20th February 26 Brentford, to Bromley and back.
- 1 day ago
- 3 min read
Working today for an old and favourite ex workplace. One of the only places I actually regret leaving. Renault Retail Group now in Brentford, West London.
I started with them when they were in Park Royal on the A40 Westway. Where Renault had been for a very long time. In fact once building cars there in the 50s. There, in the Acton factory they assembled the Renault 4CV and later the Renault Dauphine. Until they closed in 1960
Unfortunately times change and whilst they retailed cars there for many years. In 2022 they had already sold the valuable land. And made the decision to move to a site in Brentford, unfortunately due to delays, they had to take temporary site at Staples Corner. Which was a shame for many reasons. Mostly the complete misunderstanding of the value of being the flagship UK site called "Renault London West" There were only a few people who agreed with my, probably too loud, protests about changing the name to Renault Staples Corner " (I know right!)
Not only that. The sheer stupidity of closing a business and changing the name of that business meant that it killed the online presence of the business for, I believe a few years at least. But no the brilliant marketing department forged ahead. Not only killing the business online. But not even properly telling it's existing customers what was happening. (Again right?)
We used to get calls from the old site, by now a construction site. That people were turning up for their car service appointments, months after the move.
As bad as that sounds, moving to a place like Stapes Corner. Which, if you know the area is located on a roundabout which links the North Circular A406 to the start and end of the M1 and A5 roads.
Nobody wanted to drive there to visit a car retailer. Customers always complained bitterly about it. Staff too. I had actually moved home to Brentford because I was told we were moving there. Alas not yet. So a journey of anything from 20 minutes to 4 hours (one day, that's true) to get to work.
Of course the powers that be, expected the same results, if not better than we had at the massive A40 site. Ridiculous.
But yes I still loved working for the company and the new site in Brentford is really great and the product Renault now have is incredible, compared to before.
Today I was collecting a Pre-registrated Renault Rafale
This was going to a retail customer in Bromley, South East London. With a car coming back.
So I drove my own car to Brentford and left it at Renault.
Got the appraisal done, signed and made my way out the A4, M4 and M25 anticlockwise to get to there.
As you can see it takes pretty much the same time to go 19 miles through London as going 67 miles round the M25.
Both ways are a lottery of traffic issues and both could take hours longer than planned.
Luckily the M4 and M25 were actually quiet and I got there just over the hour.
Delivery appraisal done the customer had seen me arriving in her new car and came out to excitedly see it.
She was trading in this
A 2021 Skoda Karoq. In amazing condition actually. A credit to the owner.
The drive back was equally quiet and I got back to Brentford dropped off the Skoda the salesman, my good friend Parminder was off today. So I quickly obtained a signature for the delivery appraisal and jumped in my car and was home by 14.00.
A nice quick job that I thought was going to be a long day. Actually wasn't.
Weekend ahead of relaxing.
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