Car Giant / Car Craft

JNB120

Thinking of buying from Car Giant then beware.

On 19th September 2009 I purchased a 2006 BMW 325i SE from Car Giant. Great I thought a make such as BMW, three and half years old, a full service history and Car Giant's 114 point mechanical and safety inspection so what could possible go wrong!


Ha I here you cry.... you fell for all of that rubbish then! Well thanks I know that now...... and I think it only fair and right and proper to let you all know... should you be interested that is?

Since purchasing the vehicle a number of minor issues have arisen and just for good measure two major ones so far that is......

So lets start it the minor ones:

1. Upon driving away the tyre pressure was below the minimum required (how could this happen I thought? After all surely tyre pressure is on the 114 point inspection!)
2. A couple of weeks in and warning, warning says the on board computer..... there isn't enough oil in this machine (praise be did I eat that much oil in just two weeks and a couple of hundred miles? Oh well lets top it up).
3. Wiper blades need replacing..... will the list ever stop.....
4. Tyres have a tread depth of 2 so we haven't got long to go before we reach the legal limit of 1.6 but guess that is OK as it is legal!

Now for the big guns:

1. Before end of November the car is shuddering and shaking.... I thought I just got the Ultimate Driving Machine.... not some old bone shaker! Well I did get a driving machine just with a dodgy CLUTCH.... clearly my two months of driving and few hundred miles means I need a new clutch! That is perfectly normal. IT IS EXPENSIVE TRUST ME!
2. But it is fixed, I have it back in time for Christmas so all is good... yeah right until 4th January 2010 when it cuts out and won't start. HAPPY NEW YEAR..... so for 3rd time it 3 months it is back on a recovery vehicle and off to BMW... suspected defective fuel pump! OUCH.

Well will keep you posted if your interested. You probably aren't as Car Giant aren't.... not that I can get through to After Sales... So will pop my letter in the post and keep you posted! Oh BMW not really bothered apparently the Ultimate Driving Machine's parts even a relatively new car can go wrong.... which is why you get a 3 year warranty with them!!!! THANKS for that.

Oh and thanks to the recovery man who said he picks up more BMWs than anything and you might want to get rid of it! If I could start it I would mate!

Curiousdvi

Has anyone suffered clutch problems on their new 5 Series?

Microstar_2

We are VAG and BMW specialists. Yes, surprise surprise BMW's do go wrong. They are decent cars, but like any complicated piece of machinery they need maintaining and repairing from time to time. A 3-series is about the same reliability as say a VW Golf or Skoda Octavia. That is to say good, but not as good as a Toyota or a Subaru. We get some customers who are under the impression that BMW's don't break down and so are quite amazed when their's fails the MoT or needs £500 worth of repairs!

bap98189

spunko2010 wrote: »

Sorry to dig up this thread again, but I've seen a car on CarCraft that is great value.

Did you get the price from their website? Because if so, when you go to the showroom you will find the car has a price about £2k more on the windscreen. We made this mistake, printed off a bunch of cars form their website, went to the showroom and then could not find any of the cars. The reason being that they advertise them online at much lower prices than is on the windscreen.

Enquire about it and the salesman will initially deny any knowledge of these prices. He will then will go away "to ask the manager" if he can do it at that price specially for you. From that point on, he will constantly refer to the £2k discount he has already given you and use every tactic under the sun to get the sale.

I had no idea what the company was like until I visited the showroom, but they really did display everything that is wrong with the second hand car industry. Needless to say I walked out. What gets me is that there were people paying these full "windscreen" prices for cars and believing the sales reps that they were getting a great deal if they threw in a free car wash.

Inactive

That linked post was made in 2008.:rotfl:

plane_boy2000

JNB120 wrote: »

Thinking of buying from Car Giant then beware.

On 19th September 2009 I purchased a 2006 BMW 325i SE from Car Giant. Great I thought a make such as BMW, three and half years old, a full service history and Car Giant's 114 point mechanical and safety inspection so what could possible go wrong!


Ha I here you cry.... you fell for all of that rubbish then! Well thanks I know that now...... and I think it only fair and right and proper to let you all know... should you be interested that is?

Since purchasing the vehicle a number of minor issues have arisen and just for good measure two major ones so far that is......


So lets start it the minor ones:

1. Upon driving away the tyre pressure was below the minimum required (how could this happen I thought? After all surely tyre pressure is on the 114 point inspection!)
2. A couple of weeks in and warning, warning says the on board computer..... there isn't enough oil in this machine (praise be did I eat that much oil in just two weeks and a couple of hundred miles? Oh well lets top it up).
3. Wiper blades need replacing..... will the list ever stop.....
4. Tyres have a tread depth of 2 so we haven't got long to go before we reach the legal limit of 1.6 but guess that is OK as it is legal!

Now for the big guns:

1. Before end of November the car is shuddering and shaking.... I thought I just got the Ultimate Driving Machine.... not some old bone shaker! Well I did get a driving machine just with a dodgy CLUTCH.... clearly my two months of driving and few hundred miles means I need a new clutch! That is perfectly normal. IT IS EXPENSIVE TRUST ME!
2. But it is fixed, I have it back in time for Christmas so all is good... yeah right until 4th January 2010 when it cuts out and won't start. HAPPY NEW YEAR..... so for 3rd time it 3 months it is back on a recovery vehicle and off to BMW... suspected defective fuel pump! OUCH.

Well will keep you posted if your interested. You probably aren't as Car Giant aren't.... not that I can get through to After Sales... So will pop my letter in the post and keep you posted! Oh BMW not really bothered apparently the Ultimate Driving Machine's parts even a relatively new car can go wrong.... which is why you get a 3 year warranty with them!!!! THANKS for that.

Oh and thanks to the recovery man who said he picks up more BMWs than anything and you might want to get rid of it! If I could start it I would mate!

JNB - you dont mention the mileage, but to be honest items 1 - 4 are general maintenance, and clutches are consumables - they will fail at some point depending on how they have been treated, and as with any used car you cant tell how it was driven before, so as I see it the only failiure you have is a possible fuel pump issue in 6 months on a used car - dosent sound to bad to me.

plane_boy2000

I guess that theres another theme here - people go to these so called car supermarkets as the cars are a little bit cheaper, but in reality they aren't always the bargains they appear to be

Timmy10

Took a visit to CarCraft at Lakeside this week, am looking for something newer, and thought it would be a good place to look. I must say all the cars on display were below average on condition (I used to do paint refinishing) I can spot a dodgy respray a mile off, and a lot of these cars have had paintwork undertaken - and not to very good standards. The smaller models I was looking at were 2-4 years old, with above average mileage. They were also at least 3k overpriced.

As a previous member stated, not really worth visiting, unless you have nothing better to do on a rainy evening.