The luxury (premium) car mat con? Don't upgrade mats until you've read this!

(09-05-2013 07:33am)markjohn11 Wrote:  To conclude, avoid buying your fitted car mats from the car dealers. They charge an excessive price. You are better off buying fitted car mats, from a company which specialises in making them. It may well be that the company actually makes the fitted car mats for the car manufacturer.

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I agree, you could even buy my second hand ones that are in the classifieds lol

Hi guys,

I was exploring this site and found this post.
I became a bit curious about my Prestege and checked it, car mat was defenately not the one which describes as "Premium" in brouchure! Mine doesn't have the rectangular aluminum bit at the corner.

I also had a photo of interior of Prestege for the demo car at dealer, it had appropriate mat.

I immediately took a photograph of my Prestege, sent this photo and the photo of dealer's demo car to my dealer. I'm waiting for their reply...

OK, how about the Premium Interior pack for 2013MY Dynamics?

It is so poorly described I am not sure what mats should have been supplied. If you 'build' your own on the web site it still wants to charge another £80 for premium mats even if you select the pack as well.

However, I found this from Hammond stating that Premium carpet mats are included.

   

http://www.hammondgroup.co.uk/land-rover...ver-evoque

Surprise, surprise I have the standard (non triangular metal corner) mats.

...

On the LRNA website do you have a facility to view the Land Rover range and build your own car? On the UK version there is also an accessories catalogue in PDF format which shows the "Premium" style mats.

This is definitely not anything the dealers have control over, as my 'premium' mats were in the boot of my Evoque direct from the factory, and I was the first person to open the boot after it came off the transporter.

I (and Mrs T) was under the impression that the mats I should get would be identical to the 'premium' mats shown in the accessory brochure, but they aren't, which is a bit naughty of LR to imply this by having two different products that effectively have the same name. From what I can see, there is no picture of the supplied 'premium' mats any where in the brochure, just a photo of the 'premium' mats that CAN be bought as an accessory. So this could be construed as misleading advertising because people believe they will get one thing, but get supplied something completely different and of an inferior quality.

Question is, did LR previously supply the thick pile/metal corner mats as standard with the Prestige but at some point the bean counters decided that it was better to save £5 and give us 'premium brand' purchasers a cheaper product 'cos no one would really notice, or is it just a poor branding issue and these inferior mats were always supplied as 'premium' mats because there is an even cheaper product and someone decided to also call the accessory thick-pile mats 'premium', hence some confusion?

Have to say, the £60 BMW mats in my X3 were better quality than the 'premium' mats supplied with my £50k car.

(13-05-2013 06:20am)gabhishekanand Wrote:  I know I am supposed to get the thick ones with triangular metal edges but am trying to think what would be a fool-proof way to approach the dealer.

I don't know about 'supposed to' - but you will if you push them on this, as they haven't got a leg to stand on. (I certainly had no trouble getting mine exchanged using the logic explainds by myself and others in this thread).

For all that, even the 'proper' premium mats I ended up with (that is, the metal-edged ones in the catalogue) are only average - the supplied 'premium' ones are simply rubbish, and God only knows what the standard ones are like - (blotting paper I should think!)

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(13-05-2013 11:54am)Trapdoor Wrote:  is it just a poor branding issue and these inferior mats were always supplied as 'premium' mats because there is an even cheaper product and someone decided to also call the accessory thick-pile mats 'premium', hence some confusion?

This appears to be the correct explanation. (There is no evidence that the metal-edged mats were ever supplied with the cars - at least not until customers pointed out the discrepancy between the two types of 'premium', and then only on an exchange basis - with the original mats going back to LR, meaning that they have been standing the cost of the swap).

What it has left is confused dealers, and customers who have a 'right' to continue to swap their mats while ever the double and misleading use of the term 'premium' remains uncorrected.

(13-05-2013 09:50pm)Donny Dog Wrote:  I don't know about 'supposed to' - but you will if you push them on this, as they haven't got a leg to stand on. (I certainly had no trouble getting mine exchanged using the logic explainds by myself and others in this thread).

Lucky you, some dealers are good. I'm waiting on a response from mine.

I am from Memphis TN and I sent this thread link to my local official land rover dealer. Asking him to decide whether I as a Prestige owner for less than a week should be getting the rightful carpet mats. I asked him to check out the official landrover site where under the features of prestige trim when you choose the interior features option the picture of the premium carpet mats is with a metal triangular edging, but am not sure if that is convincing enough for him. Not sure what else I can provide him with other than this thread discussion to make him understand. He did mention before me sending the link that the car came that way and he is not sure whether they are the wrong mats. Will keep you posted on their response.

OK.. Looks like the 2013 Prestige model standard equipment has changed. My local dealer sent me the an official pdf with the build and it says Lthr Edge Frt Mats.

Below is my dealer's response
"I appreciate your wanting to receive what you are supposed to receive with
the purchase of your new Evoque with the Prestige trim level. I am happy to
inform you that you did receive the exact mats that came with the vehicle as
Land Rover had specified. I have attached a copy of the Direct Dealer
Warranty - Vehicle Details for your information. On page 2, you will read
"Lthr Edge Frt Mats" which is how the vehicle was built. And that is what
you received."

(14-05-2013 03:48pm)gabhishekanand Wrote:  OK.. Looks like the 2013 Prestige model standard equipment has changed. My local dealer sent me the an official pdf with the build and it says Lthr Edge Frt Mats.

Below is my dealer's response
"I appreciate your wanting to receive what you are supposed to receive with
the purchase of your new Evoque with the Prestige trim level. I am happy to
inform you that you did receive the exact mats that came with the vehicle as
Land Rover had specified. I have attached a copy of the Direct Dealer
Warranty - Vehicle Details for your information. On page 2, you will read
"Lthr Edge Frt Mats" which is how the vehicle was built. And that is what
you received."

The mats you got are the 'correct' ones in the sense that they are the ones intended to be supplied with that model. However, the car catalogue identifies three levels of mats, only the Prestige variant getting ones described as 'Prestige Mats'. Despite this, higher spec. Dynamics get the same mats, so there is no further upgrade as the use of the word 'Prestige' in the Prestige car variant implies. At the same time, the accessories brochure identifies an entirely different mat (the one with metal corners) which is specifically called 'Prestige Mats'.

This confusion (dual use) of terms, and the fact that there is otherwise no distinctly different mat solely for Prestige cars, is the argument I used with my dealer. I knew the mats I originally got were 'correct' (the same ones you got) but I nevertheless got them to exchange them for the accessory brochure version. You need to ask them what is 'prestige' about your mats which sets them apart from mats not described as 'prestige', and if they are the same as some Dynamic mats, where is your further upgrade? Until they stop calling two different styles of mat by the same name, they are 'hoist by their own petard', in my view.