Ah I suspected as much. Thank you for your reply. It's a shame because it would have been a good deal.

The whole thing strikes me as a little odd for a used approved car. I didn't think they would perform repairs on a damaged car then sell it through the used approved scheme.

Thanks again

Chris

The reallly only odd thing is puting a deposit on a car that might come into stock its condition is unknown and so is the retail price,there is loads of tin out there to chose from that you can see and test drive.By the way there is no such think as a good deal at a VAG agent only one you think is good.

Unwilling seller especially VAG - means no love lost so a real pia to deal with in future.

Run away is my advice and tell everyone what a bunch of illegitimate offspring they are.

Thanks to all of you for your input. It cannot be said enough times how good this forum is. This is the email confirmation I got from the dealer.

"Hi Chris

sorry for the late reply

but the payment has been proccessed and i can tell you the you have reserved the car xxxxxxxx

with the attention to refund you deposit once you have seen the car driven it and you did not like it

Regards

xxxxxxxxxxx
Sales Executive"

The garage is very close to my girlfriends house. I think I will go there this weekend and have a frank discussion about what is really going on and walk away if I am unsatisfied

Just to follow up this post, I phoned the Citygate Volkswagen Colindale dealership on the weekend to find out if the car was available, they said it was.

I then went to the garage and initially spoke to a different salesman to the one I had been dealing with on the phone. I explained which car I was interested in and she asked me at what price I had seen the car for on the internet. To this I replied that I had put a deposit on the car when it was priced at £8000.

At this point she disappeared into the back room to get the sales manager who had previously dealt with me on the phone. After what seemed like a long disussion behind closed doors the guy came out and explained that the car was a trade in. He said that between the time of valuing the car and actually taking delivery of the car, the owner had damaged the panels of the doors and rear bumper. He also explained that the car was currently in the body shop being repaired.

For this reason, he said, it was no longer profitable for them to sell the car at £8000.

At this point I should have asked them to show me the car (to prove it had actually been damaged) and also got them to explain to me why they had paid the same price for the car if it was damaged (which I assume they would not).

Unfortunately I kind of bottled it, got kind of angry, mumbled about writing to VW group about the incident, got up and left.

So that's it. Can't win them all I guess. Cheers, Chris

Similar thing happened to me at a VW dealer. He had 2 identical Golf TDi's advertised, one red, one white, both ex VW, both same price. Had a white Golf and hated red thus looked the white one first, only 10,000 miles but it was a nail. He offered to do all that was necessary to sort it but I was not interested, 4 bent wheels made me nervous. I walked over to the Red one and it was really nice but immediately he said they had just fitted a new fuel pump and could not sell it at the advertised price.

Walked and got a better deal elsewhere.

Life too short to get uptight, I still had the money and the garage still had the cars. Buying a car was not essential for me, I already had one, however if the garage did not sell cars it would be the end for them. Garage not there now, think they were taken over.