350 miles and one day wasted
Discussion
Travelling England's roads today was like driving through soup, aside from road closures and works every truck wanted to overtake, every light was red and everyone seemed to be driving at 3/4 speed.
However I was quite prepared to grit my teeth and bear it to go and buy the perfect spec car for my beloved, but it turns out that "full service history" these days actually means it had it's first service two years into it's life, that's 12 months or 7 k late, one other proper service then a "showroom service" which presumably involves someone checking behind the back seat for loose change.
This was from a Ford main dealer btw.
Was I wrong to expect honesty and professionalism?
Next time I'll be asking for all the docs to be faxed to me.
Not a very good rant by PH standards but I'm sitting in some crappy unwelcome break somewhere up North (hertfordshire I think) and needed to vent.
However I was quite prepared to grit my teeth and bear it to go and buy the perfect spec car for my beloved, but it turns out that "full service history" these days actually means it had it's first service two years into it's life, that's 12 months or 7 k late, one other proper service then a "showroom service" which presumably involves someone checking behind the back seat for loose change.
This was from a Ford main dealer btw.
Was I wrong to expect honesty and professionalism?
Next time I'll be asking for all the docs to be faxed to me.
Not a very good rant by PH standards but I'm sitting in some crappy unwelcome break somewhere up North (hertfordshire I think) and needed to vent.
hornetrider said:
Lesson learned. If distances are involved, I will always ask for dealer/dates/mileage of all services.
I get every date, every stamp, every detail, then spend time on the phone phoning each dealer that's supposedly seen the car. And that's before I travel at all. Got the details on a Subaru for sale at an independent garage the other week - 'FSH' - all the dates and mileages reeled off, no problem. Stamped service book, main dealers. "Mileage is a bit smudged on the last two though mate - can't make them out"...Riiiight
Speak to the supposed servicing dealer, and they've seen it once in the last 40,000 miles, for an MOT. Which it failed.
Jokers the lot of 'em.
Just to expand a little, it was a 2ltr petrol Titanium with the required bits and bobs, there aren't that many about in our price range and this one was described as mint in every way, by the Main Dealer salesman.
The thing about the servicing, yes people sometimes skimp, but the one that was missing was the first service, whilst the car was owned by a Ford employee as a pre-reg, fleet or demo car, it's first owner on the V5 is listed as C/O Ford Motor Company, so why on earth they never got it serviced is completely beyond me.
Plus the first owner sold it to a family member who is related to said salesman, yet he was completely unable to contact the first owner for verification, there were no receipts for the services and no way of verifying them and the salesman said "To be honest" "I'm not going to lie to you" and "The truth is" far too many times............
Just a waste of a day!
Cheers for the replies anyway,
Dave
PS Anything North of Watford is Oop North, its in the Geneva convention.
The thing about the servicing, yes people sometimes skimp, but the one that was missing was the first service, whilst the car was owned by a Ford employee as a pre-reg, fleet or demo car, it's first owner on the V5 is listed as C/O Ford Motor Company, so why on earth they never got it serviced is completely beyond me.
Plus the first owner sold it to a family member who is related to said salesman, yet he was completely unable to contact the first owner for verification, there were no receipts for the services and no way of verifying them and the salesman said "To be honest" "I'm not going to lie to you" and "The truth is" far too many times............
Just a waste of a day!
Cheers for the replies anyway,
Dave
PS Anything North of Watford is Oop North, its in the Geneva convention.
Funnily enough, just to turn this on it's head a bit...
I spent a couple of months, not a little bit of time and about 1,000 travelling miles in the end, looking for a decent Skoda Octavia VRS.
I went for private sales first, as usually these render up better, more honestly described cars. And most of them were from adverts on this very site.
What a bunch of mis-described, ropey old sheds! Some of them were advertised by Joe public punters who don't really know a bad car from a good one, granted. But some were advertised by obvious petrolhead enthusiasts who you would expect, from the advert text, to know what kind of a car they were selling and advertise accordingly.
