Mark

Impressive, but don't be fooled - worst!

ASM Automotive mis-represented the car as one owner, when it was two. Sold with a full main dealer service history - it didnt have that. Tried to increase the amount on the finance agreement on the computer hoping I wouldnt notice. Scoffed and laughed at me when i wanted to read the Ts and Cs of the finance agreement, laughing saying "I cant believe you are doing that, no one does that". I visited the showroom, behind electric gates controlled from a separate building to the offices and show rooms. Once you are in this remote location there is no getting out of there unless the owner goes into the private house to remotely open the electric gates. The place looks great, high end cars everywhere, and this was my mistake. I assumed that anyone with such a successful business must have been doing something right. I was very wrong. We agreed a sale. I said "I'll pay the asking price, just make sure it all works". It was a complex high spec Range Rover. We agreed to complete the sale and collect the vehicle in 8 days allowing time to prepare and service the car. I made it clear I needed it to commute to a new job by the day we agreed the sale. He was reluctant to commit. I phoned after a couple of days to see if the owner (Amo) had lined up the work to be done. I then phoned the day before I was due to collect for an update. Amo hit the roof accusing me of being the most hassle he had ever encountered in all his years of selling cars. He pulled the sale, and said he would refund my deposit. I had to call back and eat humble pie and beg him to sell the car to me. I absolutely needed it the next day for my new job. (Senior IT exec). On the day of collection, after 6 hours on public transport I was met by his assistant at Redditch train station. As soon as the car arrived, I could see it had not been prepared properly. There were smear marks and wax residue all over the outside. The inside was worse, the filth in the car was “the worst I had ever experienced”. I have photos, and will provide a link at the end of this. If this review site prevents me posting a link, have a look under dealer feedback thread for ASM on the Fullfat Range Rover forum. The photos of the mess are there. Amo’s assistant arrived at the train station 30 minutes late, leaving me in the freezing rain. He was in the drivers seat with the diagnostic computer still plugged into the car, desperately trying to clear down faults, TPMS errors, or service indicators. He said that we would have better luck sorting this out at their showroom where the staff could help. We got there, there was no one else around only him. He was unable to do any more diagnostics, and unable to discuss any of the issues present. I was up against no other options, so took the vehicle as it was. I took it to my local Land Rover indy who did a full service and alerted me to the fact the car was missing 8 litres of coolant and none of the cooling hoses were tight, and all were leaking. So much for ASMs quality of preparation. Subsequently I then had dozens of issues, some niggles, some more serious. Amo refused to commit to fixing them, expecting me to drive over, leave the car and take the 6 hour journey home by public transport with no commitment he would do anything other than “We will see what we can do” and “I cannot guarantee we will fix it”. Considering the poor level of work done already, and the obviously leaking cooling system I had no faith in this mans capability to resolve some of the complex issues. I wanted to get the work done locally and claim the money back. This was refused. At one point in the first month or two my list of repairs needed to this vehicle was probably about twenty different issues. Ultimately through escalation to the UK authorities I was refunded nearly £3000 from the sale. This took nearly two years of constant headaches to resolve. However, what this tells me is that under UK law I was within my rights to have handled this the way I did, and that Amo from ASM handled this in a way that was deemed wrong. The man is not a nice person, he told me he hated what he does for a living, even though it has clearly served him well in terms of financial reward, but his standards are appalling, his post sales service is all on his terms and with staff that cannot even clean a car properly. I am nearly 50 years old and have at times changed cars every year, so I have bought quite a few over the years. ASM are the worst I have ever dealt with. I think what speaks volumes about them, more than anything else, is the way he freaked out at me when I phoned him for the second time in a week for an update. He cancelled the sale, went full tilt crazy on me and forced me to apologise to get the sale back on track. He knew I had no more options, and he simply wanted to control the relationship and the conversation with aggression and bullying. Avoid at all costs – there plenty of other dealers out there. Don’t go to ASM. The reason it has taken so long for this review to come to light is that there was an open dispute on this and I couldn’t post anything until that was settled. Link with photos: https://www.fullfatrr.com/forum/post466955.html#466955