New Alfa Dealer near Maidstone!

I was cycling past the big new(ish) Lipscomb Volvo/ Fiat/ Lotus dealers in Forstal Road Aylesford this afternoon when I spotted a couple of Brera's for sale parked out front of, what was, the Lotus showroom.

Strange thing to p/x for a Lotus I thought......... but the Lotus bit was empty and had been moved next door. I then spotted a couple of 159's for sale too...............

Talking to the 'suit' parking the cars revealed that they had taken on an Alfa Romeo franchise to be opened very soon!
Lipscomb Alfa Romeo

As I'm only 2 miles away that could be handy for servicing. I am very pleased with Northgate Canterbury so far but it is a bit of a jaunt from here.

Does anyone know, perhaps from Volvo or Fiat forums, if Lipscomb are any good?

The sales departments surely must be an improvement on Medway Autos, Rainham or Thames, Tunbridge Wells?

I live 5 mins from the Volvo dealership in Canterbury and I can tell you they have an excellent reputation around these parts!

Yes I use Northgate and am very happy with them for the 159. Lipscomb should also be good and only 2 miles from me too. I find it can turn on courtesy car insurance issues sometimes.

Originally Posted by David Jarrett

Yes I use Northgate and am very happy with them for the 159. Lipscomb should also be good and only 2 miles from me too. I find it can turn on courtesy car insurance issues sometimes.

Likewise Dave, but I think they'll have to go some to match Northgate for me as I've always had excellent service there.

Originally Posted by Der Teufel

Likewise Dave, but I think they'll have to go some to match Northgate for me as I've always had excellent service there.

I agree. Always friendly and they remind me of the old Motorway Sportscars garage at Boughton.

Ahhh...the days when an alfa showroom would have a 2000 spider and a Sud 1.2Ti jostling for space and old boys in ties and sports jackets would be nosing around for a new car to replace their old Riley..

Northgate have indeed always been the exception to the "Typical Alfa Dealer" rule. Popped in today for a touch up stick and as usual, all very polite and helpful. They have had a refirb too, all very nice! We are very spoilt in Canterbury with an excellent main dealer and an excellent indie (Mobitech)

Originally Posted by Mitch166

Northgate have indeed always been the exception to the "Typical Alfa Dealer" rule. Popped in today for a touch up stick and as usual, all very polite and helpful. They have had a refirb too, all very nice!

What exactly is the typical Alfa dealer that you talk about? All Alfa dealers should be like this one is, I know the one that I work at is.

Originally Posted by Degu

What exactly is the typical Alfa dealer that you talk about? All Alfa dealers should be like this one is, I know the one that I work at is.

Good to hear it.

We all know what they should be like, and if yours meets the standard then write their name here and heap praise! However, you don't have to do too much searching on this forum to see how terrible many of them are. I do believe the situation is improving, but we are not there yet.

Well I don't know if you remember it but a while ago they got rid of most of the dealers under the Alfa wing and they brought in a smaller number of dealers that supposedly met their standards. Besides most of the stories i've heard are about mistakes they've made, any dealer technically could make a mistake like that, doesn't mean the dealer is bad neccesarily.

As for the dealer that I work at, it's Longstones which is located at Cannington near Bridgwater in Somerset (South West).

Sounds like you have a real passion for the marque which is half the battle.

But don't be too quick to defend some of them. I took mine in to ...well they will remain nameless ... to fit a pull up ally gear knob. They couldn't work it out. So I did it in their garage...red faces all round. true

Originally Posted by Degu

Well I don't know if you remember it but a while ago they got rid of most of the dealers under the Alfa wing and they brought in a smaller number of dealers that supposedly met their standards. Besides most of the stories i've heard are about mistakes they've made, any dealer technically could make a mistake like that, doesn't mean the dealer is bad neccesarily.

As for the dealer that I work at, it's Longstones which is located at Cannington near Bridgwater in Somerset (South West).

Mate, I appreciate your defending of the marque, and if indeed your dealership does run as an Alfa dealership should then you would be rightly suprised at some of the horror stories of main dealers on here. And yes, I am talking after the dealer shake up. The fact remains there is still a lack of product knowledge and customer care.
I think your find iwe are all aware mistakes get made,it's how mistakes are handled that people will make the most judgements on.
We are all Alfisti, we all want the dealers to be excellent and when they are (Northgate, Canterbury) we will defend them.

I can't defend everything that other dealers do. Part of the success of my dealer is that we do things in an old fashioned, almost Italian way where customer care is highly valued, heck we even serve the fuel pumps ourself.

On the grand scale of things, I think that this mindset is how all dealers should be operating. There's a league table of all dealers in the UK and mine crept on to that list last year. The list has 200 dealers on it and there must surely be thousands in the UK alone so we can't be doing all that bad.

Originally Posted by Der Teufel

Likewise Dave, but I think they'll have to go some to match Northgate for me as I've always had excellent service there.

Quite agree. Always had good service