Big Motoring World
Discussion
I’m helping a friend choose a car, mid size hatch/SUV (Think Astra, Ibiza, Fabia, Stronic, C3 Air cross etc) and she has an 8-10k budget. In order to narrow down I thought a car supermarket would be a good start and in Peterborough there are 2 large Big Motoring World sites with a lot of examples of what shes after on site.
In the first instance has anyone used this car supermarket chain before?
If so what are they like in terms of service, quality of cars and aftersales?
Will cars come fully serviced, MOT’d etc?
What level of negotiation is usually achievable at these places or is the price generally the price? It’ll be a straight cash purchase and ideally a drive away same day
Also, they have an admin fee (I hate these) of £299 per car, what are the chances of getting this removed?
In the first instance has anyone used this car supermarket chain before?
If so what are they like in terms of service, quality of cars and aftersales?
Will cars come fully serviced, MOT’d etc?
What level of negotiation is usually achievable at these places or is the price generally the price? It’ll be a straight cash purchase and ideally a drive away same day
Also, they have an admin fee (I hate these) of £299 per car, what are the chances of getting this removed?
Previous thread on them: https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&...
My views on them would be:
Admin fee - Absolutely ridiculous but becoming common in many of these car supermarkets. Very, very unlikely to be removed. Margins are ultra-slim and these are something that they just don't seem to waive, given you're looking at cars which should be very easy sales I doubt there's any margin for negotiation here. Even taking out finance, the kickback they receive on an 8-10k car wouldn't entice them to remove the admin fee.
MOT/Service - Any overdue service should be completed, they state they give everything and oil and filter change when it comes in. MOT will be present but I don't believe they have a policy of ensuring there's at least 'x' months of MOT remaining.
Condition - Just about every delaership for 'normal' cars (i.e. anything under maybe £60k) seems to have massively reduced the amount of prep work that's done on vehicles. They're often quite dirty when being viewed and then freshly valeted once purchased. Smart repairs will be arranged normally if you challenge on certain pieces of damage but this is all done with cost in mind, I'd normally prefer to have someone local to me do the work so that I'm more likely to be happy with the outcome.
I definitely use these car supermarkets when browsing and wanting to check out a few different vehicles without trailing around various dealerships but only once have I followed through with a purchase, normally for a combination of the above and the pricing not being competitive.
My views on them would be:
Admin fee - Absolutely ridiculous but becoming common in many of these car supermarkets. Very, very unlikely to be removed. Margins are ultra-slim and these are something that they just don't seem to waive, given you're looking at cars which should be very easy sales I doubt there's any margin for negotiation here. Even taking out finance, the kickback they receive on an 8-10k car wouldn't entice them to remove the admin fee.
MOT/Service - Any overdue service should be completed, they state they give everything and oil and filter change when it comes in. MOT will be present but I don't believe they have a policy of ensuring there's at least 'x' months of MOT remaining.
Condition - Just about every delaership for 'normal' cars (i.e. anything under maybe £60k) seems to have massively reduced the amount of prep work that's done on vehicles. They're often quite dirty when being viewed and then freshly valeted once purchased. Smart repairs will be arranged normally if you challenge on certain pieces of damage but this is all done with cost in mind, I'd normally prefer to have someone local to me do the work so that I'm more likely to be happy with the outcome.
I definitely use these car supermarkets when browsing and wanting to check out a few different vehicles without trailing around various dealerships but only once have I followed through with a purchase, normally for a combination of the above and the pricing not being competitive.
I know a few who have had good experiences with them & a lot with bad experiences. Promised service history & it not appearing being one. Very hard sell & very poor post purchase experiences. They're just down the road from me. One of my neighbours worked from them & his comment is DON'T TOUCH THEM!
tr7v8 said:
I know a few who have had good experiences with them & a lot with bad experiences. Promised service history & it not appearing being one. Very hard sell & very poor post purchase experiences. They're just down the road from me. One of my neighbours worked from them & his comment is DON'T TOUCH THEM!
Thanks 
Going to look at carstore instead, part of evans halshaw
I have looked at buying from them a couple of times but the cars are always damaged in some way so I have not actually bought.
The BMW M135i they had must have been owned by an artist as it had specks of paint on every interior service. Looking at the rest of the stock they were clearly the bottom of the barrel cars at the auction.
Last time I went to look you had to go into the site through the sales office and the guy I ended up with wanted to credit score me, sell me extended warranties etc before I got to see the car.
The BMW M135i they had must have been owned by an artist as it had specks of paint on every interior service. Looking at the rest of the stock they were clearly the bottom of the barrel cars at the auction.
Last time I went to look you had to go into the site through the sales office and the guy I ended up with wanted to credit score me, sell me extended warranties etc before I got to see the car.
My experience from October 2023 (Enfield).
Turned up to view a car that was competitively priced and was greeted by an incredibly efficient sales process, allocated a sales person and discussed what I was here to see. (note, this was the biggest car dealership I had ever seen, with circa 75+ sales people).
Car was brought round to view and we went on a test drive.
