Anonymous

AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

We bought a used car from Motormania recently and I would 100% recommend that you AVOID this dealership at all costs! Within 5 days it was leaking oil and making loud, awful mechanical noises. We’d had a bad experience with them at the deposit stage (we paid a £200 deposit and were promised a 12-month clear MOT, when we asked that the advisories be dealt with as well as the dangerous and major points we were told we were ‘playing the child card’ by saying we were just being cautious as we have 2 young children and then told we couldn’t have our deposit back as he’d ‘already spent it’ and then he said ‘you can have it back when I’ve sold it to somebody else and not beforehand’) and so we didn’t trust them to repair the car properly because of their attitude previously. It all felt really dodgy to us. As such, we asked for a full refund under the short term right to reject clause of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. They didn’t accept this, even when I sent them excerpts from the relevant legislation, and we were hung up on by them and talked over repeatedly. They refused to come and get the vehicle initially, then they turned up and refused to take possession unless we agreed to a repair even though we’d stated repeatedly that we were asking for a full refund instead. We kept being told ‘it’s not a new car you’ve bought’ as if we should just accept that it was not drivable and unsafe after 5 days of ownership! Also they kept saying they’d agreed a discount of £300 at the time of purchase as if that lessened our rights in some way? We were made to pay by bank transfer even though their Facebook page says ‘all major cards accepted’ which we now know is a huge red flag as we could not use the chargeback scheme with our bank to recoup the monies as you can do with a debit/credit card payment. Daniel Lowther, the man who sold it to us, refused to accept our letter asking for a refund in person so we had to send it recorded delivery and via Whatsapp as well. He even had his Mum message us pretending to be his complaint’s handler! They lied and said we hadn’t let them inspect the vehicle (we did) and only went back on this when I said I had video evidence of their visit to us. A few days after all of this, our car - which was parked outside of our home in the middle of a very quiet road - was the only car on our road to be vandalised overnight and covered in a substance that took the paint off. If they had taken the car when we rejected it earlier that week then this obviously wouldn’t have happened. Now it’s been written off! A very horrible experience for us. Just one thing after another and we’re left with no car and we’ve lost a lot of money. We bought the car after saving up for a long time as our daughter is autistic and public transport is too busy and overwhelming for her. Now we’re back to that again. Thanks Motormania!