Soper of Lincoln BMW & MINI Reviews 

My 320D went in for a brake fluid change and MOT. On collection of my vehicle I was told that my fluid change was difficult and would need new brake discs and pads all round as well as a new master cylinder.

They then said during the brake test THEY had blown my turbo!! My car was in bits in the garage without my permission. BMW then tried to tell me that my turbo must have been going and was therefore not their fault. This is possible however no signs of turbo wear had shown. Oil level always good. No signs of power loss etc. Unlikely for Turbos to go with no signs of wear. In order to find out ‘who’s’ fault it was I was told to pay £200 just to find out what damage had occurred.

I was quoted £5.5k to get my car through its MOT. I believe this was falsified and BMW were fraudulently trying to force my hand as it was underivable. I decided to get it recovered to a BMW approved specialist. They fixed my car and told me there was nothing wrong with any of my brakes nor master cylinder and it flew through its MOT. £800 for a Turbo and Labour, which BMW were charging me £3000+ Overall it cost me £4000 less than what BMW had quoted me to get back on the road. I understand BMW are expensive but a £4000 difference between main dealer and approved specialist is unbelievable on a car that was only worth £5000.

Disgusting from start to finish how I was treated, they were at least at part-fault for Turbo blowing. Falsely tried to charge me to replace my whole brake system and I was offered nothing in terms of discounts with the ridiculous parts and labour costs, no apologises.

Tarnished Service History M2 Competition.

In February I went to view an M2 Competition 69 Plate from this dealer with FSH with no markers on the history on viewing the car.
After viewing the car I decided to buy with the view to come back to collect the next week so that the Major Service could be carried etc. On collection the car was lovely and clean, service carried out , so I drove my new purchase home . Later on after having the car a few days I decided to look at the Service History on the idrive to notice there was an Orange Exclamation Mark on the Major service Soper had carried out. I dug further into this and it was due to the MOT been over due when it wasn't as it had 10mths MOT on prior to buying. SO NOW MY CAR HAS A TARNISHED HISTORY.

I rang there service department on 2 occasions for them to say this marker cannot be removed once the entry has been entered. They offered no apology nor compensation as the car had a full clean history when I viewed.
Also I noticed when under the bonnet that the Header tank Cap was not screwed down fully , approx. 5mm up from been tight after the Service carried out.

Today we collected a 2 year old Mini Countryman in exchange for our old Evoque and Mini Countryman. Superb customer service and attention to detail offered by Nigel initially and with the finance with Phil.Nigel was especially helpful with understanding our needs, choose the perfect car for us and dealt with the transition superbly. Very patient and attentive through the whole process. Thank you.

I am leaving this review due to poor customer service from BMW Soper and from a particular used car manager. I am based in Manchester and I was looking for a used BMW 330D with low mileage using the online BMW used car website. I was happy to travel across the country to purchase the car if I found the right vehicle. Soper had the vehicle that I had been looking for, sent me a video of the car detailing it had no body work damage/no interior damage and it was good as new and the video reflected this as it was a generic overview of the car (Not too detailed). So I travelled over to Lincoln to purchase the vehicle after paying a deposit.

Arriving at Soper, I viewed the car and straight away I noticed three small chips on the bonnet (couldn’t be polished out) and the cream interior & seatbelts had orange and black marks on… I wasn’t overly impressed as the video stated immaculate condition and I believe they should’ve of shown these defects within the video. As I made the three hour trip and the mileage was very low on the car and I could live with these defects, I completed the transaction.

After cleaning the car, I had noticed numerous scratches around the car that they had tried to remediate by buffing out the car. As you can see in the images, the buffing off the car is probably one of the worst jobs I have ever seen on a vehicle. I took it to a car detailing professional and he described it as a “Stevie Wonder Job” – please see attached the image on google reviews which I have also left this review.

I spoke to a used car manager at Soper and he said that he wasn’t impressed with the buffing job and would offer £100 for me to get the car rebuffed. I gained three quotes and all three were in the excess of £600. I thanked the manager for his contribution but stated that I don’t think £100 is sufficient for the poor job created by BMW Soper and for the quotes I am receiving. I stated that I wouldn’t have accepted the car, if I had seen this poor buffing job on the day but due to the weather being overcast you could not see the poor buffing job. I did email the manager stating that I would ask for quotes for just the bonnet & boot as this is where the parts of the car is very poor. I don’t think this is an unreasonable request to ask for the job to be covered due to the very poor job BMW Soper completed originally.

