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Evans Halshaw? No, More like Evans Hell-for-sure.
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So just under a year ago I purchased my very pretty red Mini Cooper (2006 Plate) from Evans Halshaw… This is my story so far..
For almost all of the 6 months in 2016 I had it I was very please with the car, not so impressed with the customer service from Evans Halshaw however.. calls for services/MOT’s in October 2016 when they weren’t due until May 2017. I didn’t hold that against them however as thats an easy system error to occur and I was still so happy with my little car. Cut to February 2017 when I get a dashboard light screaming at me. Something about my engine not being right.. After a trip to a local garage they told me it’ll be a little more difficult to fix than anticipated so I took it into Evans Halshaw. After a week of having my car in their garage, with no courtesy car I might add they managed to stop the red light coming on. A few weeks after the work was done I asked for the bill as I was curious. £560!! £560 for repairs on a car that was only 8 months old (to me) at the time. Thankfully my trusty warranty covered the costs. This is where the good part of the story ends..
On Monday 29th May I took my car to Evans Halshaw again as my car had recently failed its MOT over at Kwikfit(very efficient and affordable MOT service by the way). The work that needed doing totalled almost £300. Yes, another large sum of money for repairs for a car that is still under a year old to me. I took my car to Evans Halshaw Citroen Stockport and listed the ailments on my car. I was initially told by the service advisor that I should take my car back to Kwikfit because if Evans Halshaw put my car through their rigorous tests I could potentially get more fails (and incur more of a cost). When I argued that Kwikfit had told me to go to the dealership as one of my fails was more of a specialist area (passenger airbag fault light) the service advisor went out back to speak to his manager. He then came back asking if I had a warranty(there it is again, the little beauty). Once we established that I did they agreed to take the car on to see what could be covered under warranty and I would then foot the rest of the bill - Not unreasonable as some of the fails were due to wear and tear. I was then advised the garage would need to keep the car in due to the amount of work that needed doing.
On Tuesday 30th May I get a call in the morning to tell me my car was in an accident “No it wasn’t.. I wasn’t driving it yesterday” was my initial response. Then I was advised that another customer had reversed into my car… Joy! I do however work and have worked, for years in the insurance industry and understand accidents happen daily so I was not too upset. I politely requested some details of the incident so I could make sure I could recover my losses If necessary. One of the pieces of information requested was the name of the driver that reversed into my car. The Evans halshaw man said ‘Nope, can’t give that information I’m afraid’ however he did tell me he would look into it and get back to me and that he was sourcing a courtesy car for me. I called back a little later and was then advised I could not get the name of the driver as it was one of their own mechanics that reversed into me with a customer car, so the story had slightly changed but their stance remained the same. They would not give me anymore information. After a few hundred more phone calls to them for progress updates I found myself getting angrier. I requested images of damage which were not being given. Images of damage to MY CAR. I was then informed that the damage may be a little more substantial as in fact my car was taken on a test drive and the driver had pulled out of a side road in front of another vehicle… My car was in fact involved in a fault accident. As you can see from the image below this was not a small bump. My mind then went into overdrive and I attempted to take back control of the situation by arranging my own repairs and arranging my own hire car through the accident management company I work for. In order to do this there was information needed surrounding the incident. Information that the garage still would not give to me - still have not given to me. They then told me they would not allow me to uplift my car from their premises (from direction of their insurers apparently..). Both hire company and my chosen garage were waiting on me getting the car out of the garage however Evans Halshaw would not release it. On Friday morning, after being told again I could not have my car taken to another garage for repairs I threatened to have to get the police involved as the garage would not release my car. Shortly after this conversation I was contacted by the Pendragon (Evans Halshaw group owners?)Risk Leader. Finally some progress I thought.. Its only taken 4 days but we’re getting there I guess. Nope. I was having to justify myself to their representative. Justify why I no longer trust the garage with my car. I have been advised that if it goes to another garage I would need to get my own insurer to cover it. The emails went backwards and forwards all day. I felt like I was being made to fell bad for my car being in an accident..
After having to argue for it, I am having a courtesy car delivered to me tomorrow. A full week after my car went in for its original MOT. I still have only received one picture of the damage despite numerous requests. My car is almost 11 years old and is a borderline total loss. Noone has told me what will happen if the car is deemed a write off, nor have they told me what they will do if it’s repairable. They have offered to waiver my £250 collision damage excess on the courtesy car as a gesture of good will - again, only because I argued for it.
The service received from Evans Halshaw has been deplorable. Customer service has been non existent. My only regret is that I now have to stay in contact with this company for the remainder of my finance agreement. If you were thinking of using Evans Halshaw, please think carefully before you do. For such a large company Evans Halshaw are shady and uncooperative. You might have a nicer time using the local family run garage
I don’t really know where I stand with finance agreement etc. Do I have to suck it up? Say oh well, thats life and move on? Evans Halshaw have dramatically reduced the value of my car now too.. I’m feeling a little lost in honesty..
