Arnold Clark Promises Delivered, I Don't Think So!

[PeterF]

Hi to anyone who reads this post.

I suggest you read this then make up your own mind wether you want to buy a car from Arnold Clark.

I will tell you as it is, which is more than an Arnold Clark salesman will do, believe me.

I purchase a used car from Arnold Clark Nissan Hamilton Rd Glasgow in June 2004, the car was three years old so I decided to purchase a 2 year Autocare warranty.

The salesman told me this warranty would cover me for everything if the car should break down, parts, labour, breakdown assistance, even a car to get me home if my car could not be fixed by the road side.

I should have known it was too good to be true but this salesman was excellent at relaying the benifits.

For the first two months I hardly used the car as I worked a lot of weekends, then free time became available and I decided to see a bit more of this country.

I felt safe knowing that if anything went wrong, I was covered by this warranty, wrong!!!!

The car just came to a stop on the 21st january 2005, six and a half months after I bought the car, four hundred miles from home in the middle of nowhere.

I called Autocare, the guy I spoke to said he could not find the place I was on his map and said call the AA yourself and tell them where you are, I felt like I had been abandoned.

I was stranded in the middle of the country, I had about £5 in my mobile and it was getting dark, I had no idea where the nearest town or phone box was, I felt I was being abandoned by the very people I had paid £395 to help me.

I called the AA and explained about the lack of funds in my phone and the lady called me back, she was terrific and arranged to have a van and mechanic attend my breakdown.

I thought that things were sorted and intended to complain to Arnold Clark about the lack of service and this guys attitude.

I had no idea this attitude must be part of the training as everyone at Arnold Clark seems to be the same way.

They are so nice before they get your money and totally different after, Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde spring to mind.

Anyway the AA guy, Rolly was his name, was also fantastic.

He took my car to the nearest Suzuki dealer then took me to pick up my 24 hour emergency hire car to get me home, he even took me far enough to join the motor way home, for this I thank him and wish to thnk the AA for knowing how to treat a person.

I got home in the early hours of the morning and decided to call Autocare to verify I could keep the hire car for a maximum of seven days, according to the warranty policy.

The Autocare guy said I could and the policy would cover seven days hire up to £25 per day.

He asked me to call the garage and ask someone there to call Autocare, which I did, although I thought this would have been done by them, did they want my money for doing nothing?

The garage agreed, I thought this would be thing sorted, but was I ever wrong again.

The garage called me and aske for me to call Autocare to confirm a 35,000 mile service, I agreed to call although I explained that the car was bought at 35,500 miles from arnold Clark.

When I called Autocare and told them they had the car at this mileage the story changed, they made a mistake it should have been 44,000 miles.

I explained I had not been told by the salesman this was a condition of the policy, In fact I had not been told of any conditions at all.

The Autocare guy said I should take this up with the dealer who sold me the car.

I called the dealer and asked to speak to the salesman and was informed he did not work there any more, how convenient.

I asked to speak to the branch manager and was told it was his day off.

That evening I decided to contact Arnold Clarks customer services.

I emailed all the details and explained I was not informed of any conditions on this warranty policy.

They said they would look into it along with the branch manager, they also said they would contact me the next day, they did not.

I called them and they said they would chase the branch manager up.

He called that evening to tell me Autocare would not cover repairs to my car because it was not serviced at 44,000 miles.

I explained what I had told Autocare about the salesman conveniently forgetting to mention any conditions, he offered me a discount on my next service.

When I refused his kind offer, he said he would have to speak to his superior and would get back to me, he never did.

I contacted customer services again and they gave me the same story.

I tried again to explain that I would not spend £395 on a warranty policy and miss a service knowing that this would make my policy null and void, the customer services turned a bit like the Autocare guy, could not care less mate.

I got a call from the garage to see what was happening, Niel at the garage explained the damage and gave me an idea of what to expect.

The amount off the top of his head was £1500 - £2000 to repair my car.

I told him I would need to get back to him on that as there was no way in this world I had that kind of cash to pay for the repairs, he then told me I had a bill for them just looking at it of £293.

Things were going from bad to worse I thought.

I decided I was getting nowhere so time to try a new approach, trading standards, citizen's advice, anyone who would listen and maybe help, this has been ongoing for the past two weeks, every night emails, every day phone calls.

Today I recieved another call from the garage, ever heard of kicking a man when he's down, the estimate for repairs is now £2946.09.

The car I bought six and a half months ago at £8999, which I found out was over priced at that time by about £1000 and is now worth £6999, in working condition that is.

It will cost me nearly have the value to repair the car and I still have to travel 400 miles to collect it and bring it home.

I feel I should have been informed at the time of purchase that there were conditions on the policy and what these conditions were.

Also document that should have had the next service time or mileage on them were left blank by this salesman.

The Autocare policy also has sections for service details but this was not completed either although Arnold Clark said a service was done before I purchased the car.

If this is so then it should have been no problem to complete the documents, I would also have been on their system for a letter to be sent to remind me of the next service, which everyone is supposed to get.

I am at this moment in time waiting to hear from the Financial Ombudsman Service as to whether they can help me.

I apologise for this very long story but if it did hold your attension then it has served a purpose, a warning to everyone out there not to get sucked in just because you think you will get treated better by a bigger company.

Arnold Clark, Promises delivered, I don't think so!!!!!!!

[Jesus]

Man... that sucks.

Customer service just doesn't seem to mean anything to some people.

Sorry to hear about your trouble... I hope you get it sorted... soon.

[cfc1]

Yep.. i know someone who bought a brand new Fiat from Arnold Clark.. the thing was in the garage for months (on and off) with the same problem. He ended up with a top man from italy over to try get hings sorted.. after over a year he eventually got another brand new car.. guess what?.. yes its got problems too.. and Arnold Clark don't want to know.. their aftersales service is utter crap.. i certainly wouldn't buy anything from them.

Hope you get your car back and as good as new under your warranty m8. :)

[Mark139]

Arnold Clark are ****ers........If I start my post will be twice as long as Peters.......When you seen an Arnodl Clark garage KEEP DRIVING the view will impove in a few seconds.......................****ERS!!!!!!!

[hoppy]

:censor: send the very same letter, to the judge at the sunday post! name and shame that *****..le. im sure you can do this by email, may be wrong, get it in the local paper to! best of luck! keep us updated. :censor:

[T V O R]

A few points from your post...

It’s not the AA man’s fault if you are in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t know where you are, if you don’t know where you are, how do you expect anyone to find you?

You paid £9000 for a 3 year old car that now requires £3000 worth of repairs after 6 months?

Did you have an independent inspection on the vehicle including a HPI considering the amount of money you were spending?

It is up to you to read the terms and conditions and the small print before parting with your hard earned cash. I don’t think you can blame other people for your hastiness.

You should have also checked all the i’s were dotted and the T’s crossed regarding the service history. £9000 is a lot of money! I would check and double check the car before spending that amount especially on a second hand car.

No matter how big the company in question, don’t expect to be treated like royalty, your money is the same as the next person’s.

I think you acted too quickly in buying something and didn’t do your research on, and now you want to pass the blame on someone else.

I also noticed you have posted this topic on the Parkers forum which has subsequently been locked.

:o