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Evans Halshaw shifting the goal posts
Hi folks, looking for a bit of advice:
We placed an order for a new car from Evans Halshaw Ford in Edinburgh in March and got the deal that we wanted. all going well until they told us that the "specific" car that they'd offered us was no longer available. They had not told us the offer was on a specific car!
When they told us this it was because they were phoning to offer us an alternative car the same spec as the one we ordered except £1700 more expensive as it had pearlescent paint. We declined this and returned to the dealership to discuss with the manager, the finer details of the order which had not been put on the order form (Fords current specification which we were being charged extra for). We were then told it would take 10-12 weeks as the car would need to be built to specification. This would have put delivery of the car into June, not great as the finance deal on the car was due to run out at the end of May. This was not helped by the fact the dealer did not put the order through for the car until 2 weeks after we placed the order with them or contact the finance company at all.
We explained to the dealer the finance deal was ending and were informed it wouldn’t be a problem we would just keep making the payments we had been making for our existing car. We contacted the finance company to inform them of the transaction taking place and were told that they could not discuss this with us and needed to speak to the dealership directly. They also informed us if we wanted an update regarding the status with the finance company we had to deal with the dealership and not the finance company directly.
We then received a call from the dealer but it wasn’t to tell us the car was on it’s way, it was to inform us that our car was due to be serviced and did we want to book it in. We told them that we were trading in the car with themselves and asked if we should bring it in and we were told that it was ok they would service it when we traded the car in which was fine.
A few weeks then passed and we received a letter from Ford credit informing us that our deal was coming to an end and that we could trade the car in, pay off the balance or hand the car back. We got in touch with the dealer who said not to worry they would contact Ford Credit to sort it out. We also asked the dealership several times to provide written confirmation of the arrangement with the finance company-this never materialised despite many promises to the contrary.
A few weeks passed again and we then received a letter saying the deal had now ended and we had 7 days to pay off the car, trade it in or hand it back so we contacted the branch again to get an update. We were then told that the order had slipped into July, not great but we had waited this long already what was a few more weeks and again told not to worry about ford credit.
Our next call was to ford credit where we discovered that the dealer had failed to send them the paperwork informing them we had placed an order with them for a new car and that the payments should continue until the new car was delivered. My wife then called Ford Credit every day to get an update to be eventually told “Stop phoning us” and that she couldn’t speak to them it had to be the branch who dealt with them. She was also in constant contact with the dealership manager who gave her his mobile phone number to stop her going through the switchboard. He assured her that the paperwork had been faxed over something which ford credit said was not the case and gave him another fax number to finally send the missing documents.
So again more weeks passed thinking the car will be delivered in July with no contact from the dealer to tell us otherwise. I contacted the dealer as I’d heard there was a way to track our car’s progress online if I knew the ID number for the car, our salesman was busy but I was assured he would call me back – two weeks later and I was still waiting for a call back so we decided to go down to the dealers on one of our days off and just get an update face to face.
We ended up speaking to the new sales manager (George) and one of the members of staff we dealt with on our original visit (Mark) and went through the catalogue of errors we have had to deal with. We were informed never to speak to our salesman again as he’s not been keeping us updated or even returning our calls.
We explained to them that we are going on Holiday at the end of the Month and would need a car to travel in and as the car hadn’t been serviced yet and now needed new tyres – This shouldn’t have been a issue for us as the car was supposed to be traded in by now. They said they’d try and sort something out for us even if it was getting the car serviced and sticking new tyres on it.
We were then told that the delivery date of the car would now be 27th of August – 6 Months from the point of ordering the car at which my wife nearly broke down in tears. Mark told us he would try to prioritise the car to get it a bit faster but could make no guarantee and George said they would try to source an alternative vehicle for us. We made it clear that one of the biggest issues we’ve had about this was lack of communication, George promised to call us back on the Monday even if he didn’t have news which he did however it wasn’t until Wednesday when Mark called us that he could give us any news. The news we got was that the earliest delivery would be was indeed the week ending the 27th August.
We then asked what was happening about the finance and were told he was out on a course on Thursday but would give us a call on the Friday to update us – by Tuesday we were still waiting for a call so we again headed down to the dealer. Unfortunately couldn’t speak to either George or Mark when we went in but did speak to George on the phone later on to be told he didn’t know what was going on and that he would call us the next day once he had spoken to Mark.
