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Drove one hour, after calling by phone and making appointment at Botley Car Centre. On arrival, the car we were to test drive was blocked in! And they had no keys for the car blocking it in. Suggested I leave deposit on car, then could take it for an hour or so, when car was free! Wasted time and money.
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I have had 5 car/SUV vehicles from Botley Cars over a period of many years, no major problems what so ever , any thing I not been happy with has been sorted out with out delay or excuses. Always been an excellent, straight , dealership.
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Robert Sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to Excellent throughout.
Hi Derek, It has been a pleasure dealing with you and your family for many years, we appreciate your business and welcome you back any time even if it's for a coffee! Rob
I have had a tough year with cars. Both mine and my husbands cars had died within the space of 2 months. After getting a hire car, this left me little time to find another car. My husband found the advert for a Ford Focus 2009 plate, coupe. I rang up and asked if it was possible to view and test drive the car, I was informed that the car had alot of interest. Don't blame them it only had 19K on the clock! Anyway, I rushed down there straight away and had a warm greeting from a sales man called Ian. From the start he was great! Explained about the car, then gave me the keys and said "don't rush, drive it as long as you need". Well even before the test drive I was sold. I came back and discussed more things about the car with Ian. He showed me how to work parts of the car (I have never had anything as fancy before). Ian and the other members of staff were so helpful in my process that I put my deposit down almost straight away. Kept in constant contact with me and my husband, which was so reassuring. I felt no pressure with buying my car, compared to other deals I had seen the day before. The whole process from test drive to taking the car home was 3 days. That's including putting a brand new MOT on it for me. And he even offered me a car to borrow with them if my car took longer than expected. As a student nurse that was relief. Admitantly I haven't had the car long enough to pass a judgement on it yet. However, I don't have any doubts that it will! I just want to say thank you for helping me when I was in desperate need. Emma x
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Ford Focus 2009 bought for £4k in Dec 2017. CD player did not work informed them of this fact 5 days after I picked car up, it took 2 months to source another one where the Bluetooth then didn't work, couple weeks later finally one was sourced and eureka all working! I also discovered a couple of chunks in tyre wall on drivers side which was replaced by a reconditioned tyre and have since found out by contacting CAB that it should have been replaced like for like. I also found a couple of teething problems reverse light bulb hanging down, 12v sockets not working which I haven't bothered mentioning as appalled at the after care service of just taking too long to return calls & not keeping you informed. Last week I had an "engine malfunction" message appear I rang the car centre & spoke to rob who advised me to check the oil & water knowing full well this would have nothing to do with it...but went ahead and did it anyway... yep nothing wrong with oil or water levels. My car went into a local garage for diagnosis and have been told that it is the glow plugs and that it was down to wear and tear and not covered by any warranty. While I can accept that this is not their fault a goodwill gesture of some sort of payment towards the bill would have been warmly received by myself. I certainly wasn't expecting to pay out on the car 3 months down the line. My last car was a bit of a white elephant and a money pit I'm praying that this is not going to be the same with this one.
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Robert sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to Initial dealings were good.
This sale has been difficult from start to finish to be honest... Tyre passed an MOT before collection. We have a good source for second hand tyres so to keep the customer happy we replaced it. The tyre was legal but the worst out of all 4 tyres. (note that the car is 10 years old). Also we do not need to fit a new tyre to any of our second hand cars by law. CD player went wrong after a while, This is not an item covered under the warranty but eventually we found one on eBay and fitted it for them, again at our cost. 3 months later the car was still driving fine but a light came on the dash. We recommended the customer going direct to one of our garages for diagnoses and repair. Unfortunelty the glowplugs are not covered under the warranty but as the 4th one would not remove from the engine (head) we offered to go halves with the customer on the parts and labour (roughly £300 each). Customer has decided to take us to the small claims court which is looking like it is going to go in our favour. We do not feel we could have done any more for this customer. Robert Sanders Director
Recently purchased a vehicle from Ian at Botley Car Centre, who was very proffessional from start to finish. They didnt have the car I was looking currently in stock, but offered to find me what I wanted. This took less than 7 days for them to find and I am absolutley delighted with my purchase. They also offered for me to return next year to have an anual service and MOT carried out. Thanks again for your quality service!
