Handover - What was your experience like?

[FrozenBerries]

I didn’t get jack.

love the car though

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[MarkR]

I didn’t get jack.

love the car though

I'm surprised by this, but I do agree the car is the star of the show. Over 100 miles in mine since I picked it up last night and it is so nice to drive. ?

 

[Dabz]

I still find excuses to drive mine, 6 months after picking it up

 

[Jin]

Porsche South London and experience was limited to day the least. Had the intern doing the handover who didn’t really know much about the car. Not covered and in a small room with limited space to even open all the doors fully. Got 2 key rings and that was it.

given all that I was till giddy like a child and happy to just finally have the car.

 

[MarkR]

Porsche South London and experience was limited to day the least. Had the intern doing the handover who didn’t really know much about the car. Not covered and in a small room with limited space to even open all the doors fully. Got 2 key rings and that was it.

given all that I was till giddy like a child and happy to just finally have the car.

I can understand your feeling when you picked it up @Jin . I think I was feeling exactly the same way...?. It seems there is such a mix of experiences on collection day, quite surprising.

 

[stonecold926]

Mine was off-loaded from a delivery truck in a pub car park by my house on a wet October morning. No fault of the dealer, I should add, it was how the lease company had it sent to me. Was still childishly excited even so!

my experience was similar to yours

They offloaded the car and left. No one from Porsche even presented lol
Dealer told me to pick anything on their merchant site, but four months later I still haven't received anything.

 

[MarkR]

my experience was similar to yours

They offloaded the car and left. No one from Porsche even presented lol
Dealer told me to pick anything on their merchant site, but four months later I still haven't received anything.

Definitely appears to be a mixed bag in terms of how they are handed over. Hopefully you'll have one of the goodies turn up one day.

 

[whitex]

While the fancy unveiling and champagne is not what I would want picking up a car, the key is that customers get a handover they want. I specifically told my SA I don’t want fancy ceremonies. My handover was perfect for me, I showed up, found the car on the showroom floor, loaded my luggage in the trunk, spend a about a half hour setting it up, chatted with their local Taycan expert SA for a bit, then did the paperwork, picked some swag (chose floor mats and a mug, all clothing was only available in S and XS sizes which I am not), drove it off the showroom floor to a 3,500mile trip home - a great way to get to know your car and enjoy your purchase, which I did.

To each their own! As a dealer you must be able to do different handoffs for different customers. As you can see the spectrum is quite wide, some want an unveiling party, others want the car as is from shipping direct to their detailer, yet others just want the keys so they can start enjoy driving the car without unnecessary delays.

 

[Jonathan S.]

My used 4CT arrived on a massive and noisy truck at about 3:30 in the morning in our quiet residential neighborhood, having traveled almost the entire breadth of the North American continent (Bellevue WA > Amherst MA).
I thought about apologizing afterwards to the neighbors I might have awoken, but then decided better of it.
Put the car in our garage and went back to sleep.
Wife woke up before me, having to leave for an appointment, upon which she found the 4CT parked next to her i4 M50, having seemingly materialized over night (since this purchase had been entirely secret).
Fortunately the Shock and Awe approach worked, and she even explained to our daughter, "I'm so happy Daddy has an EV to drive for all his skiing."

 

[MarkR]

While the fancy unveiling and champagne is not what I would want picking up a car, the key is that customers get a handover they want. I specifically told my SA I don’t want fancy ceremonies. My handover was perfect for me, I showed up, found the car on the showroom floor, loaded my luggage in the trunk, spend a about a half hour setting it up, chatted with their local Taycan expert SA for a bit, then did the paperwork, picked some swag (chose floor mats and a mug, all clothing was only available in S and XS sizes which I am not), drove it off the showroom floor to a 3,500mile trip home - a great way to get to know your car and enjoy your purchase, which I did.

To each their own! As a dealer you must be able to do different handoffs for different customers. As you can see the spectrum is quite wide, some want an unveiling party, others want the car as is from shipping direct to their detailer, yet others just want the keys so they can start enjoy driving the car without unnecessary delays.

That a great point you make about everyone wanting a different experience. I guess the main thing is that everyone should get their preference. For us the handover was perfect. I also really wanted this for my kids as it made it exciting for them, especially with the anticipation a year of waiting brings. ?

 

[MarkR]

My used 4CT arrived on a massive and noisy truck at about 3:30 in the morning in our quiet residential neighborhood, having traveled almost the entire breadth of the North American continent (Bellevue WA > Amherst MA).
I thought about apologizing afterwards to the neighbors I might have awoken, but then decided better of it.
Put the car in our garage and went back to sleep.
Wife woke up before me, having to leave for an appointment, upon which she found the 4CT parked next to her i4 M50, having seemingly materialized over night (since this purchase had been entirely secret).
Fortunately the Shock and Awe approach worked, and she even explained to our daughter, "I'm so happy Daddy has an EV to drive for all his skiing."

I love the way you did this. What a nice surprise to wake up to in the morning...! I don't think I could have kept it quiet for so long.?

