Hannah

Think twice- terrible experience

Unfortunately this is going to be a long one. At the end of January 2023, we brought a Nissan Qashqai from blackpole trade & save, using our Audi A6 as a part exchange. 6 months down the line we have still not received any notification from the DVLA to say we know longer own the Audi. After multiple phone calls and face to face conversations with Blackpole trade & save, we were told it was done, wasn’t done, then it was done and now they are still not sure if the change of ownership was completed or what has happened. We have now had to take this further ourselves as we could potentially end up in some trouble for a vehicle we are no longer responsible for. 6 MONTHS. Unfortunately, it seems this garage are good when it comes to sales but after sales is extremely disappointing. We have had multiple issues with the Nissan since buying and multiple issues with getting the work carried out under their warranty. Issue 1: We noticed a loud knocking noise, when turning the steering or breaking. We took the car to a local garage and they believed it was the engine mount. We took the car back to blackpole trade & save, explained what we had been told and shown them the loose engine mount. They replaced the top engine mount. We still had the same issue and took it back a second time. They then changed the bottom engine mount. I was ASSURED that ALL safety checks were carried out on completion. Issue 2: Well the knocking noise didn’t stop there, after again getting a second opinion from a second garage, and a recording of underneath the car, it was clear the steering arm was broken and creating this bang and knocking. This should have been something they should have picked up the first time on their “safety checks”, this could have resulted in a serious accident with my 2 young children, 1 of whom has disabilities. I was told by the second garage, the car should never of been sold to us in this condition and it was extremely dangerous. Prior to this the Nissan was planned to go back in to blackpole trade & save for further investigation, however they rang me at 6pm the evening before to say their courtesy car had not been returned and it was out of their hands. Of course after speaking with the second garage and seeing how dangerous the arm was for ourselves, we immediately went straight over to blackpole trade & save, the branch manager admitted himself how embarrassed he felt. He called out the mechanic in front of us, was abrupt, asking why was this not picked up etc. he also said they now had a courtesy car available- fancy that. The car stayed in for close to a week and was finally repaired. The communication of the garage was poor to say the least. I had to have regular calls to see how they were getting on with the repairs as I’d heard nothing. 2/3 times we had been let down with a courtesy car or had to rearrange, on one occasion I had to borrow the service managers personal car for the day. I requested for both jobs, work reports for my records. I was told the jobs weren’t “completed and fully closed down” as they still had to pay for the parts. Have I had them now? No. Issue 3: Throughout the colder months windows were of course always up. With the now warmer weather, windows were down. I had started noticing a LOUD clicking noise when breaking, plus extremely LOUD metal shaking when going over any bumps in the road. Of course you wouldn’t expect this on any vehicle but especially a SUV. I contacted blackpole trade & save, explained the latest issue to the service manager and was told again they can’t supply me with a courtesy car and they had no idea when they would be able too. I am self employed and rely heavily on my vehicle especially for my children and appointments too. After the last incident of them failing to notice a significant safety issue, by this point I had lost all trust in them. I took my car to another independent garage, they had said the clicking of the breaks and metal banging was connected. That when the break pads and calipers were fitted (before the sale of the car but carried out at blackpole trade & save) they used incorrect plates and were the wrong size. This was creating the awful noise. This cost us close to £400 to have this corrected even though the warranty was there. The car is now lovely and quiet as it should have been from day 1. I contacted blackpole trade & save on 19/06/2023 and spoke to the branch manager, I informed him still nothing on the v5, he also asked about how the car is doing. I explained the latest issue and the expense we’d had to pay. He said he wasn’t aware of any of the issues that had been reported and in future to go direct to him. Funny that now the warranty has ran out. 8 days on I’m still yet to hear anything back about the previous V5. Also disappointed that certain things weren’t pointed out to us before completion of buying the vehicle, stone chips in the windscreen, x2 different color wing mirrors and water damage to the back passenger light. Again things we have just had to let go, but also reasons we will not use this garage again. Due to all of the above, we would never purchase a vehicle from this garage again and wish we had checked out their reviews prior to buying a car from them. It has been nothing but stress, disappointment and a huge inconvenience to our family, which could have resulted with a serious accident, thankfully not. Please think twice.