I didn’t want to write this review but the used car manager isn’t replying to my emails and does not want to resolve the issue, so I feel like I had no choice. I’ve also just read Soper reviews on Google and it sounds like a lot of people have had similar issues… Don’t forget to read reviews like me!!

I hope to get this resolved.

Bought a Mini Countryman from them. Was told on hand over that it had run flat tyres. Had a puncture yesterday and drove home. Turns out I don’t have run flat tyres. Alloy damaged, Sooer no help at all. Can’t remember saying it had run flats therefore it’s all on me. Once you drive off the forecourt, you are on your own. Buyer beware!!!!

We dealt with a gentlemen called Stefan who was very kind and straight to the point. We ended up breaking down in our previous car in the bmw garage (couldn’t write it) and he was great with helping us manage( offered to call the breakdown company) and even helped us push the car. Couldn’t have had a made us feel more comfortable considering the situation we was in. He offered us drinks and somewhere to sit whilst awaiting the RAC. Look forward to finishing the deal with him.

I dealt with the guy called Stefan bilyk. Bad experience . He did not even sent the change of ownership document to DVLA. Later on battery issue was also not addressed .

Just be clear & honest.

On the video they did I was told it had full history but it was clearly obvious that the 20 had been missed so the car had not been serviced in a massive 4 years!

Also I could see the JCW badge was missing from the steering wheel. Why wasn't it mentioned?

I also never heard back after that video was sent & on my one & only email I sent the questions were never answered.

From our first visit to the dealership right up to taking delivery of the car Ben was proffesional in every respect. Communication whether face to face, telephone or e-mail was excellent with everything explained in simple terms and taking place when we were told it would!
The handover, having had many new cars over the years, was probably the best we've ever experienced both with the presentation of the vehicle and "explanation" of how everything worked.
Thankyou Ben and Sopers.

Effortless transaction made very easy by Ben, turn around in under 60 minutes. Very happy with my car many thanks

Just purchased a used car from them - our third 'Used Approved' BMW purchase and the second from this dealership (all be it the other Soper purchase was sometime ago from the previous team...).

The experience this time around could not be more different from previous and ties up with the other recent reviews posted about them - 74% of us cannot be wrong about the way business is conducted by them.

Description + assurances over the car - prior to viewing the car we asked about VED rate + Soper responded 'think its this but we'll check'. On the test drive day we specifically asked if they had checked the VED amount and were assured they had checked and the amount we were told was correct.

And so the deal was done + we agreed to pick up the car a week or so later so it could be prepared to used approved level. We specifically asked them to correct a couple of stone chips that were spotted on the car at the test drive.

The day before pick-up they phoned to ask us to pay the VED so we could drive it away the next day - but the amount was ~£60 higher than the amount Soper had previously confirmed. When we expressed our dismay that their 'checked amount' was incorrect they simply brushed us away + offered to fill the car with fuel to make up for it... now we all make mistakes but telling a customer a lie (quite simply they couldn't have checked the amount to pay on this car) is not a great way for BMW to be seen to do business.

So we come to pick-up the car... guess what - the 'used approved' prep standards were as follows -

Bugs all over the front end
Road grim all over the rear end, around wheel arches, sills etc.
Dust / sand in the drivers foot well
Grease marks on the interior leather
And those stone chips on the car - not even touched

Now the stand-in sales guy at the handover was decent and apologetic and set about trying to rectify as many of the issues we spotted straight away himself... even to the point of running to the body shop, getting the correct paint and touching up the stone chips himself.

The original sales guy has made a follow-up call this morning to check the car is OK + when I went through the above seemed somewhat dismissive of these matters but he'd 'give our feedback to the prep team'... when I said 'I don't see how we could buy from you again' was simply told they'd remove us from their mailing list.

