The Journey I have had from the beginning with Maundrels has been as follows. On my quest to purchase a new car I was searching the web and came across Maundrells. A company that prides itself on quality assurance and a “car-buying experience a pleasure removing the stress and worry which is often experienced elsewhere”. Also, they quote on their website “We constantly research the wider market to ensure that our prices are competitive, and we offer excellent value for money. As you will be aware, value for money does not necessarily mean the cheapest on the market; as we will not compromise on the provenance or quality of our vehicles.”. Now, this was appealing to me and ticks all the boxes for what I wanted in a car. They also mention “All of our cars over three years old are supplied with a new MOT where necessary.”. The car I purchased was left with 5 months to run until it needed a new MOT. With all these quotes in mind, this was my experience. The Buying process was straight forward, everything was arranged and paid for with a collection date booked. Two days from the collection date I receive a call telling me that the car needs two new front tyres as they are questionably at the legal limit. I was asked If I wanted to pay for these two tyres at RRP so they could be fitted when I come to collect the car (bear in mind that the tyres cost £211 EACH). What was I supposed to say to that? After presenting themselves as exceptional as they do, after paying above market value (£34,000) I get told the tyres are shot so pay for some new ones. I was not about to get hostile over this so early into the sale so Begrudgingly I thought I would just pay it and be done with it. I did request these old tyres to be saved and given to me upon arrival. I arrived at the dealership and was sat down to sign agreements and contracts where I was encouraged to sign documents hastily. We went through some online forms, where the dealership representative scrolled down to all the electronically signed areas with barely any chance of reading it and asked me to click the sign here areas. I asked where the old tyres were that were on the car I had purchased and was told they were thrown away with no recourse even thought I had explicitly said over the phone I would like to retain them, I also asked where other documents were that were mentioned in the ad on their website were (like the Dyno tests) but was told they now do not have it. Already bewildered, we went for a test drive to make sure everything was good, indeed initial impressions was good and there was no cause for concern. I did however notice another 600 miles on the clock from what was advertised (34,000 miles). Upon questioning this, I got the response ‘oh its near enough’. I would have appreciated an update on this before I handed the money over but again, accepted the fact and just moved on. There was also some rust located on the brake disks. With a poor initial experience, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and I collected the keys and got into the car to drive off home and noticed 2 bars of fuel in the car (approximately 10 minutes of use before I needed to go to a fuel station to fill up the car). Not really ace when you just spent £34,000 (excluding the pretty much forced additional cost of the tyres) with the company and travelled 2 hours to collect the car. A few days went by and the car was performing well. I did notice a faint noise coming from the car that sounded like a wheel bearing failure. I contacted Maundrells about this and was immediately told that warranty does not cover wheel bearings. So, I made plans to investigate it privately soon. A month on, the noise had progressed to a prominent noise and I had made the dealership aware of this. They offered for me to come down to the dealership so they could investigate this further. They are just under 2 hours away from me and due to work commitments, it really is not feasible. Also, more importantly I had concerns driving it that far with the noise I could hear. I asked if I could arrange a local garage of their choosing to investigate it for me and If they could honour the warranty on it and pay for diagnostics if the cause were something that would be under the agreed warranty. They agreed, so I booked it in to the mutually agreed garage. Unfortunately, there was a noticeable change in the performance of the vehicle and smoke began to come from the bonnet of the car. It was recommended by my local garage to leave it with them and not drive it any longer until the noise and now smoke is investigated. A diagnostic was carried out and the fault was found (Swarf in bevel box and noisy gears with oil leaking causing the faint smoke). I presented this information to Maundrels with official diagnoses from the approved garage and Maundrels, to their credit, immediately put a plan in place and collected the car 3 days later via trailer as it was now considered unsafe to drive. After they collected the car, I received a phone call so they could explain their plan. And this is where I was hit with the most bizarre proposal. It was proposed that I can have the car back with a new bevel box. But they wanted me to sign a document to accept full liability of any future drive train and engine issues. Obviously, this was the most unfair proposal imaginable as the drive train and engine of a car is what some would argue 90% of a car. This was presented in a way where they implied, I need to sign this document before I could have the car back. This made me pressured into making a decision that is clearly intended to hoist themselves from the agreed warranty. A tactic that I imagine that has worked in the past and was most unfair. With their website so engrossed in the portrayal quality and a “car-buying experience a pleasure”. This was soon becoming quite the contrary. I understand they are in the business of making money and they need to protect themselves, but to offer something and then go all solicitor on me at the first sign of genuine claims is an absolute farce. I obviously rejected the proposal and then feeling vulnerable with my car in their property, I proposed semi liability as they were now holding the car and I feared they would just create problems If I did not succumb (even partially to their proposed terms. They also mentioned that the car has had the remap removed so they could claim guarantee via Audi rather than cover the warranty themselves Which was incredibly cheeky on 2 accounts. 