no uncertain terms the didn't want the business.
Freddy said he only has one tech that works on Lotuses and he "doesn't really like working on them." They said I should call the dealership in West Covina as they "like dealing with Lotus enthusiasts."
After the way I was spoken to, I will never go back there again. ?
I pretty much do all of the maintenance work on my Exige myself, now, because of the lack of dealer support. A key factor when I bought it (new in 2006) was dealer support, but that imploded just a few years later rather unexpectedly.
OMGeez... This sucks for SoCal I bought my Evora S form West Covina. I received it with a few common issues; sub amp blown, etc.. After bringing the car in to check the issues they gave me the car back a week later dirty, the battery all out and the dash taken apart and wires all hanging out... didn't eve put it back together before giving it back(not sure how they thought that was ok) then told me 10 weeks to get parts :/
I took my car to Orange County they had it fixed in a week, plus gave me a loaner car. I stayed with them for all my services since and currently have nearly 40k on the car. James is the Mechanic and always did a great job. My last visits however were different... I took the car in for maintenance and to have a wheel refinished -Didnt get it back for 7 weeks!!(but had a loaner so only slightly annoyed. Then hit 36k and wanted to get final warranty work done and needed maintenance, so reluctantly took it back... After I dropped the car off(with Freddy who just took over the service department) I was told they don't give loaners to Lotus owners any more. I live about an hour and a half away and had no one with me so spent the next 6 hours at the Irvine Spectrum- When I got the car back with no warranty work done(didn't have time they said) I was told they don't want to deal with Lotus's any more- That Lotus have too many issues with no support and they loose money every time they work on one and it takes their mechanic off a car they can make money on... And basically they weren't happy I was there didn't want me back- I wasn't happy I was there either and will never go back and never buy a car from them ever! Ugh, sorry for the rant... but What do we do now?
This is really a problem for Lotus USA. They should really consider allowing independent shops with good reputations to take over warranty work for Lotus. The Lotus dealerships by in large do not have the service volume that the indie shops do and therefore struggle to justify a technician for Lotus. I had a less than satisfactory experience at Board Walk Lotus up in Redwood City. The dealer would rather focus on their volume cars rather than the niche Lotus.
I would take my car to Dietsch Motorsports in a minute if they could do warranty work. When my warranty runs out, I certainly will.
I was there once, customer service was excellent (although they didn't find the issue).
I would go again for routine service, didn't mind to pay premium rate, but despite my suggested multiple times to have a proper waiting area - coffee / snacks, they didn't care, and I didn't go again.
Instead I went to A1 in Alhambra. Not so fancy, but they fixed my year old steering issue, and did full fluid service. The price was fair, and it's closer to my home.
While this place doesn't look any better than a gas station garage, these guys KNOWS Lotus.
Covina do have a waiting area with a sofa, Lotus merchandise, and lots of cars to look at (I agree, coffee would be nice). And it's all in a Lotus only building. Plus there's lots of places within walking distance (Starbucks). Last time I was there, it was raining so they drove me the 5 minutes to SB. Also, they will give you a loaner car.
Can't speak to warranty work or anything like that, but John was great to work with when I needed a brake flush on the way to the track in Fontana. Called him day of and he got me in as I drove down from the Bay Area.
The waiting area at Galpin is nice, too. Has a Starbucks inside the dealership!
I left Lotus over a year ago. Sometimes you have to know when to hang em' up :frown2: I still keep in touch with my Lotus brethren and help out where I can to both dealers and clients. I've been at Maserati of Newport Beach ever since and didn't realized how much I missed the O.C. (before heading to West Covina, I was at Lotus of Newport Beach). Unfortunately California owners have gotten the short end of the stick when it comes to dealers seeing there are more Lotus owners here than anywhere else but I trust Lotus will do something about this :up: and brgelise, it's nice speaking to the Maserati owners about power to weight ratio :grin2:
Knew that would rustle you out of the woodwork. THEY DO SOUND AWESOME!!!!!
Are they actually getting reliable? Seems the Alfa MT tested did the flat special just like the good old days
Crazy to hear that as an Esprit owner I was there once to get my brakes done car came back with breaks squeaking and telling me I needed all this work to be done but really not true, the best and most knowledgeable guy around for service is G Mendoza, one of our fellow members, he is great for our Esprit guys.
I inquired about an Evora 400 at West Covina and the General Manager Martin Currie was very unhelpful and didn't care at all. The car posted on their site didn't have pictures. I asked him for a couple of pictures of the interior and exterior. He stated that he was out at a "conference" and he would do that when he was back to the dealership since he needed to see if the car was still available and there was "a client coming to take a look at it today".... Right, lazy ass could have called and ask someone to take a damn picture. Of course he didn't and the damn car is still available though. I followed up with a couple of emails and a voice message and nothing, no response.
By the way, his only response to my first inquiry about the car was "Hi, we've been selling lots of Evora 400" .............WTF?....I will never buy from this dealership or recommend to any one.
They have a few of them here in Vegas. Even 3 manuals in the back they showed me on Saturday. I think they have 6 Evora 400's at the moment. The really WANT to sell them.
In the UK... which of course is a tiny island compared the the USA, Lotus have in their network "Service Centers" which are not full Lotus Dealers (i.e. no sales / car stock from Lotus Cars) but they are authorised to service Lotus cars and have direct factory access to OE parts & service info. They normally nominate them in locations where I guess ideally there should be a full fledged Lotus Dealer, but there isn't. Often they are experienced Lotus indie workshops or motorsport related.
If thats the best solution for Lotus' home turf (but not their largest sales market), then I dont know why they can't do that in other countries, especially the larger ones.
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