Sent this letter to Richard Harrison , head of Seat UK.
Cupra UK,
To whom it may concern,
I am writing to provide feedback on my recent experience purchasing, or attempting to purchase, a car from yourselves.
In September I pre ordered the
Cupra Formentor VZ Edition. Taking the plunge, without seeing the car in the flesh or indeed driving it or more importantly knowing the full cost. The preorder was a leap of faith in
Cupra as I currently drive a
Cupra Ateca, which I love.
Cupra marketing team, keen to impress, pushed the boat out with the charm offensive, making potential customers feel like VIPs with the promise of being the first to drive the car in the uk, and getting free Brembo brakes - all very promising and exciting. I parted with £500 for the honour of being in the select 50, or to join an “exclusive club”
It is obvious, through recently released pricing and discussions with my dealer that
Cupra are marketing themselves to be amongst the premium car class, such as BMW, Mercedes and Audi.
So, that's where my disappointment with the process started. The following happened;
- Uk customers got excited with “your car is on your way” email…
- Followed by a retraction email, UK last to be built as right hand drive cars take longer..
- Confusing comms with Seat UK regarding dealer choice for finance discussions, emailing and leaving messages...why bother, just let your dealer network arrange all that, it was just noise and unnecessary.
- Build week was confirmed and car ended up in Grimsby early December.
- I was Informed by the dealer the car would be with them on 3rd Dec, it didn’t arrive with the reason given that extra quality checks were being done in port.
- Next delivery scheduled was 4th Dec, it did not arrive.
- Next delivery scheduled was 7th Dec, did not arrive. See the pattern?
- As one of the ‘exclusive club’ I was not very happy to find out that the dealer had received an identical car to mine, with a different colour interior - not a pre order car. This car went on sale and I believe the car has been sold, leaving me with the possible prospect of seeing it on the road before mine, that's not exclusive.
B and H motors Cumbria provided me with daily updates on the transport and I can't fault their service. They too were perplexed that no reasons were given for cancelled transportation, this was relayed to Seat UK when contacted.
I contacted Seat UK in an attempt to get to the bottom of the issue, and as professional and courteous the lady I spoke to was, she could not enlighten me with any further details without speaking to the dealer and logistics at the port. When getting back to me she told me that my car would not be leaving Grimsby until the 14th Dec at the earliest...not a welcome conversation.
To put the cherry on the cake I was then informed that all
Formentor handover to customers had been suspended pending resolving a radar issue. This has not gone down well on Social media and many of my contacts are re-evaluating their choice of car.
Buying a car is meant to be a pleasurable one, unfortunately this is no longer the case in this instance. All this puts a damper on the whole experience.
I accept some issues are out of your control but this feels like a failure of marketing and logistics. It’s not a great start for the exclusive
Formentor club. Whether I stay with my order and indeed
Cupra as a brand is yet to be decided pending a satisfactory response to my concerns.
Many thanks,
Ian McAteer
