I think its also important to note that a lot of stores are basically out of loaners right now. No joke.
I bet a bunch of people who are right with their BMW dealers can speak to this right now.
Some dealers just keep a thin supply of loaners even in the best of circumstances. The BMW dealer I use in the Dallas/Ft Worth area keeps a large fleet of loaners. When I call to make an appointment for service they tell me they appreciate it but it’s not required for routine service. They have plenty of loaners. Back to the OP’s question though… it is kind of crappy that there is no corporate guideline for stuff like that. Seems like they’d want a uniform experience at all of their dealers. Especially since now days so many brands frown on dealers having an actual name attached to them. They want them all to be “Land Rover/Range Rover of …” I kind of thought the whole point of not having a personal name on a dealer was to create a uniform brand experience. Guess not…lol
Pretty standard for JLR dealerships, I think. Had a similar experience at Galpin in SoCal when my F-Type completely died two weeks after getting it. They didn’t agree to give me a loaner (since I didn’t buy from them) until after they crashed it while trying to fix it, and ended up needing 4 weeks to replace a few parts that had broken when they backed it into another car on the lot.
Of course, they gave me a base XE 25t which is like 1/3 the MSRP of my F-Type, but at least I got something.
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yea, the even crappier part is the fact the car has two recalls…lol anyways no big deal I’m not really fussing over it tbh. Just agree I wish corporate had better guidelines around this.
Yup, BMW, Audi and MB loaner appointments around here almost always require scheduling in advance whereas waiting/non-loaner appointments are usually available with much less notice.
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Getting the 1st service on the wife’s XC90 soon and it can all be scheduled via an app now. Seems like they come drop off the loaner while driving your car back to their dealership for the service. We’ll see how this goes.
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I remember when Ford owned Volvo and my dealer switched to all-Taurus loaner fleet. Driving a base Taurus was something…
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A buddy of mine bought a new RRS SVR and had more issues than he could count (ongoing lemon case). Every time the car has been in the shop he received a voucher for an Enterprise rental, had to be picked up by an Enterprise employee, and was driven back to the satellite office to get a “loaner”. He typically gets a 300C or alike.
I’d be livid.
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Maybe RR/ Jaguar dealers have plenty of loaners, but with RR/Jaguar reliability, they’re all being used for long term. 
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I would expect them to provide a loaner also. Went to Lexus dealership few days ago for service and oil change on 2008 ES350, no appointment no call just showed up to service center and they gave a loaner as the car service was going to take 2 days.
But saying that no loaner as the car was not bought from them is just gonna drive business away.
Also in NJ, dealerships are next to each other on same highway, so may be they strive for business rather than pushing people away.
If you didn’t book the loaner you can’t expect it. Period.
Especially in a time like this with such an inventory crunch.
It doesn’t matter what brand it is-if you didnt plan you can’t expect it.
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For as much as I post and as wordy as I am, I make a lot of mistakes (which is why most posts have 3+ edits). My accuracy at the computer is very high, but most LH posts I reply to on my phone, which if farrr less accurate. If you aren’t seeing my mistakes, you aren’t looking.
Back on topic…
The only exception with RR might be: if you tag work hasn’t gone to DMV (the ink on your deal is still wet) and it breaks down.
@Bostoncarconcierge’s advise is right, when I first read your post and you said it was a scheduled appointment, I figured your service writer actually asked if you were waiting, needed the shuttle (if they have), or a loaner. Even Ford, Mazda, VW, and Subaru used to ask me that before I ever showed up.
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I don’t know how the conversation keeps going back to “if you didn’t book a loaner and showed up you can’t expect a loaner”. That is not what my point by this post is. I was told point blank by the service advisor that they simply wouldn’t provide a loaner because I didn’t lease the car from them, plain and simple. Same story with other two nearby Land Rover dealers when I called to ask.