In summary - don't expect them to do what you've agreed / paid for + they might well 'distort' the picture associated with a car to get a sale (we did have another Used Approved X3 lined up with an alternative dealer and chose the Soper based offer purely on our experience a couple of years prior). Although these issues might seem 'small' the behaviours behind them seem really poor.

I did wonder whether the world post-COVID has really changed so much that this is all we can expect from OEM approved used car sellers going forward - then I reflect on my brother in laws recent experiences with Audi Approved Used - and the conclusion has to be to AVOID Soper BMW - all dealers and OEMs are not the same!

We all know one or two bad reviews can crop up - but when the vast majority of reviews echo our experience you need to ask yourself why you'd consider using them.

Its a mystery to me why @BMW and @SoperSteve "the greatest saloon car driver ever" continue to allow their own brands to be associated with, and so badly damaged by, this "organisation"...

Staff were helpful and pleasant but at the end of the day a BMW should not fail its first MOT. This was not covered under warranty which was very disappointing. Clearly if a professional tyre fitter can’t take a tyre off without damaging the valve then there is a problem with the design and this should be looked at BMW and Soper showed absolutely no good will even though we have had BMW,s for years. I will look elsewhere in future and would recommend you do the same

I would like to start by saying that in a space of 2 years we’ve purchased 4 vehicles from them. Before buying the 4th one I would’ve recommended them, but our last experience was shockingly bad.
The last used car from them proved, in less than 24 hours from pick up, to have been mis sold to myself. I was made to believe that the car I was getting was a 2020 vehicle which at a closer look I discovered it was in fact built in January 2019 and registered 19 months after the dealership received it. When I went back to discuss the matter, one of the managers tried to convince me that the car was in fact built in 2020 and January 2019 was only the date when the factory received the order for the car. He motivated that due to Covid the production has been stopped and therefore been completed in 2020. The conversation stopped when I asked him how is possible for a car that hasn’t been built to have a predelivery service done in February 2019?
I have then been passed to the Used Car Sales Manager who tried to blame me for not asking for all the details before buying the car. Again a lie as I have asked to be given the vehicle’s details and specifications, service history and previous owners details before purchasing it. All I got given was a link to where the car was advertised as Jul 2020 and 2020 reg (nothing mentioned about being in fact 19 months older than that), been told that it had 1 private previous owner (nothing mentioned that the car has been sat somewhere for 19 months before being registered) and one service done in may 2022 (when in fact the car had 3 services done 02/19, 03/21 and 05/22).
I therefore asked for the transaction to be reversed and been told that the Head of Business will be in contact to discuss. Again a lie as he never contacted me.

After a few days of chasing them up I have been told on the phone that they don’t think they’ve done anything wrong, therefore they won’t take any ownership or try to put the things right. Never had an email as they are avoiding to give anything in writing.

This being said I have submitted official complaints to all third parties and authorities that could get involved in this matter. I have then been contacted by Soper of Lincoln to get the alloys repaired (as they had some small marks) and they also offered to pay for 1 year subscription for My BMW app services.
You would think that they were trying to get the things right, but in fact it leaded to another shocking experience.
I took the car in for the alloys to be repaired. Been told that they will be done in 2 days. When I went to pick up the car, one of the alloys wasn’t repaired therefore the car ended up staying with them for another 2 days. Today, when I went to pick up the car the alloys were done but when I checked the tyre pressure they had 3.0 bar instead of 2.3 bar. I even been casually told to let some air out and should be fine. Obviously that I did not took the car until they rectified the tyre pressure but it made me think…. If they are not able to get a tyre pressure right, will they be able to service, fix or replace anything?

Now I will leave it to you to judge if you would really like to take your business to BMW Soper of Lincoln.

As it is an ongoing situation, I will keep you updated. It will probably get to the motor ombudsman or in court. Till then, at least my review is here for the general public to be aware of what they can expect from this dealership.

Always been decent for me. Happy to recommend.

