LONDON AUTO INDEX · ORIGINAL OBSERVATIONAL PILOT
Editorial owner: Hassan Mehmood · Observation date: 15 October 2026
Protocol: LAI-CONTACT-PILOT-2026-10-15 v1.0 · Scope: official website contact information.
Before measuring which dealers AI assistants recommend, LAI tested a narrower question: what location, telephone and opening-hours information could a simple text collector retrieve from selected London dealership pages?
What the first captures established
Four of the six responses contained extractable address, telephone and at least some opening-hours information. The other two returned short responses without extractable contact text to this collector. Every request returned HTTP 200, demonstrating why a successful status code alone does not establish that useful page content was obtained. These are counts from the observations below, not estimates for London dealerships.
The most useful editorial finding is about classification: different addresses and schedules may represent different business roles. Treating every difference as an error would overstate the evidence.
Dealer-by-dealer observations
Addresses and schedules below are descriptions of the captured official text, not independently confirmed visiting instructions. Check the linked dealer page before travelling.
| Dealer / sampling label | Capture classification | Official information extracted | Interpretation and source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clive Sutton Prestige specialist |
Extractable contact information | Unit 1 South, Oxgate Centre, Oxgate Lane, Brent, London NW2 7JA +44 (0)20 7483 6500 Weekdays 09:00–18:00; weekends by appointment. |
The page also refers to a Park Road head office and registered-office details. These are different location roles, not a confirmed address error. Next check: Keep showroom, head-office and registered-office labels explicit. Official page checked |
| Joe Macari Prestige specialist |
Extractable contact information | 249–251 Merton Road, London SW18 5EB +44 (0)20 8870 9007 Weekdays 09:00–19:00; Saturday 09:00–18:00; Sunday and bank holidays 10:00–17:00. |
The reviewed contact section groups the showroom address, telephone and opening schedule. This does not independently confirm their operational accuracy. Next check: Use the labelled showroom block as the baseline for a later cross-platform comparison. Official page checked |
| Hexagon Classics Prestige specialist |
Extractable contact information | 82–92 Great North Road, London N2 0NL +44 (0)20 8348 5151 The fuller sales block covers weekdays 09:30–18:30; Saturday and bank holidays by appointment. Sunday not explicitly stated in the reviewed sales blocks. |
One opening-hours block omits Thursday; another includes it. Aftersales is separately located at Fortis Green. Neither observation confirms incorrect operating hours. Next check: Reconcile duplicate hours blocks and explicitly state the Sunday arrangement. Official page checked |
| BMW Park Lane Franchise retailer |
Extractable contact information | 70 Park Lane, London W1K 7TT — sales 0370 700 5216 Sales: weekdays 09:00–18:00 except Thursday until 20:00; Saturday 09:00–17:00; Sunday closed. |
The same page separately labels sales, Park Royal service and corporate schedules. Different hours at the same sales/corporate address are not automatically inconsistent. Next check: Preserve department labels when comparing hours or extracting structured records. Official page checked |
| West London Audi Franchise retailer |
Unmeasured by this collector | Contact fields not scored from this static capture. | The static request returned a short response containing a script reference and no extractable contact text. Separately retrieved search material exposed contact details; this is not evidence of general AI invisibility. Next check: Repeat using an ordinary browser and record the relevant department before classifying completeness. Official page checked |
| Mercedes-Benz of Temple Fortune Franchise retailer |
Unmeasured by this collector | Contact fields not scored from this static capture. | The static request returned a short response containing a script reference and no extractable contact text. It shares an operator with West London Audi, so the observations are not independent group evidence. Next check: Repeat using an ordinary browser and record the relevant department before classifying completeness. Official page checked |
What this means for an automotive AI audit
Separate the business roles. Showroom, head office, registered office, sales, corporate and service information should retain their labels in the evidence record. A difference becomes a potential inconsistency only when it concerns the same location, department and applicable date.
Separate retrieval from correctness. Extracting a telephone number does not prove it works. Failing to extract one does not prove it is absent from the human-facing page. The two short responses are unmeasured under this method, not zero-scoring dealerships.
Separate technical observations from AI recommendations. No conversational-platform tests were conducted here. These captures cannot establish whether ChatGPT, Gemini or another system can access, mention or recommend a business.
Method and limitations
- Selection: a convenience sample of three prestige-specialist pages and three franchise-retailer pages, chosen to exercise contact-information extraction across different page designs. This is not a random sample or a formal sample frame.
