Is there such a thing as budget supplies..

[bexrbetter]

Where the first dealer wouldn't trouble himself to offer $50 for cabfare after I had spent $1,000 of my own money getting there, Greg from Silent Wings proposed and offered my airfare to Europe without hesitation or quibble. Guess who got the sale?

The girl with the large assets?

 

Not sure why the Dealer should pay your cab fare, they don't know if you will purchase or not, but it is an often offered courtesy to remove your travel expenses from the purchase price.

 

 

[Keith Page]

It's not only the "budget" suppliers that give lousy service either. Late last year, my wife and I travelled to Melbourne from Brisbane to do a pre-purchase test flight for a new aircraft purchase. We spent the best part of $1,000 travelling to and staying in Melbourne to do this. The airplane would have cost us around $140,000 to buy, but the dealer left us to find our own way from Melbourne airport to his airfield and didn't even offer to cover the $50 taxi fare. So we were off to a less than brilliant start. Then when we returned home, we tried to ask the dealer some more questions, but answer came there none! No response, nothing, nada. Soo, we went looking elsewhere. We eventually fetched up with Silent Wings who have treated us marvellously and have assisted us in the purchase of our new airplane. I had to fly to Europe to do the test flight and SW paid my airfare because they didn't have an airplane in country that I could see in the flesh. I know the economics of this and that ultimately, I paid my own airfare via the profit the dealer will make from my purchase, but it's the attitude of the dealer that counts. Where the first dealer wouldn't trouble himself to offer $50 for cabfare after I had spent $1,000 of my own money getting there, Greg from Silent Wings proposed and offered my airfare to Europe without hesitation or quibble. Guess who got the sale?

In the marketing game every one has friends and they are the ones you need they are the profit -- so structure yourself to sell to them. In a nut shell look after old mate who made the first contact make sure he is super happy and he will tell the world and that is free advertising.

Regards

 

KP.

 

 

[Keith Page]

It's not only the "budget" suppliers that give lousy service either. Late last year, my wife and I travelled to Melbourne from Brisbane to do a pre-purchase test flight for a new aircraft purchase. We spent the best part of $1,000 travelling to and staying in Melbourne to do this. The airplane would have cost us around $140,000 to buy, but the dealer left us to find our own way from Melbourne airport to his airfield and didn't even offer to cover the $50 taxi fare. So we were off to a less than brilliant start. Then when we returned home, we tried to ask the dealer some more questions, but answer came there none! No response, nothing, nada. Soo, we went looking elsewhere. We eventually fetched up with Silent Wings who have treated us marvellously and have assisted us in the purchase of our new airplane. I had to fly to Europe to do the test flight and SW paid my airfare because they didn't have an airplane in country that I could see in the flesh. I know the economics of this and that ultimately, I paid my own airfare via the profit the dealer will make from my purchase, but it's the attitude of the dealer that counts. Where the first dealer wouldn't trouble himself to offer $50 for cabfare after I had spent $1,000 of my own money getting there, Greg from Silent Wings proposed and offered my airfare to Europe without hesitation or quibble. Guess who got the sale?

In the marketing game every one has friends and they are the ones you need they are the profit -- so structure yourself to sell to them. In a nut shell look after old mate who made the first contact make sure he is super happy and he will tell the world and that is free advertising.

Regards

 

KP.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

The girl with the large assets? Not sure why the Dealer should pay your cab fare, they don't know if you will purchase or not, but it is an often offered courtesy to remove your travel expenses from the purchase price.

Sorry Bex, I left out part of the story. We travelled to Melbourne with another couple who had informed the dealer that there would be four of us arriving. The dealer said he would arrange transport for us to his airfield. When we arrived in Melbourne the dealer showed up in a Honda Civic, with a mate and gathered up the other couple and then said to my wife and I, "oh just catch a cab". As it happened, we had to wait half an hour in the que just to get a cab. If we hadn't pre-booked and paid for our accomodation and already set the flights for the two days we allotted to do the look-see / flight test, I would have been on the next plane back to Brissy.

 

Given that the four of us were looking to buy two $140,000 airplanes, I think the dealer's treatment of us was pretty shabby. We forked out $1,000 to go see the airplanes and he was too cheap to cover a $50 cab fare. I don't think that it was unreasonable to expect him to cover the cab fare in view of his offer to "provide transport".

 

 

[cscotthendry]

The girl with the large assets? Not sure why the Dealer should pay your cab fare, they don't know if you will purchase or not, but it is an often offered courtesy to remove your travel expenses from the purchase price.

Sorry Bex, I left out part of the story. We travelled to Melbourne with another couple who had informed the dealer that there would be four of us arriving. The dealer said he would arrange transport for us to his airfield. When we arrived in Melbourne the dealer showed up in a Honda Civic, with a mate and gathered up the other couple and then said to my wife and I, "oh just catch a cab". As it happened, we had to wait half an hour in the que just to get a cab. If we hadn't pre-booked and paid for our accomodation and already set the flights for the two days we allotted to do the look-see / flight test, I would have been on the next plane back to Brissy.

