Nicholas

Worst buying experience of my life

Where do I start?! I was promised a 101 point check, VOSA audited workshops, thorough vehicle prep. So I went ahead and put a deposit down on a Jaguar XF.. They are 6-7 hours away from me, so I asked many times about the condition and kept getting reassurances. I made the journey and they ushered me through the paperwork side of things (my fault for not checking the car first). When I finally get to the car.. it was filthy, literally like someone had lived in it… and probably died in it. Warning lights for a dying battery. And the MOT advised rear tyres that were supposed to be changed with the prep hadn’t. The car made it all the way back 6 hours to the south east. But the reality of PCS vs the high expectations I was sold over the phone made me start to doubt things. I then looked into the reviews on trust pilot and Google and realised I might be in trouble so I booked the car in for a post purchase inspection with a local respected Jaguar specialist. He basically condemned the car and told me to send it back straight away. He had a long list of everything that was wrong.. Every other bush was hanging out of it, all the brakes were shot, but most importantly the underside chassis was heavily corroded! Despite what PCS say, a car first sold in 2016 should not have the underside of a barn find from 1989. I immediately emailed aftersales with pictures and the report and requested to return the car (I’d only had it 4 days), and they refused.. despite this going against the 2015 consumer act. I went straight to the finance company who had to force them to take the car back. They then refused to pay back some of my deposit, despite all the evidence. A decent business would apologise profusely and try and make things right, but not these guys. After many emails back and forth, I called aftersales and spoke to a guy called Paul. I explained I didn’t want to have a row or leave bad reviews, I just need my money back so I can buy a new car as our first baby was being born in the next few weeks. Paul seemed like a decent guy and agreed and said okay bring it back and we’ll give you a full refund, and we go our separate ways. So I returned the car and was told it would be processed in 2 weeks. After 3 weeks I chased the finance company for an update.. wellll in typical Prestige Car Supermarket fashion, they lied and said I damaged the car and therefore they need to keep my deposit. Hence why I am leaving the reviews. The finance company fortunately saw through their dirty tricks and in the end refunded me everything plus some compensation for my troubles. They’ll be now looking to recover their money from PCS. So the truth is, the reason you see lots of positive reviews and lots of negatives is because the kind of car you receive from PCS will completely depend on the previous owners and how well they’ve looked after it. PCS just buy the cars and sell them on. They don’t filter out the turds. I don’t even think mine was put on a ramp, because if it was and they still sold it on without mentioning any of those issues then that’s even worse. Some of you will get good cars, and some of you will end up like me and the others with a pig. Just do NOT pay cash and do not leave it past 30 days to find out, otherwise I have no doubt PCS will wash their hands of it. The irony is, if I had turned up and the car was clean, polished and appeared looked after, I probably would never have doubted them or got the inspection done. So their poor prep actually did me a favour!