Went back to the dealership and apparently the white is also metallic...
Lol.. well then it must be pearl white or something similar.
Why is a car I buy not practically ready-to-drive when it arrives at the dealership (excluding fuel, of course)? I can pull the stickers/wrapping off, I can wash it, I can fit the centre caps, I can install the carpets. All vehicles are supplied from the factory with a small quantity of fuel so they can be driven out of the factory gates and onto and then off of the RoRo/carrier. I'm quite capable of putting fuel into the car at the nearest petrol station and attending to the wheel alignment myself just after I take delivery. Heck, I'll sort out my own licensing and registration - just give me the paperwork. All the dealer needs to do is have me sign a document stating they're not liable for the issues I elect to sort out myself. If I don't want to sign it, then I must pay for the dealer to do it. That sounds fair to me.
No manufacturer is going to hand a car over to a buyer without doing this themselves. Yes, you could do a lot of this yourself however the necessary programming of the car for hand over to the showroom floor you can't do. And even if you did do this yourself, or have the means to do this yourself, the warranty won't be honored. In many cases this is the same time the warranty is activated but in many cases it isn't. What if the car sits on the showroom floor for 3 months before it is sold but the warranty was activated 3 months earlier? Buyer then gets a car which has a service due in 7 months and not 12 months. Point is the dealerships and motor manufacturers are not going to leave this up the buyer and run the risk of bad press on their vehicle warranty.
How can carpets not be included in the price of the car? Imagine buying a fridge online but when you arrive at the store to collect it, the rep says the shelves aren't included so that'll be an extra R1,000, please, sir.
Because they are not. The dealerships don't make the rules. If a dealership receives a vehicle with no carpets, must they just throw their hands up and say to client "Sorry, they didn't send us carpets. Go tag and moan at them on social media."
Some brands may come with their own carpets in the vehicle but the three brands I sold over 5 years didn't. Every now and then there was a limited-edition vehicle that may come with branded carpets from the factory. But the dealership was billed for these carpets.
The metallic paint is an option specified at the time of ordering the vehicle - it is therefore included in the cost of the vehicle from the manufacturer.
And I must pay for the line item itself, the time it takes to attend to the issue and then a fat margin on top?
The dealerships are charged for the color by the manufacturer as well as any none-standard extras on the vehicle. So no, it is not included in the cost from the manufacturer.
Let's imagine for a second you walk into a dealership, and they have a red Isuzu Double Cab 1.9LS Auto with diff lock on the floor. You fall in love with it and say "I'll take it"
The dealership has been billed x amount for the vehicle, plus x amount for the diff lock, and then x amount for the metallic color. They didn't get a red double cab with diff lock at no additional cost above the vehicle itself. Some vehicles will have these features included in their price but others won't. For argument sake the diff lock is included in the price for the LSE spec Isuzu Double Cab, buy not the LS spec. But still, on the LSE spec the dealer will still battle charged for any color that is not white.
The diff lock might be R4900 and the paint R1900 on a bakkie but this is just a small example. The same applies for features on high end vehicles such as adaptive LED lighting, heated seats, ceramic brakes, etc. Have you seen what some of the features are for hign end luxury cars? The dealers don't get it for free. Neither does the client. The same applies to paint.
Barring the dealer's fitment of extras (tow bars, tinting, etc), the only chargeable work items that I cannot or am unwilling to attend to myself may be the software programming and the defects inspection, which can be done together and should take an hour at most. We all know that dealership employees are not concours judges...
Unless all the motor manufacturers in the world agree to this and change the way it is done, this will never change. And with that said, I did on many occasions find defects on a vehicle which the workshop missed. Whether it was the smallest piece of dirt under the paint or piece of trim missing, it does happen a bit more than some may think. AT the end of the day the dealership is responsible to hand over a vehicle to the client that has had the PDI done in line with the manufacturers requirements and is free of defects.
Should this process ever stop all together, then will the buyers be willing to sign a document that says, "I waiver my right to any defect on this vehicle due to the PDI process not being completed in line with the manufacturer requirements"? Or something similar?
I think not. It is what it is.
Give me the exact breakdown of what is to be done to the car before I accept delivery and I will decide whether I can do it myself or not. I wholeheartedly agree with
@Trompie67 on this one.
At the end of the day, it is up the car salesman to manage the clients' expectations and be very clear about the costs over and above the vehicle price. On many occasions I absorbed these additional costs in order to get the deal. I would often "give" the diff lock to the client or the color or the towbar etc. I would add it to the invoice and then discount the vehicle price by the same amount of the added item. And I would do this after explaining to the client why I am doing it.
Issues like the extra fees arise when the salesman or F&I has not been clear about the additional costs involved with handing over a vehicle.
It's all about effective communication and transparency. And unfortunately, this isn't common practice in many dealerships.