 

Given that the four of us were looking to buy two $140,000 airplanes, I think the dealer's treatment of us was pretty shabby. We forked out $1,000 to go see the airplanes and he was too cheap to cover a $50 cab fare. I don't think that it was unreasonable to expect him to cover the cab fare in view of his offer to "provide transport".

 

 

[Kiwi303]

I would have expected him to have shown up in something big enough to carry 4 passengers! He knew how many were coming, so there was no excuse there...

 

Pretty shoddy service.

 

 

[Kiwi303]

I would have expected him to have shown up in something big enough to carry 4 passengers! He knew how many were coming, so there was no excuse there...

 

Pretty shoddy service.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

I would have expected him to have shown up in something big enough to carry 4 passengers! He knew how many were coming, so there was no excuse there...Pretty shoddy service.

And the shoddy treatment didn't end there. When we returned to Brisbane, trying to get any queries answered was a non-event, and that was before he had our money. It made me wonder what he would have been like once we had forked over the cash. And the final nail in the coffin of the deal was that the airplanes looked great in the pics in the magazine, but the quality wasn't there when we saw the airplane in the flesh.

Edit: after we returned to Brissy, I happened to mention the dealer's name to a couple of others who, it turned out had had dealings with him, and they all rolled their eyes and said things like "I could have told you ..."

 

 

[cscotthendry]

I would have expected him to have shown up in something big enough to carry 4 passengers! He knew how many were coming, so there was no excuse there...Pretty shoddy service.

And the shoddy treatment didn't end there. When we returned to Brisbane, trying to get any queries answered was a non-event, and that was before he had our money. It made me wonder what he would have been like once we had forked over the cash. And the final nail in the coffin of the deal was that the airplanes looked great in the pics in the magazine, but the quality wasn't there when we saw the airplane in the flesh.

Edit: after we returned to Brissy, I happened to mention the dealer's name to a couple of others who, it turned out had had dealings with him, and they all rolled their eyes and said things like "I could have told you ..."

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Fair enough Scott.

 

Which plane was it please? Not interested in shaming the Dealer, just curious about the quality side you mentioned.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Fair enough Scott.

 

Which plane was it please? Not interested in shaming the Dealer, just curious about the quality side you mentioned.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Fair enough Scott.Which plane was it please? Not interested in shaming the Dealer, just curious about the quality side you mentioned.

Bex:

I wouldn't like to name the plane in public because it would instantly identify the dealer and people are pretty litigous these days.

 

The quality issues I had were

 

When we taxied to the runway, the instrument panel wobbled, rattled and squeaked on both airplanes we tried

 

The hinges on the doors were molded as part of the doors (composite airplane) and were non replaceable. The hinges on both doors on both airplanes had been broken from over rotation of the doors and had bee roughly repaired but were still wobbly.

 

The side windows on both airplanes had significan optical distortions from careless forming which is a turn off for me because I shoot a lot of flying videos.

 

In the pictures, the instrument panel looked like woodgrain, but in real life the "woodgrain" turned out to be very poorly executed water transfer graphics, with no finish coating.

 

Overall, the airplane looked good in the promo shots but looked cheap and nasty in the flesh.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Fair enough Scott.Which plane was it please? Not interested in shaming the Dealer, just curious about the quality side you mentioned.

Bex:

I wouldn't like to name the plane in public because it would instantly identify the dealer and people are pretty litigous these days.

 

The quality issues I had were

 

When we taxied to the runway, the instrument panel wobbled, rattled and squeaked on both airplanes we tried

 

The hinges on the doors were molded as part of the doors (composite airplane) and were non replaceable. The hinges on both doors on both airplanes had been broken from over rotation of the doors and had bee roughly repaired but were still wobbly.

 

The side windows on both airplanes had significan optical distortions from careless forming which is a turn off for me because I shoot a lot of flying videos.

 

In the pictures, the instrument panel looked like woodgrain, but in real life the "woodgrain" turned out to be very poorly executed water transfer graphics, with no finish coating.

 

Overall, the airplane looked good in the promo shots but looked cheap and nasty in the flesh.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Wow, great eye for detail, thanks for the writeup.

 

.. and Yuh, the door hinges are a bit silly.

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Wow, great eye for detail, thanks for the writeup.

 

.. and Yuh, the door hinges are a bit silly.

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Oh and one other thing I really disliked about the plane. The airplane was a composite which included composite main gear legs. The brake lines running from the fuselage to the brakes ran down the trailing edge of the legs as they do on most light airplanes, but these were attached with nailed on cable clips! That's right, they hammered nails into the composite landing gear legs ...Errk!

 

 

[cscotthendry]

Oh and one other thing I really disliked about the plane. The airplane was a composite which included composite main gear legs. The brake lines running from the fuselage to the brakes ran down the trailing edge of the legs as they do on most light airplanes, but these were attached with nailed on cable clips! That's right, they hammered nails into the composite landing gear legs ...Errk!

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Well that nailed it then!

 

 

[bexrbetter]

Well that nailed it then!