Robert Eardley ŠKODA Reviews 17

I wouldn’t even give Škoda/Barlow Motors one star. I am paying hundreds each month for a brand new car purchased in November 2024, yet it has suffered repeated failures with the satnav, radio, and dashboard, leaving it unreliable and not fit for purpose. Promised fixes and goodwill gestures were never delivered, and my concerns are now ignored. The sales process was smooth, but the aftercare and accountability are completely lacking.

I picked up a superb 3 weeks ago and washed it for the 1st time today and noticed my rear passenger light was loose. I rang skoda and the man I spoke to in the sales team was clearly on his way home! Was no help at all, he was cocky and rude and didnt want to put me in the right direction. He even said "I could of had a crash in Tesco car park which has made it loose" (there's no mark to the light or surroundings area and I would know if I crashed the car) and " there's no way it would come from the skoda factory like that".(I work in a car factory, i know mistakes/accidents can be easily made) Then he put the phone down on me. All I wanted was to book the 3 week old car in to be rectified and he had no intentions of helping.

i sent an email to skoda crewe requesting a part ex valuation on my skoda karoq against another skoda karoq i got an email back saying he would contact me.i waited in all day no contact so i rang and got put through to someone named brad he took all my details and said he would pass them on to his manager then ring me back still waiting hopeless wont be bothering crewe again rubbish service

Urgent need met last Sunday by Dave & daughter. Naturally being Sunday there were no service staff in.
It was a simple ‘Come on Sophie’ moment to run up the road, jump start our car (which clearly hadn’t run enough recently).
Beyond the call of duty…. Thanks Dave & dau 👍👍

Sometimes the measure of a company or certain individuals in it to be better assessed on how they recover a situation from a poor start. After a less than satisfactory beginning, this individual displayed excellent customer service skills to prompt a recovery of my overall experience.
I bought an 18-month old Fabia. The car sold itself. Good job because minimal effort was expended by the first sales person, particularly once the deal was agreed. There were a few issues that needed to be resolved prior to collection 24 hours later.
Sadly they were not done and the issues were left unaddressed and for me to rectify. Step in Mr Harry Griffiths. A different salesman from the team, he took ownership of the problems, demonstrated excellent customer service skills to placate this unhappy customer, and both on the day and subsequently, ensured that all was as expected.

So my rating is more focussed on the individual. A great asset, a personable individual, who does what he says he will do. I would say he went above and beyond.

TR Apr 22

Contacted dealership as saw a car I was very interested in. Due to living over 140 miles away I asked if they could provide me with a PCP quote as didn’t want to travel all that way if numbers weren’t right. The salesman Calum Roberts I corresponded with just kept making excuses about giving a standard PCP. I gave him all the info he needed but after every delay he would ask for another piece of info despite him stating he had the info he needed. Definitely not impressed to have my time wasted.

Do not deal with this dealer. I bought a car which developed a fault after less than a day. Further faults followed and I asked to return the car. They initially refused a refund even though I explained it was against consumer law. Eventually they agreed but insisted I drive the car back from Sheffield to Crewe even though I had lost all confidence in the car. No compensation even offered. Not even an apology.

Great service until they have a sale but their after care is simply disgraceful. They didn't even send the log book off so they could still advertise the car as a one owner car and listed it on auto trader before I had even returned it. Very dodgy to say the least.

A very unpleasant experience and wouldn't wish the stress on anyone. I'd recommend you avoid at all costs. David Clarke is especially one to avoid, rude and obnoxious with no care for the customer.

Booked the car in for its first service and was offered a curtesy car which I accepted.on the day of the service I arrived at eight o’clock the paperwork had all ready been completed and I was shown to a new Skoda Scala to youse for the day at eleven o’clock I had a video call showing me the underneath of my car on a ramp pointing out the tyre depth etc a nice touch I thought then at one o’clock I received a phone call to say the car was ready for collection to my surprise when I picked it up the car had been washed leathered and vacuumed out that’s what I call service.thank you Barlows for your flawless service especially from your professional staff. Keep up the good work

Terrible service will never bother with them again. My elderly mother and partner bought a new Skoda here in late 2019. They specified some nice extras and waited for the car to arrive. As other reviews very little communication and significant delays. Car eventually arrived and everyone happy, particularly when the salesman said that as a goodwill gesture for the significant delays the first service would be free. Fast forward to last week when my mother tried to book said service. Firstly the salesman is on furlough. Ok understood and not a problem. Mentioned the free service and simply told if she wanted a free service it should have been completed during the warranty period. She explained they are an old couple shielding and they hadn’t been out until now and the response “well we were open and working”. And then proceeded to tell her she could book a service at full dealer rates. What a joke of a company, they clearly don’t care about their customers, some of whom have had a pretty difficult time in the last 12 months. The cars covered les than 1000 miles!
Happily a local independent garage picked the car up, serviced the car, brought it back, all with great communication and a very reasonable rate. Barlow motors loss is someone else’s gain and I’ll certainly be advising anybody thinking of utilising Barlow motors to look elsewhere, in the long run it’ll save time and at least you have a chance of decent service!

