Jake T

Poor after-sale service/communication.

Summary: After having an issue with a car I purchased from HPL, I've been chasing them around the houses for over 4 weeks, and all of the employees I speak to refuse to help as they weren't the one who sold me the car. The salesman who we dealt with is abysmal at responding, and I've been promised "I'll call you back in a few minutes" far too many times now, only to be forgotten. After driving away a car worth over £15,000 from their dealership, I can't in good faith recommend HPL on account of the poor after-sale service that I've documented below. It really does feel like they just can't be bothered to deal with me now that they've sold me a car. Full Review: I was hoping to finish my business with HPL before posting a review, but after attempting to solve an issue over the past 4 weeks with no luck, yesterday's "I'll call you back later today" promise that wasn't fulfilled was the straw that broke the camel's back. I purchased a 2019 model Mazda 3 from HPL on March 27th '23. In the week leading up to the purchase, I had liaised with Martin Bailey several times to come to a part exchange agreement for the car. Martin was helpful and assured me that the alloy wheels on the car would be replaced after he'd noticed scuffs during their checks. I asked him to confirm that there was no damage or anything wrong with the car, which he did, as we'd be travelling 3 hours to collect the vehicle. On the day, we drove up late in the afternoon, took the car for a test drive, and completed the purchase with minimal fuss - and had that been the end of our dealings with HPL then this review would be in a much more positive light. However, this is where our issues began. Whilst purchasing the car, bearing in mind we had travelled 3 hours to get to HPL, Martin told us that a part of the hardware was missing that enables the in-built navigation system to work. This is quite an important feature to the car, and we were promised that the part had been ordered and would be sent in the post to us by the end of that week. It was disappointing that we weren't told until we'd made the journey that such a large part of the car's functionality wasn't available - and I'd made it very clear to Martin that we were traveling across the country. I didn't complain, and thought it would be sorted by the time I would need it on 29th April to make a cross-country drive. A week later, I'd still heard nothing from HPL about the part. I called for an update and was told by Martin that he would call me back "in a few minutes". This was to become a common promise throughout the after-sales service that I received from HPL. The call never came, so I tried again the following morning. Martin was with a customer, and the gentleman I spoke to assured me that he'd get Martin to call me back as soon as he was finished with them. That call also never came. I proceeded to call almost every day for the next week and a half, and was repeatedly promised that I would be called back to sort out my problem, and nobody in the dealership could deal with my problem as Martin was the only one who was familiar with our sale. Eventually, Martin's manager answered my call, and I politely explained my frustrations that over 2 weeks had now passed since I'd bought the car and I'd yet to have an update on this part of the car that was missing. In the meantime, I'd also additionally noticed small and inconsequential things missing or damaged on the car that hadn't been mentioned to me; missing auxiliary key, missing panel on the handle of the passenger-side door, cracked panel on the side of the passenger-side dashboard. These things are not important enough for me to get fixed, but the earlier promise by HPL that there was no superficial damage or anything wrong with the car in addition to the missing navigation feature had me questioning the integrity of HPL's 128-point check. Eventually, a few days after explaining my frustrations to Martin's manager, I received the part. Unfortunately, it didn't work. I combed through online forums and nothing I tried worked, so again I have had to hound HPL for a week to get them to send a new one - similarly calling every other day to finally get a hold of Martin as nobody else would speak to me about my problem. At the back end of last week I spoke to a man named Connor, and for what must have been the 5th time I explained my frustrations at not being called back despite being promised. He assured me that the part would be sent off that day, and I received it a couple of days later. Again, it didn't work, so there is clearly an issue with the internal software of the car. Two days ago I called HPL and managed to get a hold of Martin. He told me he'd look into contacting my local Mazda dealership to get it sorted for me and would call or email me back later the same day. The crux of the issue is that I no longer trust Martin nor HPL to honour these promises of contacting me and doing their utmost to look after their customer post-sale, and lo and behold I was correct - no call or email from him Monday, yesterday nor today. After driving away a car worth over £15,000 from their dealership, I can't in good faith recommend HPL on account of the poor after-sale service that I've documented here. It really does feel like they just can't be bothered to deal with me now that they've sold me a car.