For almost all of the 6 months in 2016 I had it I was very please with the car, not so impressed with the customer service from Evans Halshaw however.. calls for services/MOT’s in October 2016 when they weren’t due until May 2017. I didn’t hold that against them however as thats an easy system error to occur and I was still so happy with my little car. Cut to February 2017 when I get a dashboard light screaming at me. Something about my engine not being right.. After a trip to a local garage they told me it’ll be a little more difficult to fix than anticipated so I took it into Evans Halshaw. After a week of having my car in their garage, with no courtesy car I might add they managed to stop the red light coming on. A few weeks after the work was done I asked for the bill as I was curious. £560!! £560 for repairs on a car that was only 8 months old (to me) at the time. Thankfully my trusty warranty covered the costs. This is where the good part of the story ends..
On Monday 29th May I took my car to Evans Halshaw again as my car had recently failed its MOT over at Kwikfit(very efficient and affordable MOT service by the way). The work that needed doing totalled almost £300. Yes, another large sum of money for repairs for a car that is still under a year old to me. I took my car to Evans Halshaw Citroen Stockport and listed the ailments on my car. I was initially told by the service advisor that I should take my car back to Kwikfit because if Evans Halshaw put my car through their rigorous tests I could potentially get more fails (and incur more of a cost). When I argued that Kwikfit had told me to go to the dealership as one of my fails was more of a specialist area (passenger airbag fault light) the service advisor went out back to speak to his manager. He then came back asking if I had a warranty(there it is again, the little beauty). Once we established that I did they agreed to take the car on to see what could be covered under warranty and I would then foot the rest of the bill - Not unreasonable as some of the fails were due to wear and tear. I was then advised the garage would need to keep the car in due to the amount of work that needed doing.
On Tuesday 30th May I get a call in the morning to tell me my car was in an accident “No it wasn’t.. I wasn’t driving it yesterday” was my initial response. Then I was advised that another customer had reversed into my car… Joy! I do however work and have worked, for years in the insurance industry and understand accidents happen daily so I was not too upset. I politely requested some details of the incident so I could make sure I could recover my losses If necessary. One of the pieces of information requested was the name of the driver that reversed into my car. The Evans halshaw man said ‘Nope, can’t give that information I’m afraid’ however he did tell me he would look into it and get back to me and that he was sourcing a courtesy car for me. I called back a little later and was then advised I could not get the name of the driver as it was one of their own mechanics that reversed into me with a customer car, so the story had slightly changed but their stance remained the same. They would not give me anymore information. After a few hundred more phone calls to them for progress updates I found myself getting angrier. I requested images of damage which were not being given. Images of damage to MY CAR. I was then informed that the damage may be a little more substantial as in fact my car was taken on a test drive and the driver had pulled out of a side road in front of another vehicle… My car was in fact involved in a fault accident. As you can see from the image below this was not a small bump. My mind then went into overdrive and I attempted to take back control of the situation by arranging my own repairs and arranging my own hire car through the accident management company I work for. In order to do this there was information needed surrounding the incident. Information that the garage still would not give to me - still have not given to me. They then told me they would not allow me to uplift my car from their premises (from direction of their insurers apparently..). Both hire company and my chosen garage were waiting on me getting the car out of the garage however Evans Halshaw would not release it. On Friday morning, after being told again I could not have my car taken to another garage for repairs I threatened to have to get the police involved as the garage would not release my car. Shortly after this conversation I was contacted by the Pendragon (Evans Halshaw group owners?)Risk Leader. Finally some progress I thought.. Its only taken 4 days but we’re getting there I guess. Nope. I was having to justify myself to their representative. Justify why I no longer trust the garage with my car. I have been advised that if it goes to another garage I would need to get my own insurer to cover it. The emails went backwards and forwards all day. I felt like I was being made to fell bad for my car being in an accident..
After having to argue for it, I am having a courtesy car delivered to me tomorrow. A full week after my car went in for its original MOT. I still have only received one picture of the damage despite numerous requests. My car is almost 11 years old and is a borderline total loss. Noone has told me what will happen if the car is deemed a write off, nor have they told me what they will do if it’s repairable. They have offered to waiver my £250 collision damage excess on the courtesy car as a gesture of good will - again, only because I argued for it.
The service received from Evans Halshaw has been deplorable. Customer service has been non existent. My only regret is that I now have to stay in contact with this company for the remainder of my finance agreement. If you were thinking of using Evans Halshaw, please think carefully before you do. For such a large company Evans Halshaw are shady and uncooperative. You might have a nicer time using the local family run garage
I don’t really know where I stand with finance agreement etc. Do I have to suck it up? Say oh well, thats life and move on? Evans Halshaw have dramatically reduced the value of my car now too.. I’m feeling a little lost in honesty..
