As a dealer and someone who has a deposit on one

My Nissan Leaf Forum

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ShahulX

Member
Joined
Jun 14, 2010
Messages
14
When will dealers have more info?... I don't like the old addege that we dealers know nothing but to be fair, we no nothing more than anyone else... will dealers be getting info soon as well?
 
It really concerns me that every dealer I talk to knows next to nothing about these cars. Whether I speak to Nissan dealers, Mitsubishi dealers, Citroen dealers or Peugeot dealers (all four makes are bringing electric cars out in the next few months), none of the dealers know anything. More worryingly, when you do start asking questions, several of them start making up answers on the fly. I can spot that, but your average car buyer won't know.

Here in the UK, I did a presentation to the Institute of the Motor Industry a few months back, and there is a real interest in learning more, but dealers don't know where to turn. Now from a selfish viewpoint, that's great because it means more sales for my book :) but in all seriousness, the manufacturers have a big job to do in educating their dealer networks and I'm not entirely convinced that any of them have started doing that yet.
 
I found the two dealers in my city know very little about the LEAF. Neither of the LEAF specialists knew who Mark Perry is. I told them to do a search on Mark Perry on You Tube and watch the videos where he talks about the LEAF. That is how I learned a lot at the beginning of this quest.
 
I'm talking to Nissan in the UK about a specific Nissan LEAF version of my book. It will be a cut down version specifically tailored to the LEAF. The plan is to have the book available before the first Leaves fall later this year.
 
MikeBoxwell said:
...none of the dealers know anything. More worryingly, when you do start asking questions, several of them start making up answers on the fly.

Well, they did want to make the experience as close as possible to a "normal" car... :lol:
 
The issue is that they are focused on getting the rollout ready and details nailed down so they can train. I was at a dealer today where the Leaf was yesterday and they will be getting about five to six Level 3 chargers! NIce. Locations include, service, customer delivery, customer parking.
 
EVDRIVER said:
The issue is that they are focused on getting the rollout ready and details nailed down so they can train. I was at a dealer today where the Leaf was yesterday and they will be getting about five to six Level 3 chargers! NIce. Locations include, service, customer delivery, customer parking.
WHOA ! Timeout ! Which dealer are we talking about ?
 
If I have to choose between several equally-good dealers, I would choose one with a L3 charger freely available to customers.

If you let your dealer know that this will influence your decision, it would be a courtesy to let them know now, while they still have time to arrange for one.
 
Holy flashback Batman!!

When the 2004 Prius came out in Oct 2003, the dealers knew SQUAT. A year later they knew SQUAT.
Their problem (and I am quite confident the Leaf will be the same):
  • The cars were sold before they got on the boat in Japan let alone to the local lot.
  • People picked them up the same day they were delivered or early the next morning; they had been impatiently waiting months for their car (sound familiar??).
  • The closest a dealer could get to driving one was moving it from the 'prep' area to the 'delivery' area. Demo car? Didn't exist.

Like this forum, PriusChat (kudos Danny) was the savior. The techie types bought the manuals, figured out how things worked and could answer a lot of questions. Those who got their cars earlier in the cycle put out as much info and answered as many questions as they could. The only dealers who knew anything either followed PriusChat or learned from the people who were picking up their car.

Enjoy the ride :)
 
bruceha2000 said:
[*]The closest a dealer could get to driving one was moving it from the 'prep' area to the 'delivery' area. Demo car? Didn't exist.

I think this time will be different. They are giving test drives to everyone - (probably through dealers ?) - so dealers will obviously get time in the car.
 
That would be nice. The only reason I was able to test drive an '04 Prius before ordering was that Enterprise got a bunch of them before anyone knew how 'in demand' they would become. I rented one for a week and drove local and long distance. Base model, no SKS but still: SWEET! The best the dealers could do was let you look at a car ready for delivery. No sitting in it mind you, just looking.

Same was true when we ordered my wife's '06 in Jan '06. I wanted to see what the rear view camera looked like on the display since they didn't put that out in th e '04 and '05 models - even though there is a knockout in the back for 'in future models'. Clearly they KNEW they were going to put a camera there but we '04 and '05 owners are SOL, no Toyota kit exists to retrofit.
 
One big question is, are they free or do they charge, and if they do charge, how much? Another: will any of them be available after hours?

garygid said:
If I have to choose between several equally-good dealers, I would choose one with a L3 charger freely available to customers.
 
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