[Ground Loop]

Once Lotus made it clear they were raising the cost of the car and communicated this to Dealers, did your dealer contact you to bring you up to date?

 

[Johnny B]

Received an email from my dealer. I asked him if Lotus was going to grandfather those of us who've submitted firm orders and he said that they weren't.

I let him know that I wasn't mad at him, just bummed that Lotus put him in a situation where he had to tell those of us who've spec'ed cars that the price is going up and it is too late for us to change our orders so we can offset the increase.







John English and Lotus, are you listening? Either let me change the specs on my car or grandfather me in at the 40k MSRP.

I ask you to have some consideration for those of us whose orders have been placed. That is the right thing to do. Period.

 

[ConeFusion]

I was actually wondering about that. How would I have found out about the price increase if I weren't reading this board? I don't think I would have seen the press release, and there's no reason to go to the configurator on the web site if you already ordered the car.

So I guess it would have been when picking up the car, and looking at the amount before signing on the dotted line.

Oh, that means that I haven't heard from the dealer. Never expected to, I'm very surprised that a few people did.

 

[Vangman]

Phone call from my dealer? He's only called me three times:
1) I need a $1,000 deposit?
2) What options do you want?
3) Do you want to buy my car (which is n't the color or options you want) for $5,00 over MSRP?

Hah! I've had better conversations with Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny than I've had with my dealer.

 

[mikester]

Not a word from my dealer, Symbolic. If the dealers are reading this, I would suggest that it's not that difficult to do an e-mail for your customers and send it to them as a group. This could be done not only for the bad news such as a price increase, but for good news as well ("Hey, our demo car has arrived", for example). :huh:

This could be made into an actual marketing and general PR tool. Don't be afraid, we won't bite (well okay, some do bite, but it's generally not fatal...)

 

[Vantage]

More than a year ago, Nick Smith @ Symbolic had been sending intermittent e-mails, like when he would be bringing a demo car to certain shows, or the projected base price.

I have since changed my e-mail address and don't know if he still does the same.

 

[mikester]

Well 'm pretty sure the guys at Symbolic still have my e-mail, but I guess I should send them a little "tickler"....

 

[Goose]

I called my dealer about the increase and mentioned how Lotus was starting irritate me...

...My dealer suggested that I was welcome to forfeit my (non-refundable) deposit and take my chances on eBay. It's sobering to see how people act when they know they hold the cards. I expected better behavior.

I'm just trying to think ahead to when this is all a bad memory...

 

[jac]

same dealer as vangman

no call on price

but i did like the offer on the car over msrp

my thoughts are at least he was calling the people on his deposit holder list to give them the option.

I considered and said no i want my car at msrp thanks.

 

[NMRJock]

My salesperson called me (Aaron Waterman at AutoEurope) to let me know that the demo was broken in and that I could come back in for a "real test drive." He also wanted to let me know that the car that I'd driven was available for over MSRP (but much less over MSRP this time).
That's when I said that the increase in MSRP was already making this a hard purchase and that I couldn't afford to pay a premium for the car.

 

[_JD_]

got a voicemail at home with an apology.

 

[Snowphun]

No word, wouldn't expect one. My contract states "purchase for MSRP" which he warned me months ago could very well change. He was better at predicting that then he was predicting a delivery date.