There have been 2 dodgy dealers with well publicised practices locally.

The first was well known for his less than perfect customer service. His downfall began when he took an off duty officer of the law to the boiler room to explain the terms and conditions of the warranty. Add to that the fact he was removing new parts from stock cars, replacing them with used and then claiming warranty work, obviously he lost the frachise, this finally resulted in his going out of bussiness. The site is now Kwik Fit, no progress there then.

The second was a company that had no cars on the forecourt and none in the showroom. Their bussiness model was to interogate the potential customer and find out what they could afford a month. They would then show them specific cars in the back yard that met these repayment terms. The deal pretended to give the customer £2000 for their old wreck. Premises now vacant.

Edited by BorisTheSpider on 16/02/2012 at 09:42

Well well well, quite a few replies. Yup - I did use the first swear word, but having been messed around for the best part of an hour whilst they tried to extract first a signature and a credit card from me, I didn't feel I was going over the top.

I sent a full report of this charade to the place in question and received an apology, which quite frankly amazed me. I stand by this story and would happily sign an affidavit to that effect.

Having spent some time reading the woes of other people who have had a bad experience with this shower, I would urge everyone to avoid them like the plague and encourage anyone you know to do the same if they're in the market for a car.

As a contrast to this, whilst driving along the A4 near Reading, I passed a place called The Berkshire Fiesta Centre. Not having seen them before I stopped to have a look and saw a Mondeo estate which came close to what I was after. The salespeople couldn't have been more helpful. The chap said - "we're not here just to take your money for the car, we want to make sure it's what you're after, within your budget, and if we do the deal, make sure it gives you good service afterwards. In other words, we want to look after you". The car was really more than my budget so I didn't take it further, but with two or three sentences, that salesman did more to win me over than an entire decade spent visiting second hand car dealers. And it could not have been more diametrically opposed to the approach taken by the subject of this original thread. I have no link or involvement with The Berkshire Fiesta Centre, but their approach seemed spot on, and i would happily pay a bit extra if i thought they really were going to look after me.

I have no axe to grind with the majority of dealers trading, and there are some genuinely good people around, but the genuine shock of being treated in the way I was by this dealer really frightened me about the experience people can have in this industry. As a rugby prop forward of 6ft 2 and 18 stones, I felt intimidated, and i had done my homework. I wonder how many people have been strung up like a kipper by this shower.

And I never mentioned the hard sell about wanting me to watch a video about some paintwork protection coating they insisted i sit through (a bargain at about £400), the hard sell for the warranty not worth the paper it was written on - a very well documented case of someone who had the frighteners put on him for daring to sugest their warranty department might like to fix his expired gearbox. He sued and won the full cost of the work and parts.

I think this place works on the basis of being able to talk most people into a deal with their high-pressure tactics and getting people to sign early on before they really know what's happening, then bombarding them with fake legalise when they perhaps want to think again. The number of stories I've seen of people having massive difficulty getting their deposits back if they'd reserved a car then decided not to go through with it once they had seen it. Look on Scoot, look on google, look on reviewcentre, just beware that on that last place, there are clearly lots of very positive reviews which I understand have been posted there by employees or friends/relatives. The one thing is that as soon as anyone confronts them with the law, they tend to cave in very quickly and respond.

One guy placed a deposit and they then applied for finance. The finance was turned down, the guy was refused his money back "because it was his fault the finance was turned down" - unbelievable - don't just take my word for it - do some research, read, be amazed and above all, disgusted that this shower are allowed to continue to trade.

Edited by Avant on 21/02/2012 at 19:43