- Collection: one static HTTP request per page, without JavaScript execution, using a disclosed research user agent. Captures began at approximately 18:28 UTC / 19:28 BST on the observation date. Exact request-start times, response lengths and hashes appear below.
- Extraction: HTML text parsing excluded script, style and noscript content. A single assistant reviewed the resulting text for address, telephone and opening-hours information. Hidden interface content may still appear in this extraction; browser visibility was not established.
- Classification: “extractable” requires a location address, a telephone and at least some operating-hours or appointment information. It does not certify a complete seven-day schedule. “Unmeasured” means the response did not support that assessment.
- Dependence: the two Sytner locations share an operator and returned identical short response bodies. They are two page observations, not two independent operator failures.
- Not assessed: map listings, telephone functionality, real-world hours, schema validity, indexability, AI mention rates, enquiries and sales. No dealer was contacted; no independent second review was performed.
- Exploratory status: selection preceded retrieval, but the protocol was not publicly preregistered. Findings should guide a stronger study, not support population estimates or causal claims.
Reproducibility record
The records below identify what was requested and fingerprint each captured response. A hash verifies a saved capture if that file is available; it cannot reconstruct a page or guarantee that today’s live version is identical. Raw captures are retained for internal review and are not republished here.
Clive Sutton — capture record
Original source · request started 2026-10-15T18:28:41.983192+00:00 · HTTP 200 · 120,671 response bytes.
SHA-256 of captured response:c56843a762f4727e2ca4c12444c5d11e0d5ee6fa1680f1d3620ba068a8c0ae6c
Extractable contact information. The page also refers to a Park Road head office and registered-office details. These are different location roles, not a confirmed address error.
Joe Macari — capture record
Original source · request started 2026-10-15T18:28:41.984355+00:00 · HTTP 200 · 16,701 response bytes.
SHA-256 of captured response:079b97ff790b27fe1aaa354bba22092dfc3079a2501f8d9f4abdd0a46e574bae
Extractable contact information. The reviewed contact section groups the showroom address, telephone and opening schedule. This does not independently confirm their operational accuracy.
Hexagon Classics — capture record
Original source · request started 2026-10-15T18:28:41.985045+00:00 · HTTP 200 · 44,468 response bytes.
SHA-256 of captured response:65ee200ad4aa68787f08949da48304c83faf6915bacf2f2d42cb9d2b756c518a
Extractable contact information. One opening-hours block omits Thursday; another includes it. Aftersales is separately located at Fortis Green. Neither observation confirms incorrect operating hours.
BMW Park Lane — capture record
Original source · request started 2026-10-15T18:28:41.986869+00:00 · HTTP 200 · 96,924 response bytes.
SHA-256 of captured response:d0b5db7b546cb39f24cd82be01181eaa407994de0c6ac66f0dd7ed433b80b6d1
Extractable contact information. The same page separately labels sales, Park Royal service and corporate schedules. Different hours at the same sales/corporate address are not automatically inconsistent.
West London Audi — capture record
Original source · request started 2026-10-15T18:28:41.985744+00:00 · HTTP 200 · 212 response bytes.
SHA-256 of captured response:d02032286070b4dd9d8fbd985a7bdca8af8edf52b89ff177db3bfcb2c8a9c43d
Unmeasured by this collector. The static request returned a short response containing a script reference and no extractable contact text. Separately retrieved search material exposed contact details; this is not evidence of general AI invisibility.
Mercedes-Benz of Temple Fortune — capture record
Original source · request started 2026-10-15T18:28:41.988486+00:00 · HTTP 200 · 212 response bytes.
SHA-256 of captured response:d02032286070b4dd9d8fbd985a7bdca8af8edf52b89ff177db3bfcb2c8a9c43d
Unmeasured by this collector. The static request returned a short response containing a script reference and no extractable contact text. It shares an operator with West London Audi, so the observations are not independent group evidence.
What LAI should test next
- Repeat the unmeasured captures in an ordinary browser and preserve the visible department selection.
- Compare the same department’s website facts with dated map-listing observations, separating formatting differences, unresolved discrepancies and confirmed errors.
- Use a frozen buyer-prompt set to collect actual AI answers, preserving platform configuration and dealer eligibility.
- Apply independent review before reporting mismatch rates or dealership comparisons.
This pilot provides a documented starting point. It does not validate the broader proposed London audit or supply an AI visibility score.
Hassan Mehmood
Founder, London Auto Index
Elevating Visibility. Defining Prestige.
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