1. The fact that they made me wait 2 and a half weeks for the whole process just so they can save a bit of money. and 2. The fact that they have manipulated a term that makes a manufacturer warranty void. So, they mentioned if I wanted the remap back on the car, I would need to travel to the remap place and get it put back on which is ridiculous considering I bought the car as a remapped car so expect it back the same. Not only that but the fact that the remapping place is just under a 4-hour round trip was not cheap on fuel. What was I supposed to do? Again, more costs and resources I needed to find. not really a professional practice I would expect from a luxury car dealership. They accepted the 50% liability terms, and I got the car back from them. The car was delivered on a trailer where it had come back absolutely caked in dirt but in all fairness that day was particularly bad weather. As agreed, they said they would pay for the diagnostic costs to find the fault of the faulty bevel box. which they then bluntly Ignored me after I presented the official £66 bill I paid for the diagnostic. Getting to the point where I eventually had enough of dealing with such a penny-pinching defensive attitude, I contacted a third party to just get them to explain what they are liable for. Immediately after I received a dull email from maundrells for my bank details so they can pay me. Absolutely absurd behaviour. I gave them my bank details and they duly obliged. During the period of being without the car, as per contract, Maundrells did provide a car hire. I received a 10-year-old vw polo that came presented with toenail clippings all over the car floor, questionable stains on the lining of the roof, heavily accrued settled dust everywhere inside the car, a pungent dirty odour that was so poor I could not be in the car without opening the windows. Tyres on the limit of a failure on tread depth, a handful of rusty 1p and 2p coins in the cup holders, litter in the boot of the car (plastic bottles and shopping bags. When I did drive it, the front right wheel was wobbling to a point where I could not do over 50mph on the motorway due to the shuddering it gave on the steering wheel. To top it all off, an MOT due in 3 months with “SERVICE NOW” all over the dash and no tax on the car! meaning it was highly likely for me to be pulled over by police if I drove it in this state. At this point I genuinely thought I was part of a joke and called up Maundrells to ask what I had done to deserve this. They explained that the dealership employee forgot to check/clean the car before sending it out to me and did apologise. They offered to send someone out to clean the car which caused more inconvenience but obviously was a necessity. All was arranged and the car was cleaned. The odour coming from the car was left unchanged. The best way to describe the odour was that of a wet dog/damp, smoke and ammonia smell. Appalling. I will reiterate was on their website “We have dedicated courtesy cars available, and we promise to do our very best to keep any inconvenience to a minimum.”. Disappointing. So, when I sat in my car and immediately noticed the wiring for my dash cam all unplugged with wires hanging out and 30 miles addition on the miles from when It left me. Upon checking the car, I was immediately greeted to the used bevel oil odour, after investigating this I noticed the oil spray from the bevel box failure was still present all over the car. They had not cleaned the mess the failure had caused. Nice to return the car fixed and all but It is not too much to ask that the car is clean from all the oil escape caused by the failure. I had to pay another £100 to have this professionally cleaned. Also, a warning symbol for an empty washer bottle was now present. I filled up the washer tank and thought nothing of it, 2 days later the symbol for the washer bottle came up again. The car did not have these symptoms when they car left my possession. I called maundrells about this and they said to drive all the way back to them so they can have a look. Clearly, I cannot spend all my holiday entitlement at work on this car as have already spent a considerable amount. so, I explained that It was difficult for me for me to get time off to do this. I asked If they were happy for me to get the issue diagnosed at a local garage of their choice again and they said no they would like to look at it. By this point it was clear that they just wanted to avoid any more expense rather than have my best interest in mind and make my “car-buying experience a pleasure removing the stress and worry which is often experienced elsewhere”. They began ignoring emails and ignoring my calls mentioning that the relevant person to speak to was busy on 3 occasions. I was eventually advised to carry out a diagnostic to find the fault via third party. I would then find a fault found on the head light washing water feed and there were issues found with clips and screws missing on the front of the car whilst the leak investigating was carried out. It was suggested via email from maundrells that the damaged was caused in my ownership. An Absurd statement to me as the bolts were found to be in the wrong place and clips were missing. After mentioning the later Maundrells replied that the parts were fitted by a “fastidious Ferrari master fitter” – yet there was double sided tape visible on the wing accessory (which I had to correct) and broken clips with evidence of incorrect screws being put into the wrong female counterpart. There are pictures and videos of the car going round a racetrack all over social media after the parts were installed. How much clearer can It be? In short, I just decided to be done with maundrells and correct it all myself at my own expense which has cost me considerably. I also found the front suspension was broken when I purchased it and have had to replace this also at my expense. All in all, a shocking experience.

I absolutely recommend Maundrell and Co, I would go as far to say I would buy from them again, they agreed to sort various bits out with the car with no drama, I was overall very happy.