If I could give this garage no stars I would. What a horrible experience from start to finish. Ordered a Karoq in August following which heard nothing at all. Then discovered Karoq no longer available on Motability. Assumed that because order was done before the changes everything would be in order. However was a bit concerned so telephoned to check and, with no satisfactory response forthcoming, dumped ourselves at the showroom only to be faced with a guy and a pile of orders that had not been ordered and because the car was no longer available on motability they could not place that order. To add insult to injury the salesman then tried to lie about how this had happened but eventually did admit that the order had not been placed whilst all the time the young man who had “forgotten” to place the orders skulked behind his desk. The sales manager then appeared with his own but very different version of events. Should have walked away then but stupidly did not. Ordered another vehicle. Received relevant paperwork etc and in October received a short video message to say car would be ready by middle to end December, with next update being mid November. Great, or so we thought. Needless to say no more communication at all so telephone call to the garage asking for an update, when informed car not going to be ready until end February 2021. Staff member very defensive about it not being their fault, lockdown etc etc. Not sure how a month lockdown could delay something for two months given that manufacturing was not in lockdown anyway. The end of this saga is that we have today cancelled that vehicle and the garage, but it took several phone calls before it was actually done and again it was all down to me to do the chasing. At no time has anyone from this garage apologised for their incompetence, although they have always been there with a suitable excuse. Certainly will not be using this garage ever again, and I would not in all honesty recommend it to anyone.

Booked a service and MOT online for 9am, and dropped car off at 08:55. At 12 o'clock, my car still hadn't moved from where I parked it! When I went into Barlows to enquire, they said 9am was only a drop off time and not an appointment time. So all those people who are lucky enough to live in Crewe and can drop their vehicle off the night before, and not have to drive 12 miles that morning; all those cars are in front of you. Withdrew my car from the service/mot, and contacted Mitchell's Chester. They have given me an 08:30 appointment (car on ramps at that time), and not having to wait around all day. Will never contemplate used Barlows for any Skoda related reason in the future. Would give them zero stars, but I can't!😠

Talk about incompetent !!
Don't listen..................
Don't do what they say they will do................
They hassle you for new business (even after being told to stop)
Treat potential customers like kings. Once you've bought however, you become target for every promotion going.
I have blocked their phone number
Peace and quiet !!

Dave the sales manager and his entire sales team, particularly Bartek, have been absolutely fantastic.

They have engaged with me consistently and in a compassionate manner throughout my order process. The deal that they secured was fantastic.

Thoroughly recommended.

Thank you one and all.

I requested a service and I advised that the warning light indicating that a Light was out was on but we couldn't figure out which light was out, so I wanted this specifically addressed. It was not addressed and the warning light was still on when we picked it up. Plus, we were advised that rear brake discs/pads failed the MOT so we had them changed out (but previous year there was no warning or mention of wear from another service provider). The tyres were fine before this was done but when we got the car back the tyre pressure was dangerously low on 3 of 4 tyres (no issues in over a month since?) Then we were charged for filling up the windscreen fluid but we had just filled it the week before and not used it. And then we were advised that the car was washed and cleaned inside and out (although it was washed the day before bringing it in on the outside.) It was no cleaner on the outside (dust does happen) but it was definitely not vacuumed on the inside. Why did they tell us this when it wasn't done as we were not expecting it? Then... the Service light came on 3 weeks after the service was done so they did not reset it at the time.
AND TO TOP IT ALL OFF!!! I called to mention the above and schedule to get the service light turned off. After which I had a return call where they asked me if they could have the Sales team review my vehicle for re-sale as there were not many Yeti's about these days! I cancelled the appointment to have the Service light turned off at that point because who knows what they would have done to it to get me to sell it to them. DO NOT GO THERE FOR SERVICE OR SALES.
PS - we did not buy our Yeti from them 3 years earlier because after visiting site and advising our budget for a Used Yeti, they tried to sell us a new one which we could not afford and never followed up with ones that did come available. Plus we saw a used one come up for sale within 3 months of visiting that was in our price range.

