Lease return difficulties

[borski]

I see your meaning of loyalty, btw, and I don’t disagree. I don’t mean blind faith. I mean loyalty to a brand as long as that brand continues to remain fulfilling the same things it always did.

If the brand changes, there’s no longer the same brand to be loyal to.

To me, brand loyalty is about looking at that brand first, but not necessarily “forsaking all others.” That would be dumb.

Or I’m wrong. It’s happened before. Often.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

Now, Audi has unsold me. As I went through the trials and tribulations of owning my Audi EV, my wife asked me why I didn't get something else. There wasn't anything that I thought I would like more than my GT (which is truly awesome car). Then I saw the lease deals on the Lucid...and here I am.

So the moral of the story is that just because someone ends up repeating purchases from a single company, the decision-making can be a lot more nuanced than just re-buying the old and familiar.

OMG, our experiences and decision making is similar. First VW Scirocco in school, then 911s, then rwd BMWs while in a stuffy job the South. Then quattro Audi's in Colorado. Each was a conscious buying decision. It was Audi for many years, until it was not.

I hope I didn't imply there was one decision making reason for repeated purchases. I remember an entire course in business school on the psychology of purchase decision making. Morrison was correct, people are strange.

We do disagree on one point. We had an Audi Etron GT for a week, on loan, and bailed. Seemed liked someone just threw a battery in an A7. No storage space. Horrible range. Drove like an ice A7. But much sexier looking. While having the Audi GT for a very fustrating week, we did a Lucid test drive. End of story.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

I see your meaning of loyalty, btw, and I don’t disagree. I don’t mean blind faith. I mean loyalty to a brand as long as that brand continues to remain fulfilling the same things it always did.

If the brand changes, there’s no longer the same brand to be loyal to.

To me, brand loyalty is about looking at that brand first, but not necessarily “forsaking all others.” That would be dumb.

Or I’m wrong. It’s happened before. Often.

You are not wrong, just conflating brand preference and your " preferred option" with loyalty.

I agree with preference and preferred option. Totally. But that's not loyalty, to me. When my wife puts her heart into making a bizarre frittata, and I grin and eat it with a smile, perhaps that is loyalty.

 

[kort6776]

loyalty is not a thing for me, I buy/lease the best car available at the time that is going for the most reasonable price. in the past 5 years I've gone from tesla to porsche to lucid and my lease is up soon so I am looking at audi,bmw and porsche. the cost of the car will weigh heavily in the decision. my wife has gone from MB to Jaguar, my son has gone from vw to lexus to genesis. best car at the best price is how I roll.

 

[HC_79]

Now, Audi has unsold me. As I went through the trials and tribulations of owning my Audi EV, my wife asked me why I didn't get something else. There wasn't anything that I thought I would like more than my GT (which is truly awesome car). Then I saw the lease deals on the Lucid...and here I am

Same. I was loyal to Audi for over a decade until the e-Tron SUV. Software was absolute trash, they literally took the ICE software and tried to shoehorn it into an EV and it didn’t work. The last straw was when it almost left me stranded because it navigated to chargers that it knew were offline. Every time I complained to Audi about the bugs and issues it was the same old response “oh, we’ve never heard of that happening before” yet, online everyone was complaining with the same issues.

Never say never but at this point in time I don’t see myself ever going back to Audi based on that experience.

 

[borski]

You are not wrong, just conflating brand preference and your " preferred option" with loyalty.

I agree with preference and preferred option. Totally. But that's not loyalty, to me. When my wife puts her heart into making a bizarre frittata, and I grin and eat it with a smile, perhaps that is loyalty.

Fair point.

I hope I didn't imply there was one decision making reason for repeated purchases. I remember an entire course in business school on the psychology of purchase decision making. Morrison was correct, people are strange.

On this, I couldn’t agree more.

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

. Every time I complained to Audi about the bugs and issues it was the same old response “oh, we’ve never heard of that happening before” yet, online everyone was complaining with the same issues.

I almost fell out of my to chair. Laughing and reliving the frustration. Not just software but high failure rate, defective parts. "It's news to us" must be an induced hypnotic response that is hardwired into Audi SAs

 

[L-Dude]

I almost fell out of my to chair. Laughing and reliving the frustration. Not just software but high failure rate, defective parts. "It's news to us" must be an induced hypnotic response that is hardwired into Audi SAs

My fav was when I brought my Audi in for a problem where a TSB had been issued and the SA said he hadn't heard of the problem before. Say what???

 

[Worldwide Beagle]

My fav was when I brought my Audi in for a problem where a TSB had been issued and the SA said he hadn't heard of the problem before. Say what???

Same. Several times. I brought copies with me! I even subscribed to the public TSB provider the DOT required Audi to have.

 

[Amerikon]

We're all going to miss the good ol' dealership experience, where you got to sit down with people and haggle. Sure, some were annoying but they also understood concepts like future opportunity, retention, investment. You know, give a little now, make the client happy, get back more in the future.

What a wild take! I can't believe that there are people who like car dealerships! I have to say that I have never had a positive experience buying or leasing a car until I got a Lucid. I swear, I would pay extra for a car if it meant I never had to deal with another salesman and their dealership's stupid finance dept ever again.

Hopefully I'll have a similarly good experience when I give the car back in a couple of years.

 

[marsarbu]

What a wild take! I can't believe that there are people who like car dealerships! I have to say that I have never had a positive experience buying or leasing a car until I got a Lucid. I swear, I would pay extra for a car if it meant I never had to deal with another salesman and their dealership's stupid finance dept ever again.

Hopefully I'll have a similarly good experience when I give the car back in a couple of years.

I know most people feel like you do. To be clear, while I highly dislike the dealership experience, it does have considerable advantages for me, that completely vanish when having to deal with chatbots or contractors. I like negotiating and I am really good at it. In this new world, I will never be able to get the kind of discounts I used to get from a dealership.

 

[kort6776]

I know most people feel like you do. To be clear, while I highly dislike the dealership experience, it does have considerable advantages for me, that completely vanish when having to deal with chatbots or contractors. I like negotiating and I am really good at it. In this new world, I will never be able to get the kind of discounts I used to get from a dealership.

they sure have you hooked, while I am sure that you get some good deals, probably better than most others, but they are still getting you, one way or another. After buying 3 teslas and this lucid I prefer the pay what the price is model. YMMV