Test Drive with Pics

[master_hayabusa]

McMaddy: Silverlink has one and it was in today. Shadow blue. I went for a look and as I pulled into the dealership it was just coming back from the sales manager having taken someone out (he was driving, not the customer). He got out and was back in the dealership by the time I had parked up and walked around. Had a good look at it (around it and through the window at the interior). The salesmanager came out and asked if I was interested in ordering one, or had I already. Then he recognised me as the person who'd been in, got short shrift after asking for a discount and getting a poor p/x price offered for the Roc, then coming back days later for the Roc service and telling him 2 had been ordered elsewhere. He told me that as I wasn't buying from Benfield he wasn't prepared to let me sit in it. I said that I was a Benfield customer as i'd previously bought 3 cars from them and I still chose to take my warranty work and servicing there for convenience. "that's aftersales" he sneered, and walked back in the showroom, what a complete twit. 

Anyway, all looked good from what I saw except wor lass wasn't impressed with the red/white/grey tartan. "looks a bit mulberry charva that does, is yours coming like that?". I then proceeded to explain that GTI and GTD come in the pattern except for the GTD there is a shade of grey where the red aspects of the GTI interior are. She could see that I wasn't impressed with the comment and said "well the grey will look better than the red" in her attempt at appeasement. 

Sales manager sounds like a real Banker!

Btw, I showed the interior pics to a girl at work and she said "No way, you can't get that interior. You have to get leather!". She laughed at it! I thought about it for a bit then realised she's only 20 years old lol. What does she know about GTI's.

[Gung-Ho]

Really??? I've always grown up with 'tartan' seats & would opt for nothing else... but I suppose to the young & uneducated they could be construed rather 'Camp'!!! Like reindeer knitted woolly jumpers 

[Bill_the_Bear]

Btw, I showed the interior pics to a girl at work and she said "No way, you can't get that interior. You have to get leather!". She laughed at it! I thought about it for a bit then realised she's only 20 years old lol. What does she know about GTI's.

I'm getting leather, tell her she can come for a ride with Bear.  Wait, scratch that... I'm already married.

[GolfTi]

Jacara tartan is just sooo Golf GTI.

Pure class and iconic.
The youngsters will get it one day.

[scotland67]

Regarding Benfield I booked a test drive online to drive the new golf 1.4 .Arrived at showroom at appointed time to be told salesman had taken it home and was on his day off ! I was driven to salesman's house at Gosforth, distance about 10 miles to swap the car we were in so I could drive the Golf 1.4 back to Benfield.
At least i got a good long test drive but surely not good customer service.

[mcmaddy]

Could they be the worst for salesmen in the northern area? total set of tw**TS. I couldn't believe the little upstarts I dealt with at silver link!

[monkeyhanger]

And yet they remain open. Plenty of people prepared to put up with that level of service in Tyne and Wear. Silverlink was no better when Colebrook and Burgess had it (aka Cock-up and bodge-it) before they acquired all the Audi business in Newcastle.

[Bill_the_Bear]

And yet they remain open. Plenty of people prepared to put up with that level of service in Tyne and Wear. Silverlink was no better when Colebrook and Burgess had it (aka Cock-up and bodge-it) before they acquired all the Audi business in Newcastle.

I looked up their website which is full of glowing feedback.  My BS detector is going off the scale!

[monkeyhanger]

http://www.judgeservice.com/car-dealership-reviews/group/benfield-motor-group

That website is full of very bad or very good reviews. Many of the very good reviews read nigh on identical, as if the same people wrote them.

I really don't know why I give them any warranty or service work - convenience I guess. When my MK5 GT Golf with 16" Hockenheims showed the dreaded "white worm" cosmetic corrosion they would not replace. They blamed stone chips or kerbing for compromising the lacquer layer. I asked them to show me any damage to my wheels that they had described as causes and they could not show me any. I also showed them numerous examples of the same issue on their used car lot and still they wouldn't budge. Pulman (my first contact with them at the time) said straight away it was a common issue and replaced them as soon as the ordered replacements were in.

They ruined my MK5 GT Sport 170TDI following massively shoddy repair work on a number of aspects including leaving the car with an unsafe brake fault and then lied about it (loose caliper refit, 3 different people working there told me 3 different causes), things taken from the car and not returned as well as a filthy interior. All this on a car that was 2 weeks old with 405 miles on the clock.

And yet I still go to them - I must need my head read!

[GtG]

Jacara tartan is just sooo Golf GTI.

Pure class and iconic.
The youngsters will get it one day.

It's personal preference, you say 'pure class and iconic', I say 'cloth seats'...

Admittedly I've leather in my MK5... which is of reasonable quality, certainly beyond that of the plastic of the dash and door inserts. But on the MK7 the interior component quality is outstanding, and so is the quality of the leather used. I sat in a GT in the showroom with leather when I ordered my GTI, I couldn't believe I was sitting in a Golf... there's not a chance that I would have gone with cloth seats given the quality of finish in the rest of the interior.

If you're 100% hell bent on the 'iconic Tartan tradition' then of course go for the standard seats.

But if you escape that bracket, see them for what they are 'standard fit cloth seats'...