It was Mark who called us back today and was still waiting to hear from Ford Credit and told us we would have to pay for the service and new tyres, at this point we asked what would be the situation about cancelling the whole order as it’s turned into such a mess. He went away to find out and would call us back.
The reply was that we could walk away with no penalty and that they were reviewing the entire order.
Our next call came from a member of staff we’d never spoken to at the dealer (John) who informed us that due to the length of time taken to deliver the car they were going to drop the trade in value of our car from £8000 to £6700 and did we want to proceed?
We are now waiting on a call from the “General Manager” in the morning to try and sort out the mess.
We are now left in a situation where we have not got the car we were promised, paying for a service and four new tyres and loosing £1300 from our trade in/deposit. As you can imagine not very happy! All we want is for them to honour the original contract signed back in March!
If you’ve made it this far thank you for reading and any advice would be greatly received.
We placed an order for a new car from Evans Halshaw Ford in Edinburgh in March and got the deal that we wanted. all going well until they told us that the "specific" car that they'd offered us was no longer available. They had not told us the offer was on a specific car!
When they told us this it was because they were phoning to offer us an alternative car the same spec as the one we ordered except £1700 more expensive as it had pearlescent paint. We declined this and returned to the dealership to discuss with the manager, the finer details of the order which had not been put on the order form (Fords current specification which we were being charged extra for). We were then told it would take 10-12 weeks as the car would need to be built to specification. This would have put delivery of the car into June, not great as the finance deal on the car was due to run out at the end of May. This was not helped by the fact the dealer did not put the order through for the car until 2 weeks after we placed the order with them or contact the finance company at all.
We explained to the dealer the finance deal was ending and were informed it wouldn’t be a problem we would just keep making the payments we had been making for our existing car. We contacted the finance company to inform them of the transaction taking place and were told that they could not discuss this with us and needed to speak to the dealership directly. They also informed us if we wanted an update regarding the status with the finance company we had to deal with the dealership and not the finance company directly.
We then received a call from the dealer but it wasn’t to tell us the car was on it’s way, it was to inform us that our car was due to be serviced and did we want to book it in. We told them that we were trading in the car with themselves and asked if we should bring it in and we were told that it was ok they would service it when we traded the car in which was fine.
A few weeks then passed and we received a letter from Ford credit informing us that our deal was coming to an end and that we could trade the car in, pay off the balance or hand the car back. We got in touch with the dealer who said not to worry they would contact Ford Credit to sort it out. We also asked the dealership several times to provide written confirmation of the arrangement with the finance company-this never materialised despite many promises to the contrary.
A few weeks passed again and we then received a letter saying the deal had now ended and we had 7 days to pay off the car, trade it in or hand it back so we contacted the branch again to get an update. We were then told that the order had slipped into July, not great but we had waited this long already what was a few more weeks and again told not to worry about ford credit.
Our next call was to ford credit where we discovered that the dealer had failed to send them the paperwork informing them we had placed an order with them for a new car and that the payments should continue until the new car was delivered. My wife then called Ford Credit every day to get an update to be eventually told “Stop phoning us” and that she couldn’t speak to them it had to be the branch who dealt with them. She was also in constant contact with the dealership manager who gave her his mobile phone number to stop her going through the switchboard. He assured her that the paperwork had been faxed over something which ford credit said was not the case and gave him another fax number to finally send the missing documents.
So again more weeks passed thinking the car will be delivered in July with no contact from the dealer to tell us otherwise. I contacted the dealer as I’d heard there was a way to track our car’s progress online if I knew the ID number for the car, our salesman was busy but I was assured he would call me back – two weeks later and I was still waiting for a call back so we decided to go down to the dealers on one of our days off and just get an update face to face.
We ended up speaking to the new sales manager (George) and one of the members of staff we dealt with on our original visit (Mark) and went through the catalogue of errors we have had to deal with. We were informed never to speak to our salesman again as he’s not been keeping us updated or even returning our calls.
We explained to them that we are going on Holiday at the end of the Month and would need a car to travel in and as the car hadn’t been serviced yet and now needed new tyres – This shouldn’t have been a issue for us as the car was supposed to be traded in by now. They said they’d try and sort something out for us even if it was getting the car serviced and sticking new tyres on it.
