Gary M

Gary Morris

Bought an Alfa Romeo GTV from them, - I asked on the phone if everything worked and the sales person said yes. I’d been looking for a low mileage GTV for some time – I thought this was the one. I arrived to pick up the car to be told the ‘airbag sensor ECU’ had broken down and they’d supply me a new one. In good faith they paid for 6 months road tax and gave me a full tank of petrol worth a total of £210. Who am I to complain? As I took the car he told me the aerial was broken and pointed to some cheap £5.99 Halford’s aerial in the boot that wouldn’t even fit the car. By the time I got the car home a rear speaker had blown, a front speaker was shorting out and the factory car stereo began switching itself on and off. They sent me a new car stereo – it was a cheap one though, about £45 when I checked at Halfords. Now my pocket was ready to burn! I took the car by an independent Alfa Roneo dealer – it’s not the ‘airbag ECU’ but the car wiring. The car should never have received an MOT as the bushes were shot to bits, I saw it on a rack – now I knew why it scuttled around corners if it went in a shallow hole – it clunked in a deeper pothole. I changed the oil as I had no faith it had synthetic oil – I saw a receipt for £30. You can’t buy decent synthetic oil and a filter for £30 on an Alfa Romeo GTV – that’s ASDA oil if you’re lucky. All in all I had to spend the following to get this car in shape: £90 oil change £350 new bushes, arms and linkage £75 speakers £40 stereo install fee £40 new floor mats (it didn’t have any) £119 new car aerial £714 – out of pocket… In the end I had to take the car back to them and they bought it back. The problem was it needed the wiring sorting out for the ‘airbag ECU’ – this is a big job – you can’t give an MOT certificate to a car that has a faulty airbag sensor. I checked with the DVLA. Secondly – the rear window heater didn’t work either – I was no longer prepared to pay. The airbag sensor and the rear window repair would have been up to £600 inc VAT (if they found the fault). They were good enough to take it back – but they put it on their website for £500 more than they sold it to me on the very day I took it back. I know they won’t have fixed the problems. The warranty they gave me didn’t cover anything that broke. I lost a shed load of money with these guys. They simply never checked the car apart from the fact the wheels went around – I don’t think they’re bad, they’re just not thorough – I would advise on having an RAC/AA check – if I had I would never have bought the car. Incidentally – when I was given a cheque for returning the car the salesman was positively hostile to me. Would I buy from them again? No to put it politely.