Arnold Clark BMW Glasgow

[bora-gav]

Venting frustration of a shambles of a company.

Purchased an X5 back in April from their approved used programme.



My dad and I flew over to complete the purchase after being promised it was immaculate etc etc they refurbed the wheels and replaced the front window due to a stone chip.
We flew in to Glasgow in the middle of a storm, flights after ours were starting to be cancelled and our 15.30 boat home was already cancelled (booked the 19.30 after this)
Upon seeingng the car we noticed a large dent in the bonnet and the paint match was off with the rear quarter and bumper plus the gap alignment on the rear spoiler was way off plus over spray on the fuel cap and poorly prepped by their valeting team, Polish everywhere and runs along the doors.
Now panic mode, no flights home and no way to Cairnryan.
We purchased the car in good faith that they would pay to get the car assessed back in Belfast. So off home we set in the x5, satnav on although not needed so didn't pay much attention. Turned out while in Belfast the satnav was still saying we were in Glasgow, the display key that was conveniently out of battery is now charged and not working.
List of issues emailed back, 2 trips to bavarian to get the satnav sorted and a new display key (bavarian were great to deal with)
Agnews finally came back with their assessment.

Paint depths way off, no filler used though but paint on rear quarter, rear drivers door and blended into drivers door. Dent couldn't be fixed without filler due to being double skinned.
£6.5k retail cost to fix.
Emailed AC, no bother we'll get our cost etc etc and look about fixing it.
Then nothing, ghosted me for 2 weeks. No email replies or phone calls returned.
Finally got through to a manager, told them come get your car I want a refund.
Car was collected at bavarian on Tuesday of last week, sales manager promised the refund on the Monday the day before. Promised it would be paid Tuesday, promised it would be paid Wednesday, promised it would be paid Thursday. Phoned the bank, no payment loading.
Just off the phone with another person at AC and he said the payment wasn't processed until Thursday so now 3-5 days.
In the meantime I've a deposit on another x5 in saltmarine who have been great in holding the car for me but shouldn't have had to.
In hindsight should have just walked away and sat in Glasgow airport for hours until flights were back on.
Such a large company and so many lies when I was lucky enough to even get a reply.
Lessons have been learnt still no refund as of 24.06.24
If you see a white x5 SH19XJB for sale that your interested in then I've got info for you

 

[gpaevo]

As you said, should have run a mile but in the heat of the moment and having travelled, it's hard to do.

****show all round by sounds of it.

 

[Tiarnan12]

Bought one from England also last month, white X5 also- again promised immaculate condition etc etc. 'I'll contribute towards a wax & polish' so I've told them to come collect the car on Thursday, still no reply from the manager.

 

[Lyons]

Have been caught a couple of times myself in similar cases. It’s very hard to walk away in the moment, but I’ve convinced myself if it happened again in the long term it’s definitely the wisest move.

I would’ve been onto BMW customer service straight away. They’ve helped me in the past when the dealer did not.

 

[Lappintyre]

Had a very similar experience with Halliwell Jones BMW in Wales when I bought an X3 through them, flew in, collected from the airport by them, signed over, drove up to the boat..

How I didn’t see the damage picking it up is beyond me.

Rang the dealer the next day and told him it had been painted. Initial reaction was “no, definitely not but I’ll check it out”.... 2 hours later he calls back “yes, it was repaired, the door blew open and was damaged so the owner put a new door on... we did it in house and it was a professional job” I replied stating that I’m wasn’t sure of his standard of professionalism but a botched colour wasn’t in my eyes”. He offered to refund my deposit or cover the repair and asked me to have a think about it..

Meantime I took the car to Porters, they confirmed it had a door but also there was very slight crumple damage on the quarter. Made my decision easy.

Fast forward a few days. I’d taken another look in the classifieds with very little matching the bill until I came across a black X3 with slightly more spec & a thousand less miles in one of the aforementioned dealers other sites, was slightly dearer but they replicated the deal and delivered the car to me picking up the other one.

 

[e320mark]

I had a similar experience with Mercedes Benz Blackburn, approved used A class, really bad day weather wise when I collected so didn’t notice the issues until I was home. Long story short I ended up taking them to court & won, took 6 months from start to finish though!

 

[bora-gav]

I work security, I literally trust no one but I put my trust in them being a genuine dealer and got bit bad. I'm embarrassed and frustrated.
Live and learn though. Just hope my almost £39k is back in my account this week as I don't want to have to go down the court route.

 

[bora-gav]

If they had have said well collect the car Tuesday, get it back, quick assessment and money your way on Wednesday 3-5 days I'd have been OK. But I've been left thinking have I lost £000s, has it gone to the right account, is it the banks fault, is it ACs fault. But the manager promised to send the funds on Monday ffs

 

[KevM]

Blend it and Send it

 

[FM155]

Only one way to get a response is to land on their door and talk to the manager in person. I'm not talking about shouting and screaming or anything like that, more often just being in the same room and refusing to budge until it is sorted will get it it done. If that doesn't work, then it's court route and recovery of costs etc.

