Well after 4 1/2 weeks after I purchased the car from Newport Beach Aston Martin I finally have the plates in my hand and I'm putting them in the car right now.

Had I known it would take this long and I'd have to put up with the attitude of the dealer as well as having to contact Aston Martin in England and in the US to get any action I would've had second thoughts of purchasing this car.

I hope they use a different service in the future so customers won't have this nightmare.

 

I suspect that I'm the Florida customer you were told about.

I hope I wasn't just lucky, but yeah, things went very well and I left with a very good impression. They even jumped to sort out a lien release document glitch while I was at the DMV here. I made the DMV sloth talk to the finance manager at AMNB so it got sorted while I waited.

Really sucks that your experience was so much not better. Your DMV didn't have any sort of temp tag/plate they could give you? The DMV here just gave me a tag that expired in 2 weeks.

It must have been horrible waiting to drive. I'd be angry too. The good news is that 47 minutes behind the wheel will effectively erase everything. Enjoy.

 

Last night was the first time I could actually drive the car, and the first time with the sportshift (my last Aston Martin was a manual). It takes a bit getting used to but I can see that I'll most likely enjoy it better. It's just weird to have the clutch automatic. About that 47 minutes. I notified Pamela at Newport Beach I would hold off an any other action I was about to take and just let it be. As you know Pamela is the finance and 'compliance' director. This is an actual copy and paste from your response:


I just came across the document you signed acknowledging the processing timewould be up to six weeks and I am happy to say it was completed in four weeks.Hope you find time to enjoy your car.


I probably signed 20 pages of documents when I bought the car and the extended warranty... guess how many of the clauses I read? Guess how many Pamela would have read? Yes everything has disclaimers, and yes if my clutch explodes tomorrow, Aston could say it's not warrantied, but that's highly unlikely. So, if a customer has a concern after sale (before and during the sale they were fantastic), that is where it seemed I was 'bothering' them. This is typical of the sarcasm I got from her, the GM, and at first from the salesman, who told me it could be two or three week delay to get the plates. When I asked James, the salesman to imagine if he was in my position he was far more polite, but there was a time when he was not. I'm just glad it's behind me. My wife, son and I (we all drive the Astons, and we have all been to the training at the Ford proving grounds in Michigan), are still upset over this matter - it's going to take more than 47 minutes of Aston time!

 

Wow. That just sucks. It is so frustrating when you've lost the leverage in a transaction and the other side fails to appreciate your position.

Your family all drive Astons? Now that's the kind of family I'm trying to form.

What do you all have?

One last set of things, just to show how wildly different experiences can be. When I got my car I discovered that the owner's manual was not actually the correct, original manual (it was for an '09, mine's '08, the audio and A/C chapters were a bit of a give away). I called James and he promised to get me a correct manual. A few weeks later, a package arrived from England, brand new '08 manual. Next, I noticed that two of the tyres were mounted with the "inside" sidewall on the outside. Again, I called James and he stepped up. I had my local dealer remount the tyres and told James the cost. Two weeks later a check for the full amount arrived.

I'm not pointing these things out to rub your nose in your experience, just to show that for no real reason, people can have vastly different experiences in very similar circumstances.

I really hope your new Aston is perfect in every way.

 

Now I think overall James was great I think he was just put in the position his attitude was much better than others.

We had one vantage .. All went to the aston drivers course!