Why Oh Why did we ever think Robert Eardley & Son were any good.
We bought a new Skoda from Robert Eardley and at that time they were helpful attentive and provided a decent service.
The car has always been serviced there and although there was a real problem when the car was ‘fixed’ to correct the fraudulent emissions claims Robert Eardley were generally OK. After that recall the car went into ‘limp mode’ less than 50 miles after it was returned to us and had to be towed back to them at our cost. It cost us to cancel a hotel booking and to change our ferry crossing as well as losing 2 days of holiday. They refused to accept any liability for this. Certainly their communication was poor, their record keeping bad but they were pleasant, generally helpful and we continued to use them as we wanted the car services by a Skoda main dealer and they were the nearest.
However, the car recently failed with what appeared to be a gearbox fault. The DSG automatic would only find forward gears 2, 4 and 6. We specifically asked them to diagnose the fault and get a price as we were concerned the fix could cost more than value of the car.
We telephoned them immediately the problem showed on 8th February and were told nothing could be done before Monday (perfectly reasonably) so we drove the car to them as requested first thing on the Monday morning 11th February. After a week with no response we telephoned to be told they did not know the cause of the problem and Skoda UK were being asked for assistance. Days went by with no updates so we took to telephoning every 2 or 3 days as they did not seem capable of making a call to at least update us. They did say that Skoda were being very slow to respond but eventually we had the message that the fault was said to be on the gearbox management system. A new one had been ordered (without of course coming back to us to see if we wanted that expense on a car 7 years old). We then complained to the Service Manager, Mark Burgess, who was not helpful and said they were not happy that it was taking up space in their workshop, as if we were somehow happy about their tardy progress. It turned out that after fitting the system it would now not engage any gears. So three weeks and no steps forward and one step back. We asked to speak to the Dealer Principal and was told he was not present. We asked for him (we understand he is Cam Defoe) to call us back. Of course he never did.
We were next told the problem had been referred again to Skoda and they eventually said a clutch problem. Mark Burgess said parts would be delivered 7th March and we would have the car back for the weekend and he would not charge for the extra (albeit wholly abortive) work. We were supposed to be grateful for this. He also promised to telephone us on the Thursday. He did not. We telephoned him on Friday. One of us was out in the morning, and he said he had tried to phone in the morning. No message was left and he did not try on the other 2 contact telephone numbers they have. The car was alleged to be almost ready and would now be ready on Monday.
The delay has also cost us a lot of money. If told what the problem was we would likely have scrapped the car. However, taking over a month means additionally the car has had to be re-taxed and re-insured, it now has less than 6 months on the MOT (due by 1st September) so the valuation from ‘webuyanycar’ has been reduced. Robert Eardley & Son are not interested.
Robert Eardley do not seem to be able to keep staff, and whether this is the problem why they cannot diagnose a problem we do not know. We do know that customer communication is supremely important and that they cannot do it. We do plan taking them to the Small Claims Court.
I would strongly recommend avoiding Robert Eardley & Son. Skoda has made serious efforts to improve their image since VW took them over. They have largely been successful. Having dealers like Robert Eardley & Son will take them back to where they used to be if they are not careful

"The car is immaculate" - there was a dent in the front wheel arch
"I'll throw in a free spare wheel" - nothing included with the car
"I'll discount the Auto Glym treatment" - the car had dirty wheels when it was unveiled, and the seats that were allegedly treated absorb water readily.

I was given no V5 document
I drove away without it being taxed.
A promise was made that someone would contact me to get the dent fixed. I'm still waiting.
I filled out all the paperwork one week earlier, but on the day "it had been accidentally shredded" so I had to go through the whole procedure again on the day I picked the car up. The delay was long enough to go and have breakfast elsewhere and come back.

As soon as they had my money, they lost interest.

BE WARNED!

On the 23rd of April I ordered a Skoda Fabia from Martin Kysh a salesman at Barlows Motors Ltd trading as Robert Eardleys & Sons in Crewe. I paid £500 deposit.
They said they would find one as soon as possible stating they might be able to find one from another dealership. When I read the contract at home estimated delivery was on the 5th of July this was quite a surprise.
I rang a number of times seeing when it would be ready, but in the end they said it would be available the first week in July.
The 5th of July came l had no contact from them at all. On reading my contract they had another 28 days to honour the agreement. I still did not hear from them. In the contract it said I would get my deposit back if l cancelled th car after this time which I did .I asked for my deposit back. On the 8th of August they said it would be in my account in 5 working days it wasn't!
It is now the 25th of August and I still have no sign of the deposit after many phone calls to the Skoda garage (every time I call they are having meetings) I have been in touch with Skoda UK. On Monday the 20th I spoke to a lady called Tanya who said I would have a cheque by Friday it never came. On Friday I spoke to Ben he said the deposit would be back in my account in 24hrs guess what it wasn't
It is absolutely unbelievable. I thought I was dealing with a reputable company.