 

[bora-gav]

Soooooooo, the car is back on their website for sale. £1k cheaper than what we paid but with the photos from the for sale ad that they used back in April

On the other hand we've collected the replacement courtesy of chris in saltmarine always swore I'd never buy a black car but it's nice with the polished Y spoke wheels. Got a black grill and m style mirrors to put on and that'll be it

 

[Chris100]

The sad reality is that you are just another number to these dealerships, good service particularly after sales service is a very rare thing these days.

You find a lot of these dealerships on the mainland are part of much larger groups, and used cars are coming from all sorts of sources and therefore are not necessarily well assessed before they are bought in. This results in the dealer trying to cover this up as best and cheaply as possible, and passing the car on hoping the buyer doesn’t notice.

 

[lennyd]

It's surprising what people won't notice. I was given my in-laws black freelander to tidy up for sale (because I like that sort of thing apparently) and the drivers side was a completely different colour of paint than the passengers. There was a gold metallic in the passenger side but the drivers was a solid black colour. They'd never noticed it until I pointed it out!

 

[saxo_man]

Soooooooo, the car is back on their website for sale. £1k cheaper than what we paid but with the photos from the for sale ad that they used back in April
View attachment 438530


On the other hand we've collected the replacement courtesy of chris in saltmarine always swore I'd never buy a black car but it's nice with the polished Y spoke wheels. Got a black grill and m style mirrors to put on and that'll be it

Looks very well! You get the money back?

 

[bora-gav]

Used 2019 (19) BMW X5 xDrive30d M Sport 5dr Auto in Glasgow | Arnold Clark

Buy a Used 2019 (19) BMW X5 xDrive30d M Sport 5dr Auto from Arnold Clark in Glasgow. Find your perfect deal with our award winning car search.

www.arnoldclark.com

 

[bora-gav]

Looks very well! You get the money back?

No not yet had to dip into every last penny of the savings. 3-5 days from they processed the refund on Thursday so hopefully in the next day or 2 the money will be back

 

[Gaz]

Going over to England/Scotland/Wales is great for the sheer variety on offer, but the single biggest downside as opposed to buying in NI is that you never want a wasted trip. And people are more inclined to take a chance on a vehicle (if they haven't been able to assess it properly due to time, weather, etc) and hope it can be resolved easily later. I've been over many, many times for cars and have been lucky in that I've only ever had to walk away from 2 of them.

Still, a lot of inconvenience and annoyance because of a relatively large and well known dealer. You would expect better from them.

 

[FM155]

Bought a car from Arnie Sharks in Newcastle in 2019 and tbf, it was a pretty painless transaction. Usual level of ignorance about NI but no real bother overall. Just ***** that they thought it was OK to punt out something that was fairly poor overall.
In my case, the car was dead on, was a nice day so I was able to take a good look around it.

 

[gpaevo]

They have a collection point at Cairnryan port don't they. That would be my choice, if I was ever to buy from them, foot passenger over and then at least if it's not as descripted, straight back on the return ferry back.

 

[bora-gav]

They do, while I was internetting I came across that option but it said +£150 on this occasion with the storm we'd have been stuck in cairnryan until 7.30pm from early morning had we have rejected the car. Not fun

They have a collection point at Cairnryan port don't they. That would be my choice, if I was ever to buy from them, foot passenger over and then at least if it's not as descripted, straight back on the return ferry back.

 

[gpaevo]

They do, while I was internetting I came across that option but it said +£150 on this occasion with the storm we'd have been stuck in cairnryan until 7.30pm from early morning had we have rejected the car. Not fun

Fair point. £150

 

[bora-gav]

Just ***** that they thought it was OK to punt out something that was fairly poor overall.

They collected the car from bavarian Tuesday afternoon I think and it's now back on their website.
Here is what agnew said needed fixed which I couldn't see AC doing in the space of time from collection, arrival and re-advertisement so is the car still poor quality for a BMW used approved

 

[Chris100]

They collected the car from bavarian Tuesday afternoon I think and it's now back on their website.
Here is what agnew said needed fixed which I couldn't see AC doing in the space of time from collection, arrival and re-advertisement so is the car still poor quality for a BMW used approved

View attachment 438561

I was under the impression that BMW didn’t stock used cars which had been accident damaged, sounds like this had been if it had received that much paint.

 

[NickR]

I was under the impression that BMW didn’t stock used cars which had been accident damaged, sounds like this had been if it had received that much paint.

Think it's only written off cars they won't stock going by what's online.

 

[Chris100]

Think it's only written off cars they won't stock going by what's online.

I thought that would have been a given, if I was buying an approved BMW, Audi etc I would fully expect it to have never been in an accident. I certainly wouldn’t buy a previously accident damaged car.