Rob sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to A Great Service provided!
Many Thanks for your review sir, all the team at Botley car Centre Ltd are extremely happy to read your kind remarks. Please contact us immedietly if you have any issues with your vehicle, we are here to help!
I would not recommend anyone to use these people. Similar to previous reviews I have read on this review site. Heaven forbid you come across problems in the 'warranty' period. To cut a long (2.5 month) story short, I had nothing but a battle to get my car fixed under the 6 month warranty. After Rob eventually agreed to repair under warranty after engine failure (having consulted his 'legal team' when I refused to back down when he told me I had cooked the engine and was not covered) he told me to expect it to be fixed in 2 - 3 weeks (from mid November) as it was not easy to find an engine for my car (Golf)....numerous emails passed....and, to be fair, I was able to use a Ford Focus courtesy of Rob (though he failed to notify me that MOT expired 15th January) . Eventually my car was fixed... (25 Jan)...when I emailed Rob asking for a warranty for the engine his response was "Sarah, there is no further warranty with this vehicle you have had enough from us. Rob" A somewhat stressful time....
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Robert sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to Not great and definitely not recommended
Obviously we are extremely disappointed to read this poor review after doing our upmost in providing our customer with a high level of aftercare service continuously offerered by us on a day to day basis. Unfortunately after our customer carried out more than average mileage over a 6 month period the head gasket went on the vehicle (11.5 years old). The customer decided to drive it into the ground until it stopped (cooking the engine - Collected by us from customers home address - no charge) We explained that the warranty company would not cover this issue due to the amount of damage caused by not stopping the vehicle after the water light had flagged up on the dash. (Customer admitted) Shortly after being threatened with court action we decided to keep a local customer happy by paying for a complete second hand engine and all fitting costs. (No charge) Whilst the repairs were underway we also loaned the customer a vehicle (no charge) Unfortunately it took us approximately 2 months to source an engine and complete the whole job (16 hours charged to us in Total - loan vehicle provided the whole way through) The Xmas period definitely didn’t help this situation to start with and time scale could have easily been improved if the customer would have preferred us purchasing a high mileage engine (£150), rather than the low mileage one we held out for (£650 plus delivery costs) Also, Instead of us using a little back street garage like some would have, we decided to get the job carried out by a reputable garage who can provide a higher level of standard, enabling a longer motoring future for our customer. The cost, time and effort that went into this work puts our little family run business under immense pressure and to not even get a Thank you from the customer followed by a bad review online is very upsetting to say the least. We most definitely do not deserve this bad review and will be seeking advise on making arrangements of its removal. Loan Vehicles: We have 6 loan vehicles in total at our garage that sells 35 vehicles on average per month. This allows us to provide any of our customers a loan vehicle at the drop of a hat just incase even the smallest of issues arise. Unfortunately towards the end of this case our loan vehicle ran out of MOT whilst our customer still had the vehicle. We noticed this very shortly after and notified the customer immediately. Our driver was sent to the customers work place that day and switched over vehicles straight away. The vehicle was put through an MOT the day after. We are very sorry to have made this mistake and are working hard to not let this happen again. All of our loan vehicles are checked weekly and are in a road legal condition. Robert Sanders Director Botley Car Centre LTD
My daughter bought a BMWX3 in October 2017. nothing but problems. All started well with the issues. Garage supportive. Loan car provided. However, they have had the car on numerous occasions for long periods of time. One loan car they lent her actually collapsed at the front and was resting on the road. My son in law was told it had a new MOT on it because this was the second time they had been loaned it. The headlights were not working properly the first time! My pregnant daughter and granddaughter could have been injured if they had been driving at the time. Rob's comment when I spoke to him about it was 'it was an old car'! They have found a car they would like to part exchange it for but they can't as the garage bought it on finance and this was never cleared. When I said I would have demanded my most back he said they never asked. To begin with they only had some lights come up on the dashboard. I don't think any customer at that point would have thought that reasonable. If you buy a car from them beware of any faults you may find. If they offer a loan car check it is safe!
