AutoQuake 2nd hand car sale - any one brought from?

WonkyJ

Right then ive been looking for a decent Honda Accord for a few weeks now. I found what looked like a reasonable buy on Autoquake a few days ago after viewing 2 cars from dealers that were not up to scratch (one was a Cat D with more damage than he admited after investigation the other was ok, body work wasnt too great and we couldn't agree a price).

So I do a little investigation and reading this thread i wasn't too sure if I should go ahead or not with the £100 deposit for Autoquake. Sod it... i have a go and put a deposit down on Thurs afternoon. The car is noted to have minor scuffing on the bumper on the site.. and to be honest after the two id seen and what i'd read i was fully expecting to see more body damage.

I spoke to them on the phone and they were happy to offer an appiontment for 2pm on Friday (next day) as I requested.

I arrived... we greated in the car park and told where to go. The location is not the most glamerous true but its fine... i mean come on they have a few hundred cars on site and they are trying to cut costs to give you a better price... who gives a monkie. The office where you wait is fine... large cabbin on site with vending machines, leather sofas and reading material while u wait... i arrived at 1:50 and was called at about 2:10... again no problem.

The chap showed me to the car and basically said take some time to look it over and I'll be back in a bit. Gave it a good once over and was impressed with the car it was in good condition and the paint work was better than i expected. Everything else was fine. (most of these cars are lease so you are going to get a mixed bag i guess all i can say is that the internet description of this one was 100%.. in fact they'd not mentioned a rather well hidden Honda BlueTooth kit so that was a nice little bonus along with 1/3 of a tank

Had a look at the paper work and as well as what was shown on the web there was every single service report in detail (again i'm guessing you are only as good as your prev owner) Decided that this was the best value and best condition car I'd seen and bought it!!

No push sales on GAP or Warrenty (was asked and he explained the detail but back right down as soon as I said no)

Took the offer o7 day free fully comp insurance (took about 10 mins to sort on a call to Avia) Took the car and drove it home. A good experience!!

After reading some of the negative comments on here i think people should basically understand what they are getting.... its a car at a good price, it prob will not be show room condition (although mine wasnt far off to be fair) and like all 2nd hand cars you will get some better than others.

For what its worth I'd recommend and would buy again.

and b4 i get ragged no i do not have anything to do with them

jkspoff

These are second hand cheap cars mainly sourced from auctions, there is usually only 1 reason why people shift cars at auctions, (other than dealers selling high mileage trade ins) and thats because there is something wrong with them. You get what you pay for, take a warranty out !

somgal

jkspoff wrote: »

These are second hand cheap cars mainly sourced from auctions, there is usually only 1 reason why people shift cars at auctions, (other than dealers selling high mileage trade ins) and thats because there is something wrong with them. You get what you pay for, take a warranty out !

jkspoff, autoquake say the cars are ex-fleet cars and if they dont sell them they will then go to auction. How do you know that they are actually second hand cheap cars sourced from auctions...if you have proof why dont you raise this with trading standards than just throw in random comments?

DyManic

I have been looking here along with themotorhouse.co.uk and am starting to think I might be safer spending a little more at a dealer.

jgc

OK - Following up on my posts a little while ago.....

My vehicle arrived at my home delivered by a very polite and cheerful chap from a third party company that Autoquake had contracted.

The vehicle had undisclosed damage on it despite the staff at Autoquake having been given every opportunity to disclose it.

I refused to sign the acceptance documentation (which stated that I was happy to accept it in the delivered condition and was loose me my right to complain) and made a formal complaint.

The branch manager at leeds contacted me and was excellent agreeing to arrange for a local repairer to repair my vehicle.

I received another call from a staff member (the one who had refused to disclose the damage in the first place) to tell me that the quotes they had got were too expensive and they'd give me 150 pounds instead which I declined.

Another call from another member of staff and they arranged for a local repairer to collect my vehicle from my home, repair it and deliver it back. The repairer did an excellent job and invoiced autoquake direct.

Mechanically the vehicle is good and I have been left with a good vehicle at a good price.

In short - Autoquake seem to be very staff dependant - the generic shop floor staff seem to be more interested in flogging the vehicle than being honest about it and will lie to you to shift it, however, the management are very good and seem to have a good grasp on customer service.

