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Andrew B

**Owner Is Dishonest** / **Reviews Are M

After a full days travel from Edinburgh to Kent, I bought (according to the sales agent) the owners daily driver, a BMW X6 at a cost of just over £32,000. On the day of collection it was beautiful sunny day, the car had been detailed by the garage, it looked great from what I could see as I headed in to the garage to complete the paperwork. After completing all paperwork inside I went outside to collect the vehicle, I did a brief look round the vehicle and I did spot damage to the back bumper, to which the sales agent stated, its a second hand vehicle, its normal wear, although not particularly happy with his response I had an 8 hour drive to get home, so said nothing more as I really wanted to get underway as I had spent the previous day commuting down and didn’t want to hang around any longer if I wanted to get home at a reasonable time. The vehicle was parked really close to to other vehicles, so close, the sales agent had to get in and move the car forwards a few feet to allow me to get in, after this I got into the vehicle and set everything up for the drive home and left. The next day I got to see the car properly it wasn't as sunny and began noticing that damage, chips, a small dent by the fuel cover, scratches… literally every panel. I emailed straight away to sales@marshams email and awaited a response, weeks went by, nothing!! I eventually thought that clearly my email had been disregarded, so I left a review with trustpilot, within an hour the sales agent who sold me the car, tried to call me. I was at work at the time and couldn’t answer, I then received an email asking me to remove the review and the owner who was on holiday at the time would look at the problem and try to resolve the issues I have with the vehicle upon his return. I didn’t want to remove the review, as I would prefer to have amended it and given a true representation of my complaint and how they dealt with it, for which they could have excelled by giving great customer service and resolving the issue to a satisfactory standard. 8 days later, The owner has returned from holiday, I emailed him directly to see where we were with the situation, I also included a quote from a well known body repair garage in Edinburgh. The quote price is £2225.64 The owners response was to ask me for photos, which I sent but I also stated that the quote gave a better representation because the photos aren't great quality. I also mentioned that if he drove the car on a daily basis, he would be fully aware of the damage, as its obviously more noticeable when you see the car every day. I also offered to take the vehicle to any place of his choosing for an additional quote to ensure it was fair representation. The Response - Unable to uphold the complaint for the following reasons - When you collected the vehicle, you signed a handover sheet, this detailed that the vehicle is not new and there will be signs of previous use. You agreed with the terms of this document and accepted the vehicle condition. You inspected the vehicle and requested that the vehicle be moved from the collection area so that you could examine the vehicle more thoroughly. The vehicle was also road tested by yourself, prior to completing the transaction and removing from Marshams premises. It would be reasonable to expect stone chips and light marks on a used vehicle of that age and mileage It is unclear if all the stone chips were present at the point of sale It would be unreasonable to respray body panels for a stone chip. The normal practice would be to touch up stone chips with a touch in brush. These can be purchased directly from BMW or alternative suppliers. Light body imperfections can be removed by polishing the affected area. Jason (the owner) is 100% correct I should have checked the vehicle properly before leaving. However I signed the handover documents before I had even seen the vehicle properly and a road test was not completed at any stage, nor was it offered. The documents his sales staff are asking you to sign should have been done after this proper inspection, which would be the correct way of doing it not before!! He also states that its unclear if the stone chips were present at the time of sale…. The car was his daily driver… he operates a car sales business. He’s well aware of what condition the bodywork was in!! To ask for photos… even after a quote was sent was completely disingenuous and him attempting to shift the blame to me. He also states that chips should be touched up with a touch up brush, as he is no doubt aware that method would vastly reduce a resale price as is not proper repair, as the vehicle is a £32,000 car second hand… its not really the response you would expect from a dealer. I would strongly urge any customer wanting to purchase a vehicle from Marshams to tread carefully to inspect it thoroughly. These guys aren't your friends, they definitely don’t care once you have left. Don’t believe this garages reviews also, they are being manipulated to make them look better than they are. The owner definitely lives up to the dodgy car salesman image in my eyes. Disingenuous, not interested after he's taken your money!!

Dealer   Reviewer