 

[whitex]

Fortunately the Shock and Awe approach worked, and she even explained to our daughter, "I'm so happy Daddy has an EV to drive for all his skiing."

Hmm, a wife that applauds an expensive surprise purchase by the husband, the paranoid me would be asking "why is she so ok with that?". What possible expensive purchase by your wife might materialize itself under the christmas tree? I don't know what your wife is into, but you might soon be a proud new owner of some very expensive quilting or sewing machine, or a small yarn store, or a green-house, or a tractor, or a small farm perhaps, or a horse she wants to ride, or maybe she wants to be a pilot and there is a Cessna or a Robinson in your future?

 

[whitex]

That a great point you make about everyone wanting a different experience. I guess the main thing is that everyone should get their preference. For us the handover was perfect. I also really wanted this for my kids as it made it exciting for them, especially with the anticipation a year of waiting brings. ?

I waited 20 months (actively looking for an allocation too, never got one at any dealers near my home), but my kids are older now so while they knew I ordered it, they wouldn't care to come with to pick it up. Heck, even my wife wasn't up for a 3,500 mile inaugural ride (even though it included visiting my son at his place). I can totally see wanting to do a ceremony for my kids' sake if they were younger though. Today they are more like me, "just give me the keys and let me drive it!" My wife never ever wanted to go to the dealer to pick up even her cars. She much prefers I just pick up a new car for her every few years and hand her the keys. As she puts it to her friends "every few years a new car shows up in the garage for me and I love it". She always tells me things about the car she wants next, her general preferences on car/options/color, but she hates going to dealers and the actual purchase process. Since we've been married, we had "his and her" cars, sometimes the same model, but almost always from the same brand family. Over the last decade we each went through 2 Model S'es. Today I drive a Taycan, and she drives a Q8 eTron, close enough.

 

[kort]

My used 4CT arrived on a massive and noisy truck at about 3:30 in the morning in our quiet residential neighborhood, having traveled almost the entire breadth of the North American continent (Bellevue WA > Amherst MA).
I thought about apologizing afterwards to the neighbors I might have awoken, but then decided better of it.
Put the car in our garage and went back to sleep.
Wife woke up before me, having to leave for an appointment, upon which she found the 4CT parked next to her i4 M50, having seemingly materialized over night (since this purchase had been entirely secret).
Fortunately the Shock and Awe approach worked, and she even explained to our daughter, "I'm so happy Daddy has an EV to drive for all his skiing."

you cannot expect any sort of special treatment when purchasing a used vehicle

 

[Jonathan S.]

Hmm, a wife that applauds an expensive surprise purchase by the husband, the paranoid me would be asking "why is she so ok with that?". What possible expensive purchase by your wife might materialize itself under the christmas tree? I don't know what your wife is into, but you might soon be a proud new owner of some very expensive quilting or sewing machine, or a small yarn store, or a green-house, or a tractor, or a small farm perhaps, or a horse she wants to ride, or maybe she wants to be a pilot and there is a Cessna or a Robinson in your future?

You are more accurate that you probably anticipated, albeit somewhat retroactively: during the pandemic, she started spending ~$10k each year on landscaping supplies, although 2023 was a banner year at ~$16.k (mainly b/c she paid for some professional labor for a change on plantings beyond our household abilities).

So many plants combined with endless bags of bark mulch and soil.

I still remember that first soil bag:

"We live on the edge of a forest, isn't dirt free?"​

Plus one big delivery of rocks, followed a year later by boulders.

"Will you be home tomorrow morning?"​

"Yes."​

"Oh good, I'm having some rocks delivered."​

Dump truck driver asked me repeatedly if we have a septic system, since if so, driving around to our backyard would have crushed it.
I should have lied and said we did.
I still remember watching the load dumped into our backyard, realizing that I would have to move every single one of those rocks.
Wife returned home:

"Oh, that's about twice what I ordered and paid for."​

Took me the entire summer to move them.

I should have know better, since her father is an amateur botanist, with his own greenhouse (see, you thought a reference to a personal greenhouse was just a joke?) and extensive grounds, where people come to take tours.

But from when I met her in 1997, to when the pandemic hit in 2020, nope, never any interest in landscaping.
Then the pandemic hit.
Turns out she was the home landscaping equivalent of a terrorist sleeper cell, not even aware of her own status, just awaiting some sort of external stimulus.
I would wake up early almost every morning, skin up a closed ski area like in some post-apocalyptic movie, come home in the early afternoon to our daughter attending 4th grade on her computer and my wife with a fresh batch of bags for me to move and holes for me to dig (literally for a change).

I have to admit though, all that $ and all her toil sure resulted in spectacular grounds!
(Plus I need far less time to mow the lawn now we have far less of a lawn.)

BTW, one of my best friends from college has a wife who started her own yarn store.
(See, you thought you were joking again?)
Ended up going under, in a big way, and instead of declaring bankruptcy, she paid off all her creditors in full. A major financial hit for them, and although my friend earns a decent salary as a gov't lawyer, with three kids, that really hurt.

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