Got a letter this morning stating that Chatham (who have sold Hondas for 30 odd years) will end their partnership with Honda UK from the end of this month

Not entirely sure what has happened, or who has the Edinburgh Franchise for Honda now.

It does say that they will retain an "authorised Honda service centre" at the old location, which is good from my perspective.

I wasn't aware that there were Honda service centres unattached to a proper dealership.

 

Ooops, meant to report this a while back, a new Honda dealership will be opening at Fort Kinnaird run by the Eastern/Western group(think Merc/BMW). Not sure re the service centre, haven't had the heart to ask for details from the guys at Abbeyhill who may be losing their jobs but since this letter is now out I'll be in there sometime this week and enquire.

 

Fort Kinnaird is miles away from me, so lets hope the city centre Honda servicing works out OK at Chatham.

I too would be sorry to see the folk I know there losing their jobs - I had my run-ins with them in the early days, but subsequently got on well with them.

Hopefully they will manage to retain as many as possible - they are replacing the Sighthill Honda sub branch of theirs with a big Skoda dealership, and there is also talk in the letter I received about opening up a franchise for one of the new Chinese manufacturers which should be err.. interesting.

I always remember Beardie moaning about getting a Skoda as a courtesy car from Chathams when his S was in getting repaired......... now it could be so much worse

 

Some of the staff I spoke to are heading for the shiny new dealership in a couple of weeks, makes sense to hire experienced staff in some positions. Hopefully only a few if any will jobless.

 

Received a letter from Chathams this week on this subject, think it is nearer 40 years with Honda counting the motorbikes, bit of a shame as I have always had good service from them - Honda & Skoda.

Will be interesting to see the Great Wall Motors range, dont think it will be too long before the Chinese are offering viable alternatives for the mainstream market - not too sure about the sports end of the market though.

 

I've seen Chinese built Hondas, definitely not as good as Japan/Swindon quality, so I don't hold much hope for the complete product.