What an absolute joke of a business, I cannot believe BMW allow this shambles of a incompetent bunch of liars to carry their badge above their door.
I recently purchased a M440i from sytner in Nottingham and had an issue with the power boot not functioning properly so after calling Nottingham to discuss the problem they advised me to pop in to Soper at Lincoln to see if it could be repaired as a quick fix, or if not Sytner would repair it.
So I arrived at Soper 9am prompt on a Thursday morning and was ushered to a service coordinator, we went outside to look at the issue and was then told it would need to be booked in to be looked at, a technician was not asked to have a quick look to see if it was something that could be easily rectified there and then so I was asked to sit down and get the car booked in.
Firstly they couldn’t get the system to work and then after around 10 minutes they managed to get into the bookings .
The first available date that was suitable was in a few weeks, not a problem, but when I asked for a courtesy car I was told it would cost £30 a day !! My car is 9 months old and cost me over £50k and they wanted £30 !! Are they for real !? It’s not that I can’t afford to pay it was the principle, I refused to pay and asked for a lift home (10 miles away) and was told they do not offer this service.
I was then basically told, being I didn’t purchase the car from Soper I wasn’t entitled to any help
What great customer service this is considering they have the same badge above their door as I do on my car.
I called Sytner at Nottingham and explained what had happened and was met with utter disbelief, they were so shocked even the head of business called me to apologise for their behaviour of Soper ,what does that tell you ?
So Nottingham collected my car from Lincoln and left me with a car, at no cost may I add and then repaired my boot and returned it back to me at my place of work, what a difference in dealerships.
I emailed BMW UK about my experience and was told that they would get the service manger to call me within 24 hours , 4 days later he found the time to call me and just reiterated what the service coordinator had told me , when I asked him if he had looked at Truspilot he then went on to say “we don’t look at the reviews “ so quite obviously they don’t care about BMW customers at all.
I advised Jason (service manager ) they should all get on a bus and have a day out at Sytner to see what customer service actually is, maybe they would learn something
My advice would be to use Sytner at Nottingham as they were extremely helpful and understanding and avoid Soper at all costs.
Go their at your peril and expect the cold shoulder and problems with staff thinking their better than you.

Utterly Dreadful
First up, the reception staff at Soper BMW Lincoln are lovely and offer the warmest of welcomes. But sadly, once the service team take over, its a very different story.
Today I took my BMW 8 series in for some scheduled work - at the point of booking the work, a loan car was agreed for the day.
On arrival, the reception lady does her thing; warm and professional welcome, shown to the seating area and offered a coffee - all good.
After a short wait I am confronted by one of the service staff, a young woman who looked like she had just got up and really wanted to be somewhere else (an underwhelming performance compared to the warm welcome). OK, well everyone has bad days, so not a real issue. However things took a very nasty turn when I was presented with the loan car.
The loan car was a very dirty BMW X1. Two issues here, 1 - its an X1, and a bit on the basic side; remember I have just arrived in my pride and joy fully 8 series, I find it inconceivable that nobody thought "this guy is bringing in his £80k car, should we attempt to match him with something similar rather than a shabby looking X1?" and 2 - it was filthy - so filthy that I was repulsed by the filth that inhabited the crevices of the seats, especially the bit that pulls out to extend behind the legs. The dealership still has protective screens for it staff and signs everywhere asking for social distancing and face coverings - how then is it acceptable to give me a car that is very obviously contaminated with human detritus?????
I then go to complain and am told they have no other vehicles, really? Its a car dealership, there are lots of cars and lots of staff with company cars - but nothing for me! It turned out the X1 belonged to the Service Manager - he was a very nice chap but couldn't argue against the state of the car or the lack of another more suitable vehicle.
The hard truth here is, I have a choice of where to take my business and on this occasion my choice was wrong. I am not a high maintenance customer, but I do expect certain standards and this is just unacceptable so with that I asked for my keys back and left.

Its quite sad really, I am sure they are all nice people, but as an organisation they are terrible.

NEW MINI
I would like to thank Sam at Soper Mini for the excellent service we received on purchasing our new car. Nothing was too much trouble for him. It was a pleasure and I love my new mini to bits. Angela Osborne Grimsby.

Poor service as soon as they have your money. Avoid!!

Appalling customer service experience. No interest in discussing a complaint. Fobbed off to take up with head office through service adviser Peter Mizen. Head office response was Chris Appleby would contact me directly within two working days over a month ago! Guess what no contact!

Made an enquiry three days ago with regards to the cost of a large service on my X5. Still no reply. Presume you must be that busy my custom is not required.