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Comments
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You can't really blame Evans for the previous issues with the car given it is 11 years old, some problems are to be expected at this age.
Can't believe anyone would buy an 11 year old maxi (sorry mini) on finance.
As an amc employee I would expect you to known the process with finance. What should happen is Evans Insurers will assess the car, if total loss they will pay the market value with the payment going to the finance company and any balance going to you. If the layout is less than the finance you will need to settle the balance unless you have gap cover.
Your insurer will not pay out because the car was not under your care at the time of the collision.0 -
You can't really blame Evans for the previous issues with the car given it is 11 years old, some problems are to be expected at this age.
Can't believe anyone would buy an 11 year old maxi (sorry mini) on finance.
As an amc employee I would expect you to known the process with finance. What should happen is Evans Insurers will assess the car, if total loss they will pay the market value with the payment going to the finance company and any balance going to you. If the layout is less than the finance you will need to settle the balance unless you have gap cover.
Your insurer will not pay out because the car was not under your care at the time of the collision.
Well I can.
They're a reputable car dealer and a company I should be able to trust. If I wanted a car that wouldn't last through my 3.5 year finance agreement I would of gone to a backstreet garage. I find it disgusting.
... I also can't seem to upload the photo.. odd..0 -
So you entered into a 3.5 year finance agreement on a 10 year old car and expected the car to survive to the end of the agreement by which point it would be nearly 14 years old and beyond end of life.
The car would have had a real world value of £2000 to £2500 at point of purchase so why such a long finance period.
I have sympathy for the fact Evans have crashed the car but accidents happen and they are sorting the situation for you.
On the other faults your expectations appear to be that because you bought an old car from Evans they should provide new car reliability and service.this is simply an unrealistic expectation.10 year old cars develop faults and that is the trade off for the financial savings of not buying a brand new car.
Are you prepared to disclose what you paid and how much it costs each month.0 -
Well I can.
They're a reputable car dealer and a company I should be able to trust. If I wanted a car that wouldn't last through my 3.5 year finance agreement I would of gone to a backstreet garage. I find it disgusting.
... I also can't seem to upload the photo.. odd..
How much did you pay for it?0 -
10 year old car would be in the chuck it in the banger section, runabouts? If it doesnt sell send it to the banger auction where buyers think if it runs they got a bargain. Then you came along and bought it at an inflated price?
Kwikfit MOT, efficient and affordable? Now i smell troll.
Why didnt you pay up the £300 bill for the MOT failures to be fixed?
Warranty? isnt their warranty on near to the scrapper jaws just 30 days?
Finance on a 10 year old car???Censorship Reigns Supreme in Troll City...0 -
I think your expectations are a bit high.
I assume you bought a top end car that was worth a bit more. However at that age it is still a punt on a banger,
I have used the chain 3 times. (once under other branding, but I knew who it was). I expected them to give me a car they had aquired and that they had cleaned it. Service and MOT? Unlikely, I aint traking their word for it.
First was a Corsa 3 door. And it Lasted 3 months (bad black ice). I got more from the insurance than I paid for it. Of course there was no finance. Used it to buy a pretty much the same corsa from them that was five door.
Third time was a Polo that seemed underpriced. It had moved around various places so that is why. It was 55K in 3 years so that's probably it. Still runs nicely at 122K. Probably needs a second cam belt change soon, but I look after my cars.
What I am saying is there is a built in expectation to what you get from old cars. I bet yours was also under 7K a year milage which means it was treated like !!!!. 10 year old is banger teritory and all people should pass unless there is a full service hiostory. And I don't mean stamps in a book that someone faked. I mean garage reciepts. No I don't keep em. But I expect my 13 year old cars (I'll buy em at 3/4/5) to be scrapped at best!0 -
The finance agreement is 3.5 years as they wouldn't allow for a 5 year finance agreement due to the cars age. Finance was the only option for me as I do not earn a huge amount of money so cannot afford to buy a car outright.
All in, with gap insurance and the 2 year warranty I have to pay £5100. It's around £123 a month.
I don't think my expectations have been too high. I don't want a brand new shiny car. My only requirement was that my car was red and will last me for the next few years. I honestly don't think that's asking a lot. If the car will not last the finance agreement then a company like Evans should not be selling it.
Beyond the ailments on my car my main gripe and reason for this thread was the accident and lack of service from this company, it seems that people are looking over this?
Would I be safe to say that the best outcome for me would to be for the car to be written off then?0 -
You agreed to pay over £5k on a 11 year old mini?!?0
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Fools and their money are easily parted.0
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Thanks.
Nice to see this forum is as helpful as always...0
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