Interesting to hear from a colleague about his experience of visiting a Skoda dealership in a quest for a new car. Impressed by the Fabia Greenline’s long list of attributes – plenty of space, frugal nature, very reasonable price – he called a dealer to see if he could arrange a test drive. He couldn’t.
The salesman said the previous demonstrator had been sold and the next one wouldn’t be in for several weeks, after which it too would probably soon sell, such is the apparent demand for these vehicles. My colleague was therefore invited to buy ‘off-plan’ and get his order in now for delivery well into the future.
The second Skoda dealer he rang said the best he could do was let my colleague visit the showroom and sit inside the petrol version of the car, have a drive in another model fitted with the diesel version of the engine he wanted and make a judgement based on that. If on the basis of that he wanted to buy the car then he could sign on the dotted line. The salesman said the Fabia was essentially selling itself.
The popularity of Skodas was underlined in the latest Auto Express Driver Power survey which put three Skoda models in the top five (including at number one) with the Fabia at number 23.
Thus far my colleague has yet to decide on what he will buy, though he was at least thankful for one aspect of his Skoda experience: the complete absence of the hard sell. There was no need for it.
