Simon M

The reality

If you are reading this your are either considering buying a car from this garage and want to satisfy yourself that this is a repeatable garage to buy from or you are here to write a review because you just brought a new car from and received a link to click on to give them a 5* review as requested by your sales person. Either way you may be interested in the below. Unfortunately my review is the reality of buying a car from Emerald house of Cars. I brought a £19,000 Mercedes for cash. After just a few weeks the car developed an oil leak. I emailed the garage to advise of this and got a call back to advise me to call the warrantee company and sort it out with them. So, I called the warrantee company who advised me that I have to find a VAT registered garage, book it in, get them to do a diagnosis then let them know and ‘if’ it’s covered under their warrantee they will pay for it. I went away called the first 9 garages who told me they don’t deal with warrantee companies because of non payment and other various issues. I finally found a garage that would look at the car but I had to pay a diagnosis fee. I agreed to pay it. They came back and said there is an oil leak which had spread under the gear box and that they didn’t want to get involved in it because they could repair it and it may not fix the issue. I called the warrantee company and was told that I need to take it to another garage and get a ‘proper’ diagnosis which involves striping out the gear box and if it wasn’t covered under their warrantee then I would have to pay the bill. Disappointed I decided to look at the previous MOT’s. Prior to Emerald house of cars doing the MOT a few days before delivery I noticed the previous MOT had an advisory of an oil leak. Coincidence, I think not. Clearly Emerald house of cars had done the MOT in house and just passed it to get the sale. Disappointing considering I have children and have been using the car with them it. Very dangerous. I wrote to Emerald house of cars to advise that I was not willing to gamble taking it to a garage and if it wasn’t covered under their warranty I would be stuck with a bill for potentially thousands. I requested a refund and collection of the vehicle. I advised I was happy for them to make a fair reduction for few weeks I had the vehicle ( not looking for any gain, just a car I can take my children in safely) I received a quick reply to say there will be no refund. I emailed back to say I am more than happy for them to send a mechanic to my house to repair it but no response and to date still no response. Keep in mind the car was £19,000 and I had it only a few weeks.Very disappointing. Eventually they sent someone to collect the car with the view of fixing it in their own garage. They had the car for a few days and dropped it back and said it was all fixed. Upon receiving the car I took it to a local garage and asked them to put it on the ramp to check if the leaks was fixed and (as you probably guessed) it was still leaking. I emailed them again and advised I have pictures to show the leak had not been fixed. I had a response to say they would take it back and try and fix it once again. I wrote to say that although I only had the car a few weeks I was willing to give them yet another chance to fix the issue. They wrote back to say they will let me know when they had a driver free to collect the vehicle . That was 4 weeks ago today and still no communication from them and still a car on my driveway with an oil leak on that is getting progressively worse. On the front of it they portray themselves as ‘we are different to all the other car sales garages’ when in reality they are exactly the same. The most disappointing thing is the lack of help. Not even an offer of a credit note or to swap the car for another or an offer of a refund with a deduction of XXXX. It’s disappointing because their sales service is 5*, if they could replicate that with their after sales service they would have a winning formula. If you are here to write your 5* review because you just bought a new vehicle from then I would urge you to wait at least 3 months to write your review. You may be feeling great now because the purchase of a car is a very emotional purchase, it makes your feel good and I have no doubt the sales person was super friendly and helpful as mine was but sadly, the truth is that they simply just want your money. From experience, my advice would be to wait 3 months and if the car is still reliable write your review,at least it will be honest and accurate for the next person thinking of purchasing a car. Unfortunately in my circumstance I have already wasted hours communicating with with the sales company, ombudsman ,the warrantee company, solicitors, media etc and I really wouldn’t want this experience for anyone else. Regarding the ‘free 3 month warrantee’ that you can extent, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. It’s sold on the basis of it will save you time and money if anything does go wrong but the truth is they will get you to run around finding a garage that 1) will deal with a warranty company (which is very few in the UK) and 2) a garage that will accept £45 per hour for labour when in the real word 99.9% of garages charge a minimum of £75 per hour for labour so you will be expected to pay the difference only to be told ‘sorry we don’t cover that on our warrantee you will have to pay the bill’. If you are thinking of buying the warrantee I would say before you go ahead with the purchase , spend a few minutes googling the nearest 5 garages local to you and call them and ask them if they deal with a warrantee company, you will more than likely return a unanimous no and you will be out of pocket. Emerald house of cars will also try and sell it on the basis that they have an in house garage they can do the work in but as you have seen above, the standard of work from an MOT to fixing an oil leak leaves a lot to be desired. It’s not worth risking the safety of yourself, your family and children. Remember car sales relies on the customer not having buyers remorse that’s why car sales are driven towards buying now, buying quickly . Take your time. There will always be another car out there. Don’t get emotionally involved to avoid making a decision that you may regret and finally, in my opinion and through my experience I would say avoid Emerald house of cars at all costs, it really is not worth the risk. I hope this helps.