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Robert sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to Terrible experience
Sad to receive this poor review after providing such a high level of customer service and care! The owners of the vehicle are very nice people and handled these issues very well from start to finish. They had a fair few problems which were fixed and paid for by us. Customer contributed nothing. The Loan vehicle’s shock absorber broke whilst the customer was using the vehicle (this can happen at any time on any age or condition vehicle.) We are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to you and your family at the time of the breakdown. We recovered the vehicle and provided another loan vehicle immediately. After all of the repairs were carried out to their vehicle the customers basically lost faith with it and decided to part exchange it into another dealership. Unfortunately there was an old ‘finance marker’ on ‘HPI’. This was HPI’S error not ours. We rang HPI and had it removed the same day the customer told us it was on there. The Owners of the car couldn’t Thank you enough, their mother rang with a completely different attitude and was completely out of turn to say the least. Absolutely no need for this kind of behaviour. To be honest I think the rest of the family would have been too embarrassed to call us after the amount we done for them. HPI: if you are at all worried about any of our vehicles showing on finance or you stumble across any unusual markers on the HPI report please feel free to call and ask us. Our vehicles come from main dealer garages and are all completely HPI clear before sold! Robert Sanders Director Botley Car Centre LTD
I bought a late model Mercedes E Class. I am delighted with the car which looks and drives like a new car. I found the sales staff ( I dealt with Ian Ware ) a pleasure to deal with. Items we agreed as part of the sale ( PDI, new MOT although the existing one still had 6 months to run and an oil change service ) were done as promised. I have done several hundred miles in the car and am pleased to say that I am experiencing buyer smugness and certainly not buyer's remorse. This is the first car I have bought from Botley Car Sales although my elder daughter has bought a car from them in the past and was also very satisfied. I would buy again from Botley Car Sales and based on my family's experience would recommend them to others.
Robert Sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to A beautiful car and excellent service
Great review Sir, Thank you so much! We are here to help if you need us for another purchase in the future. Robert Sanders Director Botley Car Centre LTD
Please dont buy anything from Botley Car Centre. Believe me! The experience will be at best traumatic. From my experience the cars are at best mediocre and after care is dire. If you do decide to buy a car from them god forbid. Then try to get any after sales service.
Robert Sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to gary goodman
Hi Gary, we are very sad to read your review and apologise for the bad experience you have had with us. It's very rare for us to receive a bad feedback score and is something that we take very seriously, especially when it's to do with our aftercare. We would appreciate it if you could contact us one day to discuss where we went wrong, so we can improve our service. Many Thanks Rob
Robert sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to gary goodman
This is a competitor not a real customer. Searched all records and nothing found. Robert Sanders Botley Car Centre LTD
Very pleasant people but problems identified with the car before purchase and promised to be fixed turned out to be patched over rather than fixed in the way I expected. Get full details of proposed fixes in writing or get caught out. Also before you visit, insist on getting the Document reference number from V5C registration certificate so you can check the MOT history on https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history-vehicle I wont be using them again
Robert Sanders from Botley Car Centre in response to Disappointed with Botley Car Centre
Again another competitor, we have searched records and nothing found. Robert Sanders Botley Car Centre LTD
Botley Car Centre is a Southampton based family run used car dealership. They have some of the most popular car makes and models that are available on the market including Seat, Toyota and Volkswagen. As well as this great amount of choice they also have warranty, finance, and MOT facilities on site.
Deals in: Cars
Manufacturers: Sells a variety of makes and models
Independent Dealership
| Excellent | 4 | |
| Very Good | 0 | |
| Average | 1 | |
| Poor | 2 | |
| Terrible | 4 |
Botley Car Centre
Broad Oak
Southampton
Hampshire
SO30 2EU
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