lucgallant
Member
- Joined
- Jul 26, 2017
- Messages
- 10
Hi guys,
about a month ago I decided to seriously start looking at Electric Vehicles. This whole thread may seem petty compared to the die hards that have been into it for years I understand.... I live in Timmins, Ontario, in Canada. It's up in Northern Ontario where the winter lasts 6 months of the year at least, getting down to -35C. Timmins only has 1 or 2 EVs and so it's pretty new here. It's a truck town you could say.
Essentially only the Nissan and GM dealers are licensed to sell electric vehicles in the area. GM has no availability on Bolts until the new year.
I called up and subsequently went in to the Nissan dealership. I immediately got a commitment that they could "definitely" get a LEAF within 5-10 days by doing a dealer trade from another dealer. Anyway it took me about 2 weeks to finally get the sales guy to put all the items on the quote that I was looking for (Ontario $14k incentive, our trade-in, VPP pricing, etc).
Finally, with everything on the quote, I committed to buy. He says he's going to call the other dealers to secure a vehicle. 3 days goes by, he finally calls back to admit that 7-8 dealers were contacted and none will release their vehicles. He says that they're such a promotional/advertisement material that they don't want to let them go. He later suggests I try and buy from them directly.
In the meantime, I called a dealer down in Toronto (Avenue Nissan) to ask them if I could buy one of the two LEAFs they have on the lot, and they flat out told me that they would not sell me the vehicle as they would end up losing all future potential service on the vehicle. Two weeks after this call, that same LEAF is still sitting in their inventory!
So after the dealer trade fell through, the salesman tells me he can have one built. I ask him if they are still in production, and tell him I'm reluctant to commit to a build because I've had builds in the past during this time of year (mid to late summer) fall through as the factories are already retooling. He tells me he understands, not to worry, that they are still being built. I reluctantly agree to have one built. I put a $500 CAD deposit, and he says he'll send me the bill of sale and build date confirmation shortly. 2 days later, no bill of sale and no delivery date, and I've been checking in throughout. I get a bit more adamant, and he finally calls me back, admitting that the 2017 LEAF production run is actually over (or ending imminently), and that I can shift my deposit to a 2018, which will get built in September and ship in December.
Now we all know that they is no MSRP published for the 2018 and based on what I can tell they can't be ordered before they're officially released September 5th. I ask him if price will change, he says he doesn't think it will, that it didn't change between 2016 and 2017. So obviously he's oblivious to the complete model redesign that's listed clearly on the Nissan site, with the doubling of range etc... So I can't really believe anything I hear at this point.
My question to everyone:
1) Any suggestions on who to contact at Nissan Corporate to maybe get traction on this? It's pretty frustrating being denied product purchase because of geography, knowing there is stock available. Especially knowing that these dealers have probably had these LEAFs there for months. I do have a call in with Nissan Customer Support but it's only at the first level and we all know how these things can go.
2) Any idea when the 2017 builds ended? I'm curious how obvious an item this was when the new vehicle was committed to me by the dealer.
3) Is there anything at all on the 2018 LEAF in terms of price or build dates? I see the increased range and single pedal driving etc...
Anyway any help that could be provided would be awesome. Thanks!
Luc
about a month ago I decided to seriously start looking at Electric Vehicles. This whole thread may seem petty compared to the die hards that have been into it for years I understand.... I live in Timmins, Ontario, in Canada. It's up in Northern Ontario where the winter lasts 6 months of the year at least, getting down to -35C. Timmins only has 1 or 2 EVs and so it's pretty new here. It's a truck town you could say.
Essentially only the Nissan and GM dealers are licensed to sell electric vehicles in the area. GM has no availability on Bolts until the new year.
I called up and subsequently went in to the Nissan dealership. I immediately got a commitment that they could "definitely" get a LEAF within 5-10 days by doing a dealer trade from another dealer. Anyway it took me about 2 weeks to finally get the sales guy to put all the items on the quote that I was looking for (Ontario $14k incentive, our trade-in, VPP pricing, etc).
Finally, with everything on the quote, I committed to buy. He says he's going to call the other dealers to secure a vehicle. 3 days goes by, he finally calls back to admit that 7-8 dealers were contacted and none will release their vehicles. He says that they're such a promotional/advertisement material that they don't want to let them go. He later suggests I try and buy from them directly.
In the meantime, I called a dealer down in Toronto (Avenue Nissan) to ask them if I could buy one of the two LEAFs they have on the lot, and they flat out told me that they would not sell me the vehicle as they would end up losing all future potential service on the vehicle. Two weeks after this call, that same LEAF is still sitting in their inventory!
So after the dealer trade fell through, the salesman tells me he can have one built. I ask him if they are still in production, and tell him I'm reluctant to commit to a build because I've had builds in the past during this time of year (mid to late summer) fall through as the factories are already retooling. He tells me he understands, not to worry, that they are still being built. I reluctantly agree to have one built. I put a $500 CAD deposit, and he says he'll send me the bill of sale and build date confirmation shortly. 2 days later, no bill of sale and no delivery date, and I've been checking in throughout. I get a bit more adamant, and he finally calls me back, admitting that the 2017 LEAF production run is actually over (or ending imminently), and that I can shift my deposit to a 2018, which will get built in September and ship in December.
Now we all know that they is no MSRP published for the 2018 and based on what I can tell they can't be ordered before they're officially released September 5th. I ask him if price will change, he says he doesn't think it will, that it didn't change between 2016 and 2017. So obviously he's oblivious to the complete model redesign that's listed clearly on the Nissan site, with the doubling of range etc... So I can't really believe anything I hear at this point.
My question to everyone:
1) Any suggestions on who to contact at Nissan Corporate to maybe get traction on this? It's pretty frustrating being denied product purchase because of geography, knowing there is stock available. Especially knowing that these dealers have probably had these LEAFs there for months. I do have a call in with Nissan Customer Support but it's only at the first level and we all know how these things can go.
2) Any idea when the 2017 builds ended? I'm curious how obvious an item this was when the new vehicle was committed to me by the dealer.
3) Is there anything at all on the 2018 LEAF in terms of price or build dates? I see the increased range and single pedal driving etc...
Anyway any help that could be provided would be awesome. Thanks!
Luc