I test drove a Born in September and loved it, and after some high-pressure self-questioning paid a £500 deposit to Citygate Twickenham to secure a V1 (Aurora Blue / Heat Pump) before the price rises at the start of October. Due to specifying a heat pump I was given an expected lead time of 18-44 weeks, with the paperwork saying 31 March 23 as the expected delivery date.
Despite some niggles with Citygate I managed to get my order in at the pre-Oct price. (Their initial invoice was the wrong price but when I questioned it they insisted it was right. They then sent me another invoice a week later without any preamble or contact which had the correct price, and when I queried it was told "The factory won't accept your order if the price is wrong"... )
At the start of December I had an email saying "Your order has been accepted by the factory, we'll let you know when we have a build slot." No further details or timing but as I wasn't expecting anything before March, I wasn't surprised.
On Saturday morning I got a one line email from the Citygate salesperson:
"I have some exciting news your car has now arrived at the UK port so this should be with us in 2 weeks. If you have any questions or queries for me please do let me know."
Presumably someone has cancelled an order that has already arrived here!
It's been a long time since my test drive so I had been thinking about going back at some point to check it was what I wanted with another test drive, but haven't ordered cables, wallbox or anything as I thought I'd have a bit longer to sort those things out once I had a build slot. I'd also hoped for a bit longer to save - I'm buying cash and it's eating a huge chunk of my rainy day savings.
I've never bought a new car before (current car is a 2006 Polo bought secondhand!) so was hoping to take a family member with me on the day to help me ask the right questions etc (I'm disabled and my memory isn't always great under pressure). I don't even know how you pay that much money to a dealer!
So, if anyone can help me with the following questions, I'd hugely appreciate it!
- What should I be asking Citygate to tell me?
As you can guess from the above, they really haven't given me any guidance about the process and I'm feeling very bemused by the salesperson's minimal comms - I was thinking of asking to deal with someone else on the sales team if that's reasonable?
- What should I get in terms of kit - I'm thinking Granny charging cable while I work out which wallbox to get and possibly a cover (my mileage is a bit lower than I'd like right now due to my disability)
- I've seen the link to GAP insurance so will get that myself. What's the feeling on any service deals if they offer them?
- What will I need to do on the day I collect? I have spotted the posts about double-checking the transport blocks so will definitely ask for that
- Is it worth asking Cupra for a part exchange on my ancient Polo? Back when I was doing test drives MG looked it up and quoted between £700-£1200 although it's likely to fetch £2k in a private sale - are Cupra likely to be open to negotiations or just offer the book price and tell me to sell privately if I want closer to the price I could get