Ben G

Worse car I’ve ever owned

Bought a 1.6T Astra Sri from here 6 months ago. So far I have had to pay out £1200 in repairs. The warranty is explained as covering “all major parts”, which sounds great. However it’s major parts to the value of £250, I struggle to think what major part costs that much to fix as that wouldn’t even cover the labour cost of said repairs. Wouldn’t get you very far with a major part such as a gear box, clutch, or head gasket claim, especially if you have to take the car to a garage or their choice for repairs and you live 100 miles away like me! So effectively not worth the paper it’s printed on. So a coolant header tank, radiator housing, radiator hose, oil inlet pipe, turbo inlet pipe, radiator seals, oil cooler and oil cooler seals, full system flush, thermostat housing, and various other piping, fixings, seals and £1200 later I’m hoping the car will run but won’t be holding my breath! Upon work being carried out it was found some of the pipe work had been bodged together, using plastic piping instead of metal; (great idea for pipes housing hot oil and coolant, top marks there) I’d expect things to be checked on a car demanding a £4000 asking price which the garage “wouldn’t budge” on as all garages conduct a point and safety check as part of their sales process. Well I thought so but maybe not all garages after all hey?! Based on this mistake of a purchase I will never be returning to Chariots in the future, and would advise no one else too visit unless you have a decent amount of savings to maintain the scrap you’ll purchase! Hopefully once I’ve managed to save some money (if this old shed doesn’t go wrong yet again) I’ll be able to buy a new car, that runs, which has been thoroughly checked over by the seller, warrants its asking price, and isn’t a bottomless rusty money pit with more problems than it has history! My lawn mower runs better and is more reliable than the depressing, constant drain of funds which is the heap of scrap metal which I purchased from Chariots of Romford. Yours sincerely, yet another aggravated, short changed, cheated customer of Chariots! AVOID