Consumer rant: buying a new car - how hard can it be?

Moving back to Finland meant also the need to get some wheels. I've used company leases before and thought this was the way to go this time too. I did some research and ended up with an idea to buy one with one of the new small, turbocharged petrol engines attached to a dual-clutch manual gearboxes, which can be run just like automatic. My only other requirements are cruise control and A/C so I'm not really basing this on emotional factors despite my worship of Top Gear TV show.

Why? I'm not the greenest person out there but want to help the environment for my part so going to a smaller engine is logical. Of course saving fuel is also economical and helps the economy too by saving oil, which eventually will run out. Our family really needs an automatic my bum left knee and wrist issues my wife's has now and again, so going with the environmental theme a manual box operated like an automatic is the best fit.

The two logical choices then are Ford with their 1.0l turbo engines and Powershift gearbox and VW brands with 1.2l turbo with DSG. Both engines produce some 100+ bhp and gearboxes give you normal clutch pedal-less auto without the increase in fuel consumption and performance. The selection is easy as the Ford engine is not even available in Finland, at least on the Focus. I settled with the cheapest option for a small family car with these specs: Seat Ibiza ST. So, off to the shops I went, test drove the thing and wanted to buy. Problem is, I couldn't. They were about to introduce a facelift in the Geneva auto show and didn't have any models with my two requirements in Finland.

They didn't know how much the new model would cost either. This was in early February and the estimate was that they'd have a price list in a couple of weeks. More than a couple of months later they still haven't been able to tell the leasing company how much the new model will cost. Once they can do that, I am looking at a 10 week delivery time to actually get the car. To make matters, not maybe worse, but at least a lot more annoying, they've been very economical with the facts as the different delay excuses have been piling on. To top it off I have a 2nd hand Ibiza I've been driving around and seeing bits fall off it hasn't really convinced me that I should really wait that long for this car.

I finally gave up this week and ordered another car. Keeping with the original spec I added another: I need to get the car soon. So I called around a decided on getting a Skoda Yeti instead of the unavailable Seat. We drove a Roomster before and Yeti is another quirky small car from the VW-owned car maker in the Czech Republic. They promised the car in two weeks.

The downside of this is the Skoda alternative is more expensive with it's quasi-SUV looks, although the car I'm getting is 2-wheel drive. It's got more boot space and even Top Gear liked it.

What I can't get my head around is how can one expect to survive as a car dealership when you don't sell cars? Also, if you can't sell a product to the customer, who in their right mind thinks that customer is ever getting back once they find out you're just stringing them along and breaking every promised timeline?