Sold a lemon 🍋
Sadly, feel i've been sold a lemon and have had nothing but trouble with the car. Purchased on 28th Jan, and since Feb/March began to notice a strong smell of fuel and two tyres were constantly losing pressure. As it was still in warranty I contacted Romsey to see what they could do and they suggested I drop car at a local (to them) tyre garage for them to check. Huge nail in one tyre but rather than replace either tyres, they re-sealed them. A few weeks later, one starts to lose pressure daily again. April a HUGE crack in the windscreen appears. Never happened to me before, understand these things happen, but I only drive the car 3x a week and it had only been 3 months.. So that's circa £150 spent already on a new windscreen. June/July the fuel smell increases and now a whistling noise when i accelerate. End of July, breaks now feel a bit dodgy. Dropped at garage this week for them to check, and come out with a bill of £1,300! And that's only for the immediate issues and potential MoT failures (despite this having an MOT on 25th Jan!) The advisory list goes on! I've only had the car 6 months. Never have I experienced so many problems and I've never had to spend this much on one garage visit in my 20 years of owning and driving cars! The garage (P&B Autocentre) that did the MoT on 25th Jan must surely have seen some advisories, there is just no way these issues could have all occurred in the less than 8,000 miles I've driven it in 6 months. Detailed list below for anyone interested!
-Timing chain sounding noisy
- All 4 injector seals blowing
- Drive belt and tensioner worn
- Front wipers noise
- Tyre sealant out of date 04/17
- Front discs corroded
- Exhaust system corroded
- Both track rod end boots perished
- rear coil springs corroded
- OSR caliper seized and rear breaks have over heated
- Rear trailing arm bushes perished
- Rear bushes worn
- Oil level high
- NSF tyre deep cut in it and showing age cracks
- OSR tyre showing age cracks
**EDIT - I am genuinely shocked to have just received a call from Romsey Car Centre complaining about my review. My review of 3 stars which is fair, FACTUAL and valid. I am 8 months pregnant and do not appreciate being aggressively argued with by any company! No apology, no offer to rectify anything now, no offer for me to bring it in just so they could check it over.. Instead they asked to see my invoice from the garage because they've 'probably over charged' me for things that 'didn't need doing'. I've used my garage for YEARS and I trust their judgement. Using that as a counter argument for the issues I've experienced is poor. Negative reviews can be frustrating, but how you've subsequently just dealt with mine has made my experience 10x worse. Disappointing.
January 28, 2023
Unprompted review