Car Auction? (carshop.co.uk)

Member Name: helencb

Product:	carshop.co.uk
Date:	30/09/07 (887 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: competitive on price, searchable website, wide range of cars and vans

Disadvantages: underhand approach to sales

Just a quick review this time...

The Car Shop wasn't a brand I was familiar with until recently - having not been in the car buying market for at least three years. They have a few branches, including Swindon and Cardiff, as well as the nearest branch to my home in the Midlands - Northampton.

I must admit I have always stayed away from these large car supermarket places with a passion. This is based on my perception (real or imagined) that they tend to be overpriced and seem to prey on those who have poor credit records and sell them overpriced cars with horrible credit terms - adding to the debt cycle. Of course, there are always the dodgy television adverts too. I have always kept away from them, preferring to buy cars locally and privately if possible.

However - we had some quite specific requirements for a user car, approximately 3-4 years old, including diesel and automatic, and for under £5K which does make the search difficult. However one particular make and model did seem to fit our requirements and tastes, and it seemed to be competitively priced. We located the car via adverts on both Ebay and Autotrader.co.uk and while the mileage was a little high, it is proving difficult to find a car with low mileage and it was something we could live with.

There are in fact 1000s of cars available via the Car Shop, and there are brands and price brackets to suit all budgets. The website www.carshop.co.uk has an excellent search engine, so you can refine your search according to your requirements, based on all the usual filters as you would expect. The website is pretty easy to navigate and there is plenty of useful information and links for financing options, as well as links to car reviews. And of course, if you haven't got the internet at home, you may have heard from them from their TV adverts...!

One of their claims on the website is the "Buy and Go" option where you can drive away with your new car in an hour, providing you have the right documentation. This includes customers who want to part ex, although we were not intending to do this, as we will sell our old low mileage Alfa privately. While this would have been impossible for us to do on a Sunday as we did not have the cash on us, and did not intend to take finance, it perhaps gives the indication of the supermarket approach to car buying that the company does indeed have.

We checked whether the car was available both the night prior and before setting off to view. The car was at their Northampton showroom, and so quite a distance from our home. The site is absolutely huge, with a vast selection of cars, although unfortunately just the one that ticked all our purchasing boxes - diesel, auto and under £5k.

After a test drive, and a failed attempt at negotiating on price - the company has take it or leave it approach to price - and they did state they had a lot of interest in this particular car as it is quite a rarity and had an excellent spec, we decided we would go ahead. They had advised that they did have someone interested in the car who was dealing with them via their Cardiff office and so we confirmed we wanted the car and could indeed pay for the car in full by the following day in cash and were leaving the 10% deposit that day. It was obviously impossible to get the remainder of the money to them before then as the banks are closed - and a cheque would take at least 3-4 days anyway. So deal was done....so we both thought....

......Unbelievably, the car salesman returned and said we could not go ahead with the purchase, as the customer in Cardiff had bought it!! So despite having had a test drive and spent a considerable time at the Car Shop this morning, and despite the salesman having taken details, including debit card for payment and a copy of the driving licence, someone in a different part of the country had apparently just bought it..!

This is just poor customer service in the extreme, playing two customers off against one another, and not even having the decency to allow us to complete a transaction for a cash sale - before allowing a customer many miles away to conclude the transaction at the exact same time! My husband was absolutely furious, at his wasted morning driving to Northampton to test drive a car which was then sold literally from under his nose to a customer in Cardiff and he left in disgust and frustration. He called the manager back shortly afterwards to express his disappointment to be told "We are a car supermarket sir, this is what we do".

Seems absolutely incredible to me.

Perhaps I was right to avoid these places all these years after all.

www.carshop.co.uk

Summary: Frustrating and Disappointing.