Chris

Volvo Stoneacre Harrogate - YB74XCC

Ordered a Volvo XC40 B4 Plus, Reg: YB74 XCC in Fjord Blue from Volvo Stoneacre in Harrogate on the Motability scheme. I found their customer service and support extremely lacking. No updates and regularly failed to get back in touch with updates when requested. When the car arrived unexpectedly, we were told that the car was here with no forewarning, and we had to pick it up on an arranged date or there was a £150 payment to be made of some description. The car they supplied had issues regarding it not accepting a software update so that it could be driven away. The dealer registered the new keeper details of the vehicle before it was fit for use on the road, and when we intimated that we were considering walking away from the vehicle we were told the vehicle was ready for collection. When we visited the dealership for collection I spoke to the manager, and he said he was new there and was aware of some of an old school element in the dealership and he was going to turn it around. After pairing the mobile phone to the car at the pickup point, going back inside paying the deposit, and inputting the pin code into the lease agreement, which meant the deal was sealed, they told us 10 minutes later the car was still faulty and would have to be left with them, claiming they would deliver it to us in two days when it was repaired. After one day we called for an update only to be told they were busy and would call back, but they never did. On the second day of waiting in all day for the car to be delivered we heard nothing from them. We contacted Motability to register our concerns with the dealership and after they contacted them, they were told it still wasn’t repaired. At this stage no effort had been made by the garage to keep us updated, even after the conversation with the manager who was full of polished promises. The dealership refused to accept any blame for this which meant that we were either looking at sitting and waiting for a car with deep issues or walking away and paying some money to sever the arrangement. Two weeks later they were still apparently trying to repair the vehicle. No courtesy vehicle was offered at any time to us. Fortunately, due to the repeated failings to repair the vehicle we were able to remove ourselves from this situation with the support from Motability. My question is this. Why did the dealership allow us to pay a deposit and input a pin number into the computer to finalise a deal on a vehicle that they knew was still faulty, but failed to tell us it was until we had committed ourselves. As we inputted the pin number, they said we would be driving away in a shiny new car, which was clearly not going to happen at that stage, unknown to us. They admitted afterwards that when pairing the phone, they knew it was still faulty. It is at that stage that they should have held off, so did they say nothing to secure the lease because they did not want to end up with a vehicle on their hands that was registered to someone with no taker. I cannot think of any other scenario. Every aspect of this experience proved negative, highly questionable and deeply concerning, and we are fortunate to have been able to walk away from them, never to return I may add.