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Alright I reread your posts and to summarize:
- Your Velar is acting up like any RR
- The dealer you made an appointment with didn’t inquire what you the RR lessor would do while it was getting it’s recall un-recalled, nor did you ask them for a loaner
- you arrived and were told “you didn’t lease here so you NEVER get a loaner”, and it turns out the local dealers all do that
- You contacted the poor slobs at RR customer care who told you “tough, dealers can do what they want”
I’m sure the lesson is learned that when you book a service appointment in the future with a brand who cares, ask and arrange transportation (loaner, rental, shuttle, etc)
NOW: what to do?
- If you aren’t moving, maybe a different brand next time around? Your call
- I never advise this, but were I you, I would absolutely trash them if you get a customer service survey. And next time, I’d use a different dealer who doesn’t offer loaners, and trash then on the survey. I don’t care if the Service people get paid on their CSI scores because that policy is trash
- I would post a 1-star on Yelp and Google and ask how an $80k car that breaks that much, that RR pays them for all this warranty work, how they can penalize you for not getting it there? What if you just moved there from out of state?
And depending how spiteful you feel, because when I’m this twisted, I might run some paid social media ads and drive them to my Google/Yelp reviews.
Someday, when we can laugh about this, I might tell you more about my friend’s new LR4 that was a lemon, that he fought RR Customer Care for a collateral exchange (exact words, “we can do this the easy way or the hard way…”) went the hard way but eventually he won and got his collateral exchange, and LR4 #2 was also a lemon. 
Be glad it’s a lease and try to enjoy it, spend the absolute minimum amount of time at RR service department.
And with that, I’m going to landfill my OT spelling error jokes. Good luck!
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This is a never a case with BMW, talking about the SoCal market, and even recently. I dropped off my car for oil change and a recall last weekend, booked an appointment 2 days prior, and got my loaner X5. I picked up my car in the same day as well. It’s a shame for a luxury brand to not to offer a loaner no matter where you purchase or lease your car.
As others have mentioned, I would just bash them on the survey and social media 
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I have never experienced that with years of BMW and Lexus. At least when they have a loaner issue, they will never say it’s because I didn’t buy the car from them. But I’m sure someone that has the more expensive cars or customers that have relationship with the dealership get first dibs.
With Lexus, I later started taking the car to Toyota even when under warranty the loaner issue disappeared caused I didn’t expect to get one 
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yea I could care less about all this to be honest. I guess by this post some people learned this can actually be the case. I actually didn’t lease this from out of state to save money, I lived up in NJ and then moved out of state so. But yea like others have echo’d I wish luxury brands like this would try and make sure customers would have the same experience across the board, although I guess its not many who have this sort of experience/issue.
I think we all assume there is a hierarchy with the OEM above the dealer. Depending on franchise laws the dealer could have more leverage over the OEM rather than vice versa.
Sometimes OEMs have very little leverage to punish actual bad behavior, let alone enforce/standardize any of the discretionary stuff like loaner cars.
@DJ929 - Your experience is consistent with mine. In the Boston area, my wife and I were told the same thing - the LR dealers only offer a loaner if you bought/leased the car from them.
We had some service work that needed done shortly after leasing our Discovery on a great deal (thanks to @Bostoncarconcierge!). Took it to a different Boston-area LR dealership and were told (a) they would not give us a loaner (even with any advanced appointment being made) since we didn’t lease from them and (b) they wouldn’t even do the work needed, even though they validated it was needed, and told us to go back to our selling dealer.
Since then, I’ve had some chats with the service managers at the LR store we leased from, and they’ve confirmed it is at least a local or regional policy to only provide loaners to customers that bought at the dealership. One of the advisors even told me a story of one of his recent customers that bought a F-Type out of state and moved into the area. The F-Type came in for warranty work for a week and the service manager had to deny the person a loaner based on the policy; I think even the service manager felt bad about it but said it wasn’t up to him.
I can understand it to some extent due to the demand for loaners, as the wait time to get one when booking in advance is regularly 3 or 4 weeks out. But nonetheless, it is a really customer-unfriendly policy for a premium marque and I’m surprised LR North America allows their stores to behave this way just in terms of customer satisfaction. It’s not encouraging us to return and lease another LR/RR when this one is up.
On the other hand, when I take my Porsche to the Porsche dealer for service, they never have any issues giving me a loaner even though I didn’t buy from them.
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