Christopher M

Very poor customer care

We bought a 4 year old Astra from Evans Halshaw Cardiff. Seen the Car on Autotrader, made a phone call to see if it was still available. Went up to view the car. My wife liked the car (was for her) so we provisionally put a deposit on the car subject to a new mot and valet as the rear seats were stained (and finance being approved). I refused all optional extras, GAP, Warranty and Guard X. a £100 admin fee was added which I explained to the sales rep was not on the auto trader ad. He explained that they cannot get auto trader to show the fee which was applicable to all all cars, however we reluctantly agreed The car only came with one key which I was advised of but pretty poor in my opinion and I made the salesman Rhys aware of this and suggested that we wanted another key made for the car. (This never came through). We received a call approx one hour later after leaving the dealership saying was finance was approved and that the payments were lower than quoted with the Guard X included (Bearing in mind this was £300). I explained to the sales rep "thats fine as long as im not paying for it". Finance Docs came through the next day. Guard X was on the invoice adding £300 to the total. I had to contact Evans Halshaw to get it removed and was put down to wires being crossed. I beg to differ but it was removed anyway. We collected the car the next day. All seemed well until I checked over the car. It hadn't been touched and the rear seats were still stained. The manager came out and the sales rep took the car out back and gave the seats a clean. The manager also put £30 fuel in for the inconvenience. The seats dried with the stain still there and ive since paid a valeter off my own back to bring them up to standard of a low mileage 4 year old car. We have since contacted Evans Halshaw regarding the admin fee as i think its wrong that they charge it despite Auto trader clearly stating this dealer does not charge admin fees. The agreed 5 days ago to refund this but we have yet to receive it. Ive also contacted them regarding no car pass in the service pack and no locking wheel nut key code. They aren't interested and I have been advised via email that its not something Evans Halshaw would look to replace to their standards for any age vehicle. These are both simple things to obtain particularly for a main dealer, great aftercare eh! To put the icing on the cake I managed to contact the previous keeper via facebook who advised that he was charged £170 when he traded in the car as he had lost the main key. He has since also forwarded me the receipt for what he paid. Evans Halshaw deny charging the previous keeper for the missing key. Given my experience with Evans Halshaw Cardiff we would not use them again. We have received far better service from smaller independent garages. If you do buy from here ensure your happy or do not buy as they are very reluctant to do anything after.