Discussed purchasing the vehicle, and this is where things started to go downhill. I was given the hard sell of their 12 month warranty for around £1000 which would make the car less competitively priced. I said I was fine with used car warranty, which they then proceeded to push even harder for warranty and they falsely advised that standard warranty didnt cover engine, suspensions, brakes etc (wrong).
At this point I would have walked away, I felt that they were being rude, incredibly pushy and as soon as I said I wanted the vehicle with cash, seemed to get a very poor level of service.
An important detail here is, that I was purchasing back a car I had owned 3 months prior. I had part exchanged it and it had gone through the trade, but I wanted it back. The new vehicle I purchased, had been returned to the dealer, and I just wanted my old car back. It would add another name to the log book, but I knew its history and didnt care.
I turned up a week later, after transferring the money by bank transfer earlier in the week. I must have been there 3 hours, with lots of waiting around with a few other people to collect their new cars. They must have 100 sales people, and about 3 doing vehicle collections. This part of the process was very unprofessional and seemed to be operated by a bunch of young kids with little direction, so was a bit of a shambles.
I finally collected the car and drove home, happy with the new (old) vehicle but I will never buy a car from them again and I would have walked away had I not been buying a car that I had previously owned.
Turned up to view a car that was competitively priced and was greeted by an incredibly efficient sales process, allocated a sales person and discussed what I was here to see. (note, this was the biggest car dealership I had ever seen, with circa 75+ sales people).
Car was brought round to view and we went on a test drive.
Discussed purchasing the vehicle, and this is where things started to go downhill. I was given the hard sell of their 12 month warranty for around £1000 which would make the car less competitively priced. I said I was fine with used car warranty, which they then proceeded to push even harder for warranty and they falsely advised that standard warranty didnt cover engine, suspensions, brakes etc (wrong).
At this point I would have walked away, I felt that they were being rude, incredibly pushy and as soon as I said I wanted the vehicle with cash, seemed to get a very poor level of service.
An important detail here is, that I was purchasing back a car I had owned 3 months prior. I had part exchanged it and it had gone through the trade, but I wanted it back. The new vehicle I purchased, had been returned to the dealer, and I just wanted my old car back. It would add another name to the log book, but I knew its history and didnt care.
I turned up a week later, after transferring the money by bank transfer earlier in the week. I must have been there 3 hours, with lots of waiting around with a few other people to collect their new cars. They must have 100 sales people, and about 3 doing vehicle collections. This part of the process was very unprofessional and seemed to be operated by a bunch of young kids with little direction, so was a bit of a shambles.
I finally collected the car and drove home, happy with the new (old) vehicle but I will never buy a car from them again and I would have walked away had I not been buying a car that I had previously owned.
georgefreeman918 said:
My experience from October 2023 (Enfield).
Turned up to view a car that was competitively priced and was greeted by an incredibly efficient sales process, allocated a sales person and discussed what I was here to see. (note, this was the biggest car dealership I had ever seen, with circa 75+ sales people).
Car was brought round to view and we went on a test drive.
Discussed purchasing the vehicle, and this is where things started to go downhill. I was given the hard sell of their 12 month warranty for around £1000 which would make the car less competitively priced. I said I was fine with used car warranty, which they then proceeded to push even harder for warranty and they falsely advised that standard warranty didnt cover engine, suspensions, brakes etc (wrong).
At this point I would have walked away, I felt that they were being rude, incredibly pushy and as soon as I said I wanted the vehicle with cash, seemed to get a very poor level of service.
An important detail here is, that I was purchasing back a car I had owned 3 months prior. I had part exchanged it and it had gone through the trade, but I wanted it back. The new vehicle I purchased, had been returned to the dealer, and I just wanted my old car back. It would add another name to the log book, but I knew its history and didnt care.
I turned up a week later, after transferring the money by bank transfer earlier in the week. I must have been there 3 hours, with lots of waiting around with a few other people to collect their new cars. They must have 100 sales people, and about 3 doing vehicle collections. This part of the process was very unprofessional and seemed to be operated by a bunch of young kids with little direction, so was a bit of a shambles.
I finally collected the car and drove home, happy with the new (old) vehicle but I will never buy a car from them again and I would have walked away had I not been buying a car that I had previously owned.
Sorry, to add to this, their vehicle preparation is non existent. There was still the mark from my dogs nose on the rear window, when I purchased it 3 months later!Turned up to view a car that was competitively priced and was greeted by an incredibly efficient sales process, allocated a sales person and discussed what I was here to see. (note, this was the biggest car dealership I had ever seen, with circa 75+ sales people).
Car was brought round to view and we went on a test drive.
Discussed purchasing the vehicle, and this is where things started to go downhill. I was given the hard sell of their 12 month warranty for around £1000 which would make the car less competitively priced. I said I was fine with used car warranty, which they then proceeded to push even harder for warranty and they falsely advised that standard warranty didnt cover engine, suspensions, brakes etc (wrong).
At this point I would have walked away, I felt that they were being rude, incredibly pushy and as soon as I said I wanted the vehicle with cash, seemed to get a very poor level of service.