Wrong.
I finally found a lovely, clean, tidy, well serviced and obviously loved car, with a nice folder of history, at a dealer! It was accurately described on the phone, and when I turned up to view, was exactly how they said (apart from the CD autochanger not working, fair do's, they probably didn't think to test it.)
And because of that fault, I bought the car for £250 less than the screen price, in a nice, honest, no blag haggle. And ironically enough, it ended up being the cheaper car by far than from the private sales, by about £500.
Stand up and take a bow, Bipod Cars in Billingshurst.
A month on and I'm still loving my new car
I spent a couple of months, not a little bit of time and about 1,000 travelling miles in the end, looking for a decent Skoda Octavia VRS.
I went for private sales first, as usually these render up better, more honestly described cars. And most of them were from adverts on this very site.
What a bunch of mis-described, ropey old sheds! Some of them were advertised by Joe public punters who don't really know a bad car from a good one, granted. But some were advertised by obvious petrolhead enthusiasts who you would expect, from the advert text, to know what kind of a car they were selling and advertise accordingly.
Wrong.
I finally found a lovely, clean, tidy, well serviced and obviously loved car, with a nice folder of history, at a dealer! It was accurately described on the phone, and when I turned up to view, was exactly how they said (apart from the CD autochanger not working, fair do's, they probably didn't think to test it.)
And because of that fault, I bought the car for £250 less than the screen price, in a nice, honest, no blag haggle. And ironically enough, it ended up being the cheaper car by far than from the private sales, by about £500.
Stand up and take a bow, Bipod Cars in Billingshurst.
A month on and I'm still loving my new car
DJFish said:
but the one that was missing was the first service, whilst the car was owned by a Ford employee as a pre-reg, fleet or demo car, it's first owner on the V5 is listed as C/O Ford Motor Company, so why on earth they never got it serviced is completely beyond me.
When you see "C/O Ford Motor Company", read it as "Avis" or "Hertz".Same as "Vauxhall Fleet Management" which will be the same.
If it's a dealership or demo car, then it'll be registered to the dealership itself, not to Ford or Vx. That's why it'll have missed it's first service - Avis/Hertz run their cars until 16k, and the Focus' first service is probably 12.5k. They generally get their first service when they're sent to the dealer to be sold.
HellDiver said:
DJFish said:
but the one that was missing was the first service, whilst the car was owned by a Ford employee as a pre-reg, fleet or demo car, it's first owner on the V5 is listed as C/O Ford Motor Company, so why on earth they never got it serviced is completely beyond me.
When you see "C/O Ford Motor Company", read it as "Avis" or "Hertz".Same as "Vauxhall Fleet Management" which will be the same.
If it's a dealership or demo car, then it'll be registered to the dealership itself, not to Ford or Vx. That's why it'll have missed it's first service - Avis/Hertz run their cars until 16k, and the Focus' first service is probably 12.5k. They generally get their first service when they're sent to the dealer to be sold.
DJFish said:
Thanks for that info, the annoying thing is that the car was immaculate, drove nicely etc, but I just wouldn't be comfortable buying a car that hadn't had an oil change for its first two years, is that being too picky?
Have you considered it could have been on some form of longlife service regime? So actually didn't miss a service?I've seen a nice MX-5 in the classifieds thats for sale in London. Advert says it comes with full MOT and a full service but it's all in CAPS which makes me a bit nervous. I'm in the NE Lincs area so any tips on not wasting a drive dahn sarf will be welcome.
Will most dealers be ok with emailing you pics of the log book etc?
Will most dealers be ok with emailing you pics of the log book etc?
2 sMoKiN bArReLs said:
DJFish said:
PS Anything North of Watford is Oop North, its in the Geneva convention.
Aha! You could be in Hertfordshire & still be south of Watford.......gotcha!
Longlife servicing? Possibly, but 19k is stretching it, and why bother having recommended service intervals if you're not going to stick to them?
I don't think Fords have a running in service either....
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