babyRR.com - The Range Rover Evoque Forum

Being one of the "new customers" that Land Rover were hoping to attract with the Evoque I sadly now have to leave the marque after only 18 months.

Apart from a little lack of refinement around town I have been totally satisfied with the car overall but did suffer from the dreaded rattle syndrome from the rear (oo err)

My gripe is totally with the Stratstone dealership in Newcastle - they are so inept its untrue. In my short time as a Land Rover customer they have

- failed to turn up for the car when a pick up time had been agreed for a service
- serviced the car and returned it without a valet and also without any attempt to fix the rattling tailgate
- then took it back for 8 weeks after which they said the rattle was resolved - as soon as I drove out of the dealership the rattle was actually twice as bad!
- They then told me that they would make another attempt at a fix and would ring me when a courtesy car became available - that was two months ago and I still haven't heard a thing from them

That was the final straw and despite Liam from LRCR being absolutely brilliant in trying to placate me in attempting to get me to stay within the brand, this morning I have signed up for a Lexus IS300h F Sport.

I had been a Lexus customer previously so I know for fact that I will get top class service from them - if only Land Rover could follow suit instead of taking their clients for granted - their product is fantastic and it deserves better.

Good luck to you all, I'm sure all of the dealers can't be as bad as ours "up north"

Sorry to see you go.

But in the end it's your money and you make the decision.

I know what you mean about Lexus, they were very good to deal with as an owner.

Some and I emphasise SOME, dealers really are letting the Brand down, which also makes matters worse when you see that they also sell other brands Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW etc and have good reputations. WHY?

They also sell Rolls Royce and Aston Martin, I'm sure they treat the owners of those marques with a huge amount of respect. We ave one of their LR outlets not far away in Perth and they ave aways been very good to me and several other people I know who use them. BUT they do seem to have more poor outer than better - way back in 2005 when I was on the RRSport.co.uk forum there were never ending complaints about some Stratstones branches yet there was praise for others.

I found them woeful too, crap communication when i was awaiting delivery then the only time they did actually contact me was the exact week i told them not to because i was away in norway.


Luckily the only issue i had with my car was resolved by LR assist without a visit to the dealer.

Not just the big boys that are crap. My dealer which is a smallish group franchise, and only has 3 salesmen and one sales manager and a showroom that can hold 'only' 6 cars, and who promised me "a much better sales experience than you're used to from BMW" was pretty dreadful overall.

The promised call to arrange my £499 service deal is yet to come - not that I care now as I've arranged it directly through Emac/LR. Just woeful. I'm dreading any necessary future dealings...

The thing is, I only expect basic care when a problem arises, I don't expect treatment any more special than what you would get from a Vauxhall dealer.

Stratstones just don't want to know you once you have handed the readies over - the only time you are guaranteed a call is when your service is due so that they can extract a bit more from your wallet

(18-05-2013 08:48pm)Wicksy Wrote: [ -> ]The thing is, I only expect basic care when a problem arises, I don't expect treatment any more special than what you would get from a Vauxhall dealer.

Stratstones just don't want to know you once you have handed the readies over - the only time you are guaranteed a call is when your service is due so that they can extract a bit more from your wallet

That is my experience of Stratstone in Cheltenham too. I go to Lookers in Park Royal and am happy with the service I receive there.

I've heard zip from my dealer since I bought the car. No courtesy follow up to see if I was happy, no follow up for the promised '6 months pre-service valet and check' and no call back 5 days after a query about the service plan.

Buying the car, great. After sales, garbage. Shoddy for a high value car. Hillendale.

My friend has a Lexus and has been with the brand for 6 years. Loves the car and has some fantastic after sales service.

Landrover dealers need to stop being smug, get a kick up their arse and start to provide a service. Landrover UK needed to give them all a big wake up call.

I use Stratstone Cupar and all the years I have dealt with them they have been fantastic. Just bought a new Fl2 and couldn't fault my salesman, the service department wanted to charge £65 to fit my dog gaurd instead my salesman done it himself.

It's true though the reviews are mixed no matter which branch.

One of the main reasons I sold and got out of JLR product, dealers need a big wake up call espically Hunters Preston. They don't know how to treat and retain customers.