Miss E

I don’t recommend at all

I had a very unfortunate experience in buying a second hand car from this garage. It all started very well, I found my dream car that had all the functions I always wanted to have, small and cute. It was perfect. The salesman was very warm and friendly so I bought the car without worrying at all. It was a Mini Cooper S I purchased for £5000. In part exchange I gave him my Peugeot, so I had £500. I also gave him a deposit to book the car as I was traveling to France that time of year, so when I came back I was only going to have to pay £4000 more. However, when I arrived he said “good, you gave me a deposit and your car, so now you only have to give me £5000” which was the initial price of the car. Luckily enough, I had a picture of the mini with the price on it. My guts then started to tell me something was wrong, but too in love with the car I kept going. After I purchased it, I took it, and surprisingly it was very dirty in and out, when the salesman promised he would clean it for when I would take it. As I am usually relaxed, I let it go for that time. The real problems came around 2months later. The car had a big oil problem, I had to fill it in again and again with oil otherwise it would run out. The oil cost me a fortune. I had a 3months warranty with him so went back to the garage, but unfortunately he did not want to have to do anything with me, and said I was the one that damaged the car… the thing is, even if it were my fault, I was untitled of having some help at that stage, as my car was still under warranty, which he refused to give me. I had to bring a friend with me for him to listen, but he still was not very cooperative. We went around other garages to ask their opinion about the problem, and when I told them where I bought the car (because they asked me) they said “Ah ok, that’s not surprising, we have loads of people coming here after they bought a car in this garage, and they always have a problem to fix”. Later on, when the salesman tried to contact the warranty company he works with, they said to him that they would not cover second hand cars…He did agree then to have a check at the mini later on, which he did, but I know he pretended as later on, when I properly took it to a garage, they finally fixed the problem and it cost me around £700. As it was my dream car I did fix other bits, and serviced it. Unfortunately, 7months after I bought it for my birthday, and after having spent £1000 in fixing it, the car completely broke down. It would have cost me more than £1000 to fix it. Being a teacher, and not having this type of money, I gave up on the idea to have my dream car after all. It really did break my heart. I managed to sell it to a mechanic for £1200. I did lose £4800 in this story, when I just wanted to treat myself for once. I am writing this feedback here hoping that I can prevent people to make the same mistake than me.