Renault ZE dealer experience?
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When I went to Renault they seemed enthusiastic enough. But the amount of information they had was lacking, this in itself was enough to put me off. Choosing an EV was a big step into the unknown for me and I wanted to feel like the sales person had experience of the vehicle and I wouldn't be too much of a guinea pig.
The Zoe is the wrong brand to me, also the car has not got as much to offer as the Leaf overall pound for pound.
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412 Posts
Surely the issue with all Renaults is that you can't buy it outright - every one is sold with a battery contract!
With a battery contract comes range limitations. what does that mean - well you can't get the economy of cheap energy if you have to pay £70-120 pcm and be penalised on every extra miles beyond that!
Worse still you have to sell on that battery contract and the next buyer may want to take on that overhead! The car might deprecate, but the battery rental will stay the same - so it becomes disproportionate to the purchase price of a 2nd hand car?
Its not on my shortlist!
DriveON!
With a battery contract comes range limitations. what does that mean - well you can't get the economy of cheap energy if you have to pay £70-120 pcm and be penalised on every extra miles beyond that!
Worse still you have to sell on that battery contract and the next buyer may want to take on that overhead! The car might deprecate, but the battery rental will stay the same - so it becomes disproportionate to the purchase price of a 2nd hand car?
Its not on my shortlist!
DriveON!
Well, said, my Daughter did spent around £50.00 a week on fuel so a saving of around 2k a year for her with no limits on how many shopping visit or friends she decieds to visit. We paid 20k for the car with a 3 year service plan Beth loves the car thinks it so easy to drive.
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412 Posts
We've done 15,000 in 9 months against a normal 8-10,000! Thats dozens of fun days and several long haul trips. Travelling to N of Scotland - the fuel saving covered the hotel bills. Our other car (a Merc) is no longer taxed and insured - there is no motivation to feed eh super-charged gas guzzler!
Drive ON!
Drive ON!
Don,t know how to put this realy but driving the Leaf is not just about costs although i like the idea about paying upfront for the car then drive as much as you want but the best thing is just driving the car just feels so good without no Dev or Petrol and as you have said its just about preplaning journeys. Need to do a mega long drive. Its great the way I can drive around Derbyshire with no effort on steep roads then regenning down the other side.E Drive ON!
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412 Posts
Garry - your comment on Derbyshire mirrors our experience in Scotland. Best to drive through the hills at 55-60 using the ReGen hard - never the brakes! The iMiev handles like a sports car - 'point and squirt'! I swear the energy burn was low. If you poodle along at 40mph nothing is regenerated and energy consumption is average at best. However, an EV likes a height-neutral journey - if you have a long grind (e.g. W from Aberdeen) you are at risk of being caught out!
Just need to plan your route and take into account height loss/gain. We should have a metric for 'range lost for height gain' and black flag road that could catch EVs out?
Drive ON!
Just need to plan your route and take into account height loss/gain. We should have a metric for 'range lost for height gain' and black flag road that could catch EVs out?
Drive ON!
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2,578 Posts
I have not tried to buy a Zoe, but I did spend most of a day manning an EV section outside an eco-show this summer. There were some other EV people there, including the nearest Renault dealer that stocked the Zoe. They had to bring it on a trailer as they could not do the trip under electric power.
The dealer was nice enough, but he made it very clear that turning up was part of his job, but actually selling any EVs was not something that interested him at all. He spoke reasonably politely to anyone that asked questions and let them sit in the car, but he didn't try to "sell" it at all. One visitor was really keen and even expressed an interest in having a test drive here-and-now. The Zoe was not registered for road use, but the "customer" eventually persuaded the dealer to drive him around the car park. The customer was very keen and left saying that he would probably buy one for his wife. After he had gone I asked the dealer if he had taken the customer's details.... he hadn't.
The dealer was nice enough, but he made it very clear that turning up was part of his job, but actually selling any EVs was not something that interested him at all. He spoke reasonably politely to anyone that asked questions and let them sit in the car, but he didn't try to "sell" it at all. One visitor was really keen and even expressed an interest in having a test drive here-and-now. The Zoe was not registered for road use, but the "customer" eventually persuaded the dealer to drive him around the car park. The customer was very keen and left saying that he would probably buy one for his wife. After he had gone I asked the dealer if he had taken the customer's details.... he hadn't.
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412 Posts
It is understood that Renault have a strict policy of 'qualifying' potential customers. Apparently the company is neurotic about selling unsuitable cars to the ill-informed! It may we'll be that your Renault Dealer had some 'stock' questions to ask like 'how far is to your wife's mother house'. If the salesman knows that 'her indoors' can't back home to Mummy without a charge - then the car will be focus of great negativity! Damning the brand within that household!
There may also be the question of 'sales targets' - maybe there are no sales targets, while supply is low. So possibly your salesman is only motivated to sell ICE cars!
Lastly, how do you make a sales case to a low milage motorist based on a minimum monthly rental of £77. You cannot argue away the high upfront (and monthly) costs! I calculated that with a 9000 miles contract the saving would be £22 per month - but is I undershot the 9000 there was no advantage at all!
Renault have 'shot themselves in both feet"!
Drive ON!