We were then told that the delivery date of the car would now be 27th of August – 6 Months from the point of ordering the car at which my wife nearly broke down in tears. Mark told us he would try to prioritise the car to get it a bit faster but could make no guarantee and George said they would try to source an alternative vehicle for us. We made it clear that one of the biggest issues we’ve had about this was lack of communication, George promised to call us back on the Monday even if he didn’t have news which he did however it wasn’t until Wednesday when Mark called us that he could give us any news. The news we got was that the earliest delivery would be was indeed the week ending the 27th August.
We then asked what was happening about the finance and were told he was out on a course on Thursday but would give us a call on the Friday to update us – by Tuesday we were still waiting for a call so we again headed down to the dealer. Unfortunately couldn’t speak to either George or Mark when we went in but did speak to George on the phone later on to be told he didn’t know what was going on and that he would call us the next day once he had spoken to Mark.
It was Mark who called us back today and was still waiting to hear from Ford Credit and told us we would have to pay for the service and new tyres, at this point we asked what would be the situation about cancelling the whole order as it’s turned into such a mess. He went away to find out and would call us back.
The reply was that we could walk away with no penalty and that they were reviewing the entire order.
Our next call came from a member of staff we’d never spoken to at the dealer (John) who informed us that due to the length of time taken to deliver the car they were going to drop the trade in value of our car from £8000 to £6700 and did we want to proceed?
We are now waiting on a call from the “General Manager” in the morning to try and sort out the mess.
We are now left in a situation where we have not got the car we were promised, paying for a service and four new tyres and loosing £1300 from our trade in/deposit. As you can imagine not very happy! All we want is for them to honour the original contract signed back in March!
If you’ve made it this far thank you for reading and any advice would be greatly received.
0
Comments
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Letter before action? (But will that work?)
I think you need some legal advice especially as you will probably be in breach with your current car.
Contact Ford direct? (Think this would be the first thing to do)
Sorry can't help much hopefully someone will be long with more knowledge about this.0 -
i think you need to speak to trading standards for advice.
we ordered a car that eventually took 8 month to deliver,didnt trade in or take out finance though.
our old car was also due test, the garage offered to test car for us, or we could have taken a loan car off the garage.0 -
TBH I'd be in touch with Ford over all of this, including the response of Ford Direct. I'd follow the advice above and speak to Trading Standards to see what rules they have broken too to see if that gives you any leverage.
I'd then call a few dealers, say what you are looking for, see if they'll match it and tell EH to do one. Although you have waited a long time I would not be wanting this shower to have my business.
5t.What if there was no such thing as a rhetorical question?0 -
Thanks for your posts and advice, we are currently taking legal advice (wife is on the phone with them right now), Trading standards is the next port of call as is Ford Credit. After that I think the next place will be the FSA as we believe it's had an adverse affect on our credit rating will keep you posted.0
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Well the legal advice is that we have a contract in writing, it's not our fault the car's value has gone down as they took so long to provide the new car.
They also said we'd have more luck going down the consumer route rather than the legal route and to embarrass them as much as possible. Trading standards next...0 -
That's true. Sometimes the press can be a big help. Does your local rag have a 'consumer champion' type section? That sort of thing.
Just in case you haven't, i'd bypass the sub companies like Ford Credit and go straight to Ford UK. No point speaking to the monkey, you want the organ grinder at this stage. Make them aware of your dis-satisfaction and see if they kick the dealer principle for you.
5t.What if there was no such thing as a rhetorical question?0 -
Good idea, thanks 5t0
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Hi folks, looking for a bit of advice:
We placed an order for a new car from Evans Halshaw Ford in Edinburgh in March and got the deal that we wanted. all going well until they told us that the "specific" car that they'd offered us was no longer available. They had not told us the offer was on a specific car!
When they told us this it was because they were phoning to offer us an alternative car the same spec as the one we ordered except £1700 more expensive as it had pearlescent paint.
I would have told them to go f**k themselves at this point, classic "get them through the door" sales tactic used by dodgy 2nd hand car merchants, I'd expect better from a franchised dealer!!!“I may not agree with you, but I will defend to the death your right to make an a** of yourself.”
<><><><><><><><><<><><><><><><><><><><><><> Don't forget to like and subscribe \/ \/ \/0 -
Well after a 15 minute conversation for Jane and Ford UK I was cut off as she was reading all the issues back to me!0
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Strider590 wrote: »I would have told them to go f**k themselves at this point, classic "get them through the door" sales tactic used by dodgy 2nd hand car merchants, I'd expect better from a franchised dealer!!!
So would I, but this is Evans Halshaw we are talking about here, so it sounds pretty much par for the course.0
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