Mr F

New Bently Experience!

I purchased a new Bentayga from Bentley Manchester in March of this year and up to collecting the vehicle, the service I received was very good. Unfortunately from collection there were a number of faults with the car including a rattle from the rear seats, problems with some of the leather, knocks and rattles from the front of the car and an intermittent grinding noise. The car was returned to Bentley Manchester for its first service in April and for these faults to be dealt with. The rattle from the rear seats was sorted and replacement leather ordered but the other faults were still present when the vehicle was returned. I then spent several hours with a technician from the dealer who confirmed that the knocks and rattles present shouldn’t be there and that there was a problem. The vehicle was again booked in to be collected but this did not happen when scheduled. It was then booked again and cancelled by Bentley Manchester meaning the vehicle was not looked at again until June. Throughout this time the faults continued to get worse to the point where I did not want to drive the vehicle. Again the vehicle was back at the dealers and again despite constant reassurances that the faults would be eliminated the vehicle was returned with the faults still present. At this point I decided I had no option but to formally reject the vehicle in writing. There was no response from Bentley Manchester to this except an offer to meet with a senior executive from Bentley Motors, which I agreed to, whilst reiterating that it did not change my decision to reject the vehicle due to the persistent faults and the failure of the dealer to rectify these. The vehicle was road tested by Michael Gibson from Bentley Motors Customer Care and a senior technician from Bentley Manchester on 13 July and both agreed that there were a number of knocks and rattles from the front suspension that should not be there. This resulted in Bentley Manchester confirming that they would not accept the return of the vehicle and if I did not allow then yet another attempt to rectify these faults they would not help any further, effectively walking away from a faulty, 4 month old £165,000 vehicle. I was assured that the vehicle would be 100% fixed. I was left with no choice but to reluctantly, agree to another attempt for the faults to be fixed by the dealer with the assistance of Bentley Motors. After having the vehicle for more than 2 weeks for various bushes to be replaced, during which time there was a persistent lack of a communication and promised updates on progress, despite me chasing, from Bentley Manchester and requests for the details of the complaints procedure for Bentley Motors were ignored. The vehicle was eventually returned on 03 August and it appeared that the knocks and rattles had been eliminated but the next day it was evident that the intermittent grinding noise was still present and the occasional knock would still be heard. Within a week all the knocks and rattles from the front suspension had returned. This resulted in further extensive correspondence with Jon Crossley (Managing Director) and Peter Kelsall at Bentley Manchester and a further meeting with Jon Crossley and Mike Gibson from Bentley Motors, at which time it was stated that though there were knocks and rattles present from the front of the vehicle, these were different ones than those that had previously been “fixed” and were a characteristic of the vehicle! Clearly a ludicrous statement for a £165,000 luxury vehicle and only made as Bentley were unable to fix faults that had been present since delivery of the car. The end result of all this was that the vehicle was eventually returned to Bentley Manchester in November, after I was forced to escalate a complaint through the finance company, at a cost to me of almost £40,000 for 7 months with a persistently faulty vehicle that was ultimately unfit for purpose. To add insult to injury I was told by Jon Crossley, Managing Director at Bentley Manchester, that they do not care about poor reviews of their appalling customer service or shoddy vehicles but hopefully this will make some people aware that they need to look elsewhere for their “Bentley Experience” if they don’t want it to mirror mine. It is also worth mentioning that at least one of the 5 star reviews is from a member of staff at the dealership, as it’s the person I bought the vehicle through!