EV Matters is also at: google.com/+EVMattersEU
There may also be the question of 'sales targets' - maybe there are no sales targets, while supply is low. So possibly your salesman is only motivated to sell ICE cars!
Lastly, how do you make a sales case to a low milage motorist based on a minimum monthly rental of £77. You cannot argue away the high upfront (and monthly) costs! I calculated that with a 9000 miles contract the saving would be £22 per month - but is I undershot the 9000 there was no advantage at all!
Renault have 'shot themselves in both feet"!
Drive ON!
EV Matters is also at: google.com/+EVMattersEU
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62 Posts
Our dealer experience was awful - didn't know anything (when I said I was interested in a Zoe, they thought I was asking about someone who worked there...!). For us the Zoe makes perfect sense, so they didn't need to "sell" me anything, but even so I had trouble getting them to take my money. In the end I wish they hadn't the experience has not been at all pleasant. The car's great, but the dealer side of things was awful.
As for the battery rental, to me it's not a problem - I used to spend around £120+ a month on fuel for two cars; we now do over 95% of our journeys in the Zoe, so paying £70 a month rental and a few quid for leccy (plus maybe £15 tops in diesel for the other car) is still a saving. I'm expecting to keep it for at least 3-5 years, so it works out cheaper to lease the battery rather than buy it outright at the beginning.
As for the battery rental, to me it's not a problem - I used to spend around £120+ a month on fuel for two cars; we now do over 95% of our journeys in the Zoe, so paying £70 a month rental and a few quid for leccy (plus maybe £15 tops in diesel for the other car) is still a saving. I'm expecting to keep it for at least 3-5 years, so it works out cheaper to lease the battery rather than buy it outright at the beginning.
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412 Posts
Congratulations on the purchase of the Zoe! We all make purchases on our own terms - what works is good!
It will be interesting to get your updates over your ownership and whether the dealer experience improves!
Happy, safe EVing!
Drive ON!
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1,116 Posts
My cost is £70 a month I get recovery for the car if i get caught out. And if I'm going for a long trip they will let me take one of there cars I just have to give them notice.
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62 Posts
Sadly my dealer experience has only got worse! And to make matters worse, the brakes have developed a fault, which meant more issues with the dealer... Long story short, as much as the Zoe is a lovely car (when it works), the overhead of having to deal with Renault is making me think it's not worth it any more.
It's not like I'm being unreasonable - for example, I paid for a couple of the optional services, but they were never activated - rather than activate them as they were supposed to, though, they said they'd refund my money. Fine by me, but the money never arrived, so I had to spend weeks chasing them before I finally got my money back, despite being promised it would be just a few days.
On the plus side, we still believe an EV is the right thing for us; just not a Renault...
It's not like I'm being unreasonable - for example, I paid for a couple of the optional services, but they were never activated - rather than activate them as they were supposed to, though, they said they'd refund my money. Fine by me, but the money never arrived, so I had to spend weeks chasing them before I finally got my money back, despite being promised it would be just a few days.
On the plus side, we still believe an EV is the right thing for us; just not a Renault...
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916 Posts
I'm in for a Zoe..the wheels are turning and I should have it next week,I'm told..watch this space..
The sales guy came around with their demonstrator car today (thu) as a follow up to get an idea for my location at the house for the charge unit,and I got another spin..I plan on getting used to the responsiveness at roundabouts..
Communication has been good with calls and emails answering my queries during the insurance sourcing process..(the insurers of my current ice don't do EV's,so am moving on...) I got a photo emailed of the car with it's new number plates this morning! Word has been passed to the wallbox people-no word yet,and emailed an inquiry re. E7 costs here..no word from them either...charger access cards are in the pipe too..let's see what happens before getting the key card on Tuesday..(Edit)>>>>
I've now had the Zoe 3 weeks and still having fun! Turns out My Zoe was the first one the Dealer actually sold,so it's been a learning curve for both parties..Communication is still there,but still waiting on progress on the wallbox...TBH,the online connectivity part has yet to work out,the satnav can tell me what charging points I've been to but can't direct me to one on the fly when I'm passing through a Town I've never visited with a thirsty EV before..Just as well I have a smartphone with apps for that,but I was hoping that was a feature of the car!
The sales guy came around with their demonstrator car today (thu) as a follow up to get an idea for my location at the house for the charge unit,and I got another spin..I plan on getting used to the responsiveness at roundabouts..
Communication has been good with calls and emails answering my queries during the insurance sourcing process..(the insurers of my current ice don't do EV's,so am moving on...) I got a photo emailed of the car with it's new number plates this morning! Word has been passed to the wallbox people-no word yet,and emailed an inquiry re. E7 costs here..no word from them either...charger access cards are in the pipe too..let's see what happens before getting the key card on Tuesday..(Edit)>>>>
I've now had the Zoe 3 weeks and still having fun! Turns out My Zoe was the first one the Dealer actually sold,so it's been a learning curve for both parties..Communication is still there,but still waiting on progress on the wallbox...TBH,the online connectivity part has yet to work out,the satnav can tell me what charging points I've been to but can't direct me to one on the fly when I'm passing through a Town I've never visited with a thirsty EV before..Just as well I have a smartphone with apps for that,but I was hoping that was a feature of the car!
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