Would I buy from Autoquake again or recommend them to a friend? If I lived close by and could see and drive the car in person then yes - I have a good car at a good price. Would I buy a distance purchase car from them again - no, not because autoquake has a bad selling model but simply because when purchasing at a distance you need to have 100% confidence in the honesty of the person selling to you and I have not been left with that.

If you're close to Birmingham or Leeds though don't be put off by Autoquake - Go and see them and look closely at the cars - there are undoubtedly some diamonds in the rough

rogerG_4

Some really interesting posts here, and yes I have read them all! And no, I will not be using AutoQuake

lockdownents

I know i am a 1st time poster and will prob get blasted by everyone on here, that i work for then.
But i just thought i will post my comments on here, for anyone actually interested in purchasing a car from autoquake.

First off...i just brought a Civic Type R GT yday.

The total cost of the car was £13k as advertise, however what they dont tell you when you finance a car is there is also other fees, eg. acceptance fee!
I didnt know about this until we was getting to sign the paper works.

Also another bad point is. the car had 17k miles on the clock and also on the listening under 'Mileage at service' it also had 17k, meaning they serviced it. BUT, on the photos they took of the service book, it was only stamped at 7k.
So i called up about this, he mentioned it would cost £200 for autoquake to serivce it and stamped.

WHY advertise it was last serviced @ 17k, when your not willing to do it for FREE???

My overall experience was ok.
Paper works went through fine, no waiting around, but that was prob because there was no one else waiting to see the car.
The office was a bit of a joke. There was only ONE person working and he did also mention, they are in the middle of moving to another office, which i know was a lie after reading all the previous comments.
Wasnt allowed the 7 days free insurance as i was under 25 and insuring a sports car. But i guess wasnt their fault.

Gave directions to the post office, was lucky to be able to get road tax as they said they dont normally accept photocopies of the coving letter. Didnt offer a lift, said i doubt you will get stopped by police on the way there :S

The car runs great so far, lets hope it stays that way.

UKJimbo

I found this thread last week when I was looking for user reviews of Autoquake and thought I'd add my experience to it.

I found a VW Golf on their site last week that looked like it was in fantastic condition and was well below book price. We chose to add a 2 year warranty and have it delivered from Birmingham to London.

Saturday:
- Deposit paid and a helpful email received immediately with details of the next steps
- Attempted to pay the remaining balance for the price of the car using a BACS transfer but my online banking system didn't like the sort number/acct number quoted in the confirmation email
- Called Autoquake, phone answered within a minute. Turns out the incorrect details were provided on the confirmation email and I was supplied with the correct account details

Sunday
- Outstanding balance paid by BACS to the correct account. Because they and I are both Lloyds TSB customers the transfer would have been immediate (instead of the 3 working days that you have to wait between different banks)

Monday (today)
- Filled in the online contact form at around 10:30 this morning asking them to confirm receipt of the money and to organise delivery
- No contact by 14.30 and I was being impatient so I called them. Acceptable 2 min wait in a queue before I spoke to someone.
- Assistant was helpful and had to phone head office to verify the payment had come through. After a few minutes on hold he came back to me saying that head office had a problem with their computer system and were unable to verify bank transfers into their Lloyds bank account at the moment
- I've been promised a phone call from the same customer services assistant tomorrow morning to verify that the balance has been received. He said delivery is almost always within 48 hours of payment clearing so that's still OK for me to have a delivery by the end end of the week

So far service has been acceptable. I'll update again later on when I've received the car with any other details that might help anybody else making a purchase from Autoquake.

Errata

I found a VW Golf on their site last week that looked like it was in fantastic condition and was well below book price. We chose to add a 2 year warranty and have it delivered from Birmingham to London

You are buying a car that you haven't actually seen ? I'm amazed. I don't even buy knickers that way.

UKJimbo

Errata wrote: »

You are buying a car that you haven't actually seen ? I'm amazed. I don't even buy knickers that way.

It's a risk I know. A calculated one.

I've seen around 40 details photographs of the car and based the decision on that knowing I have the fall-back of:
- An assurance that they've carried out detailed checks on the car
- Their 7 day money back option (I would lose the delivery fee though)
- My statutory rights if any feature of the car has been mis-described by them