An important detail here is, that I was purchasing back a car I had owned 3 months prior. I had part exchanged it and it had gone through the trade, but I wanted it back. The new vehicle I purchased, had been returned to the dealer, and I just wanted my old car back. It would add another name to the log book, but I knew its history and didnt care.
I turned up a week later, after transferring the money by bank transfer earlier in the week. I must have been there 3 hours, with lots of waiting around with a few other people to collect their new cars. They must have 100 sales people, and about 3 doing vehicle collections. This part of the process was very unprofessional and seemed to be operated by a bunch of young kids with little direction, so was a bit of a shambles.
I finally collected the car and drove home, happy with the new (old) vehicle but I will never buy a car from them again and I would have walked away had I not been buying a car that I had previously owned.
If you are looking at a car from Carstore because they are backed by Evans Halshaw then don't expect them to be any better, the warranty isn't worth the paper its written on.
As for the admin fee, while its anoying if the car is £1000 cheaper then I don't see an issue.
The prep centre for Big motoring world is also in peterborough (Celta Road) They do paintwork, MOT and servicing all on site. I did look at there website last week at a Volvo and they do add all the history online
As for the admin fee, while its anoying if the car is £1000 cheaper then I don't see an issue.
The prep centre for Big motoring world is also in peterborough (Celta Road) They do paintwork, MOT and servicing all on site. I did look at there website last week at a Volvo and they do add all the history online
stevemcs said:
If you are looking at a car from Carstore because they are backed by Evans Halshaw then don't expect them to be any better, the warranty isn't worth the paper its written on.
As for the admin fee, while its anoying if the car is £1000 cheaper then I don't see an issue.
The prep centre for Big motoring world is also in peterborough (Celta Road) They do paintwork, MOT and servicing all on site. I did look at there website last week at a Volvo and they do add all the history online
"Admin fees" should be illegal. The price advertised should be what you can go in and pay for the car. Having mandatory extra charges is simply a way to advertise the car cheaper.As for the admin fee, while its anoying if the car is £1000 cheaper then I don't see an issue.
The prep centre for Big motoring world is also in peterborough (Celta Road) They do paintwork, MOT and servicing all on site. I did look at there website last week at a Volvo and they do add all the history online
Hotels pull similar stunts with "resort fees" on top of the room price.
stevemcs said:
If you are looking at a car from Carstore because they are backed by Evans Halshaw then don't expect them to be any better, the warranty isn't worth the paper its written on.
I'm not sure any warranty on a car that isn't being sold as "approved used" by a main deler for the brand is worth the paper it's written on.98elise said:
"Admin fees" should be illegal. The price advertised should be what you can go in and pay for the car.
I just factor it into the price. If I have a budget of £20k and there's an admin fee of £300 then I'm looking to buy the car for £19,700. Auto Trader helps by including the admin fee, so you can easly align the total cost with age, mileage, spec., etc.I'm currently looking for a particular spec BMW 4 Series. I've no idea where it might crop up for sale, so I have to accept that it might come from one of these places. For me, the drill will be simple: Do a V Check, conduct a thorough visual inspection, check the iDrive to confirm that all the services were done on time at a BMW main dealer and, finally, purchase a comprehensive warranty from BMW, ignoring whatever crappy warranty the selling dealer is peddling.
98elise said:
"Admin fees" should be illegal. The price advertised should be what you can go in and pay for the car. Having mandatory extra charges is simply a way to advertise the car cheaper.
Hotels pull similar stunts with "resort fees" on top of the room price.
Yes they are annoying but as mentioned Autotrader include it in the price shown and if the car is cheaper than anything else why does it matterHotels pull similar stunts with "resort fees" on top of the room price.
I bought from them in Jan, would not recommend at all. My advice, pay a bit more and buy from somewhere with some kind of customer service.
The car I bought was well priced and it had 4 years left on the manufacturer warranty so it made sense. Going through the sales process was painful though, had to sit through a LOT of nonsense even though it was a cash purchase with no extras. Even at the very last moment before putting my card in the machine to pay for the car the young accounts girl tried to push the worthless warranty, gap, bodywork insurance, paint protection etc on me again for about the fifth time.
There was an issue with the car so I had the pleasure of dealing with ‘Big Assist’ which is their after sales department. I would not wish this on anyone, it was a needlessly long drawn out process, designed to frustrate and annoy you into giving up and sorting it yourself. Luckily the car could still be driven without issue so I could wait for them to eventually concede they had to fix it but it took about a month for anything to happen.
The car I bought was well priced and it had 4 years left on the manufacturer warranty so it made sense. Going through the sales process was painful though, had to sit through a LOT of nonsense even though it was a cash purchase with no extras. Even at the very last moment before putting my card in the machine to pay for the car the young accounts girl tried to push the worthless warranty, gap, bodywork insurance, paint protection etc on me again for about the fifth time.
There was an issue with the car so I had the pleasure of dealing with ‘Big Assist’ which is their after sales department. I would not wish this on anyone, it was a needlessly long drawn out process, designed to frustrate and annoy you into giving up and sorting it yourself. Luckily the car could still be driven without issue so I could wait for them to eventually concede they had to fix it but it took about a month for anything to happen.
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