Not as great as reviews make them out to be!
I recently went to view a car at Swindon Vehicle Solutions, encouraged by the excellent reviews I have seen for them.
The car was lovely, price was good and I was able to part ex my car.
The whole process of viewing the car, test driving and purchasing was easy and Paul seemed knowledgeable and friendly- hence the 2 stars given.
However, I've had to deduct 3 stars from my review for the following;
When we test drove the car, we noticed a few small issues with it - one of which was an exhaust blow.
Paul assured us that these issues would be sorted for when we collected the vehicle a week later.
Indeed, when we collected it, it did appear that the issues had been sorted.
But the exhaust blow returned within a couple of days.
When I was able to get it checked out by a mechanic, they found that the exhaust centre pipe and back box were completely rotten, and the blow had been "sorted" by firing the hole full of what looked like a whole tube of silicone sealer, and tightening the clamp up hard with an impact gun!
The old exhaust had to be cut off with an angle grinder, and replaced with a new system - a cost of a few hundred pounds within a couple of weeks of buying the car!
There is no way this was just general wear and tear on the car in the couple of weeks that I had it.
There's no way SVS could not have seen the state of the exhaust, yet they chose to bodge it and keep quiet about it.
It's not the sort of thing that I could have checked myself without jacking the car up, which wasn't possible on a garage forecourt!
I would advise anyone looking to purchase from SVS to get someone independent to do a full check of the car before you part with your money, so you aren't left out of pocket as I was.
1 January 2026
Unprompted review