Steven C

NO, NO AND NO!! ARGUMENTATIVE AND RUDE

I purchased a 2013 Mercedes C63 at the end of September 2020. It was around £23k. I had extensive communication with Scott prior to buying as I live in the Midlands area so I wanted clarification that the car was decent before making the journey up to drive it and make the purchase. Scott was very helpful and reassuring that all was spot on with the car and it came with an extensive RAC warranty and 100 point checklist (or something along those lines). So i was happy to make the long trip with the confirmations I was getting. On arrival I met Scott who again was really friendly and couldn’t do enough for me. I took the car out for a test drive and all seemed ok. You only can do a short drive and unless there is something really, really wrong, you just aren’t going to know. The RAC inspection gave me peace of mind that everything will have been checked over and would be fine. I noticed that the AirCon button would not light up and flashed when pressed and i pointed this out. Scott said they would get it re gassed and it was taken to their nearby garage to be done. It then worked. I made the purchase and drove to the petrol station, opened the filler flap and there was no petrol cap!? I filled up and then called Scott who said, ‘oh they don’t have them as they self seal”. I was dubious but started the drive back when Scott phoned me to say actually it did need a petrol cap and it must have been left at the pumps when they last put fuel in it. He said he would order me one to be delivered to my home. This arrived and was a cheap plastic one which broke a couple of months later! I did not drive the car much for a little while as I’d hurt my back. When I was able to drive it, I got a load of warning messages come up on the dash. This transpired to be a sensor which was easily fixed in a local garage. Scott did pay for the diagnostics which was not covered, which is a positive. So far so good. The garage told me that two of the alloys were cracked and one had already been fixed and cracked again and the tyre was bulging on the inside. Also there was no spare tyre! How had these things not been picked up in their multi point inspection before sale?? I told Scott that I needed two new alloys at the least but ideally all four. He ordered me a spare wheel, the space saver type, which came new from ebay i think, but at least it was new and i now had a spare tyre, a legal requirement and i thought that the new MOT it had on it would have flagged this up? Scott needed some chasing with regard to the alloys and ended up having a 2nd hand alloy delivered, with a tyre on it from some bloke who dropped it off from the back of a van. Upon inspection, it was a different colour alloy. The ones on the car must have been refurbed at some point so the ‘new’ one bought did not match. I has so much trouble now, getting this sorted. They told me to take it to a local alloy wheel place and they found one for me. I did this. They would only pay for one alloy to be refurbed. It needed two alloys fixing but Hillington would only pay for one. Who wants one refurbished alloy that would not then match the other 3?? I stood in the office of the alloy wheel place and literally had the worst calls with Joe, who seems to be the boss? He was so rude and really did not care. The alloy wheel company were disgusted at the treatment they could hear and told me that they would have just sorted all the wheels for me if they had been that garage. In the end The garage gave me a really good deal on having all 4 wheels done, they even repaired the broken one for me at no cost as they were so disgusted with Hillington. The bill was over £700 still and Hillington had to be chased and dragged their heals in paying the £50 ish they had said (I can’t recall the exact amount, but was around that). I loved the car but all these issues with Hillington were really making it seem like I had been sold a rubbish car. With that in mind i took it to Mercedes and paid for them run a full diagnostic on it. The only issue was that the car was very jerky in pulling away from cold. Mercedes agreed this and said they would recommend a new clutch pack for it. I was not able to speak to Hillington by this point due to the alloy wheel saga! So i went direct to the finance company to see if they could apply some pressure. I had to go through everything in fine detail and it was all investigated and the final report that came back might have well been written by Hillington. In fact I could tell sections of it had been copy and pasted from their response, as the sentences did not make sense with past tense all incorrect. I complained about this to the finance company but got nowhere! The aircon had stopped working again by now so I took it into a local RAC approved garage and they put a leak detecting fluid in to see where the leak was coming from. By now the 6 month warranty was getting near to ending and I was still no further forward with having it all resolved. There was nobody I could go to! The air con needs to new compressor - around £500+ to fix and I do not have this to do the repair and Hillington had already told me ‘at some point the car has to be yours and you are responsible for any repairs’. I agree but when the fault was an original one from the very offset, it should be down to the dealer. I have since looked at these reviews on here and wish I had seen them before my dealings with these vile people. All they can say to most negative comments is ‘please provide proof of purchase from Hillington’. Such a cop out! I can do this so don’t even bother saying it. I would appeal for you to resolve my air con issue and if you would like to comment further, feel free. Initially I found Scott very helpful and amenable, however, when things got troublesome, he backed away and let the rude and arrogant Joe take front of stage. I felt and still feel massively let down by Hillington and their total lack of responsibility in getting my car to an acceptable standard. If they even bother to respond to this, no doubt they will say how accommodating they were. This is so far from the truth. I was appalled by the service, or lack of it and total disbelief at how rude and horrid Joe was on the phone. Please do not purchase from here, or if you do find the car of your dreams, as I had, pay for a real inspection on it as they will not! Best of luck! I COULD NOT GIVE ZERO STARS UNFORTUNATELY!!