Thecararena Reviews 15

My experience with this garage was extremely poor, with repeated dishonesty and serious issues with the vehicle.
I placed a deposit on a white Vauxhall Grandland X on 24th March and explained I needed it before 30 March. I was assured it would be ready. On 30 March, I was told it would be ready at 3pm, but after multiple calls and delays, I arrived to find the car wasn’t even MOT’d. I requested a refund due to the wasted time but was persuaded to continue with a promise of a 6-month warranty and a confirmed collection date of 3rd April. Despite further assurances, the car still wasn’t ready on collection day. I waited two hours while someone was speeding it in and out of the forecourt rushing to get it cleaned before finally taking it at 4pm.

Within two days, the car developed a loud knocking noise. An independent mechanic found a major oil leak, a snapped and rusted coil spring, and a CV joint boot (which failed on the MOT) temporarily fixed with cable ties. I also confirmed that the garage had been informed of the oil leak before sale but chose to ignore it.

I returned the car after just one week and requested a full refund. Shak, who sold me the car via the car arena, was initially refusing. He clearly has no idea about the consumer rights act, but I eventually received it. The car was relisted for sale within three days.

I strongly recommend having any vehicle from this garage independently inspected before purchase. My only positive is Simon the sales advisor is lovely and tries to go above and beyond for the customers. It's a shame the other guys don't.

Purchased a Tesla from these guys 2 months ago. I held off leaving a review to ensure the car operates and performs to my expectations.

The car exceeds that! I am very impressed with the car and the whole buying process.

I would happily recommend anyone else to purchase from The Car Arena.

- AB

Sold us a convertible that stored more water in it than the local res. Leaking into the boot damaging all the electrics etc. costing £££ to fix. Took no responsibility at all for it. absolute jokers work here!!

I was very impressed with the professionalism of the service I received. Peter jordon all the car arena team was very helpful friendly to me helping me with my new car. Brought a Mercedes a class the car is superb as it was advertised. Thank you car arena for starting my new year with my dream car.

Highly recommend,amazing service, so happy with my BMW 3 series

Great Service and Value is hard to find.
Amazing service and very efficient from my enquiry. They ensured everything was in order before we drove away. Highly recommended.

I just brought my BMW 330 EM sports the salesman Peter was very good very helpful very professional. A guy called Jason spoke to me on the phone prior to me buying a vehicle. He was also very helpful very sufficient over all I had a great experience with the car arena and my wife is now looking for A Car through those guys top service

If I could give this 0 I would, went to look at the Volkswagen Tiguan with the reg ending OEL after looking at the car all looked good, was assured that it had been fully serviced and MOT’d and all pre sale checks had been done. Firstly my husband started the car to be hit with an awful whirring sound, after test driving the car he mentioned that the steering was pulling. After looking closely the car had no brake pads on any of the wheels, the discs are all lipped, and three out of four tyres are worn below legal limit.
After all this I decided to look at the previous MOTs for the vehicle which instantly showed that on the previous MOT (bearing in mind this was like a few weeks prior) the whole underneath of the car is corroding.
After all this information we were told the car would be sent to the garage for all the repairs to be completed and a new MOT, the corrosion and awful noise would also be looked into.
Please be aware this car is still for sale on their website!!
Please do not buy this car not only is it illegal to drive in its current state but it’s dangerous and by the looks of things they are more than happy for someone to take this off their hands at the asking price!

What a bunch of cowboys you are ?? My daughter has recently in the past 4 weeks bought a Mini Cooper D from you in good faith and with the promises of good aftermarket service from yourselves??
Yesterday the car suffered a catasrophic failure on the front suspension, the spring as completely failed resulting in the car being completely unable to move.
She has contacted you and your response was well this is a seviceable part and we are not responsible for the repair even though this vehicle is under warranty.
This car would have been sold with 12 MONTH MOT , so this MOT is probably invalid as who ever checked this car prior to the sale, would and should have noticed if indeed this was a serviceable part? this component was about to fail??
This could have happened on a Motorway with fatal consequences not only for my daughter but most likely my granddaugter also.
In all of my years driving i have never known a shock absorber spring to fail or any of my friends.
You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for selling a vehicle in such a dangerous state that this failure could of killed and also not taking responsibility for the care and repair.
As i have mentioned this vehicle was bought with piece of mind with a warranty that if something was to fail it would be repaired by your prefered garage.
Well obviously this is just all a crock of shit.
How you sleep at night is beyond me, this will not be the only forum i write on. I will slander your buisiness until you realise that what you have done borders on criminal.
You lot of criminals don't care do you?? Just keeptaking the money, you absolve yourselves of any duty of care to what you have sold?? The Police should get involved with your criminal activities. Your Trash.
Photo 1 in review by tony buggea
Photo 2 in review by tony buggea

Don’t deserve one star, we still haven’t got a car we bought in August as it has faults they are taking for ever to repair. We’ve been pulled by police for having no insurance on a courtesy car and they refuse us a refund despite us still not having our car that we have paid for. We are being forced to take legal actions

I would even give this company 1 star. Please please please don’t go anywhere near this place.
They give car dealers a bad name. They sold me a car which developed problems on my way home. Called them the next day as they were then closed, they sent me to garage near me to check the car out. Garage I took it to found numerous faults, even down to tyre trends being totally different to what they had written down less than 24hours before. After a week of me calling them they told me to take it back for them to put new tyres on, but not the other problems. When I arrived they said I had to leave the car till it tyres were sorted which could take weeks! And I would have to find my own way home which was over 40 miles away. Which I was frustrated and upset, and 4 big me stood in front of me shouting telling me to leave and get a train, I took the car back home. Then more problems started that week. I asked for a refund and they told me I had broken the car myself.
This company has had many different names. Please don’t give them your money.

Would be 0 if it was an option.

Went down to see a car. Loved the car but was making a noise. asked them to check it and check the clutch as it felt a little unusual. Assured us everything had been checked and was fine but it would be checked again as we had a week before collection. Was bought on the promise that the car was fine with no faults and no issues.

Took it to Mercedes and it turns out the engine mount was damaged. Also just unlucky and not their fault but petrol cap stopped working. Sent back for repairs, absolutely awful job, they took parts out and didn't bother putting them back in, car was making a much worse noise and the petrol cap was missing the whole of the inside.

Sent a courtesy car out and firstly the car was absolutely horrendous, the man who dropped it off told us the car had no oil and we needed to refill it and he didn't bother because he 'didn't have money on him' thoroughly unprofessional and cheeky.

Once the car came back, it was running worse than ever, took it back to Mercedes and they told us the clutch and flywheel need replacing. One of the things we asked them to check which wasn't checked at all, none of them even drove the vehicle.

We took out a gold package warranty which states the clutch is included in it, were then told that we would have to foot the bill. The car was advertised as a perfect car with no faults. I haven't had 1 day where the car has been running normally. It's been unusable and after my next bill I will have paid close to £1500 just on finance.

In less than 3 months, we've had issues with the poor fitting of the spoiler, scratches on the rear bumper which were meant to be buffed out but weren't done properly, patrol cap and internal components being taken out and not replaced, an electronic fault with the heaters, clutch, flywheel and engine mounts.

To add insult to injury, I asked for the car to be swapped and they told me to pay EXTRA for replacement AND restart the finance as they don't want to lose out but are happy for me to lose out £1500 in payments already gone and then have to restart the finance so I have to make 3 extra payments for a car that wouldn't have been purchased if they hadn't falsely advertised and had actually checked when we asked. I have also had no usage of this car and have had to take buses and trains to get around due to absolute lies and incompetence.

This review probably cant be long enough to describe the absolutely shocking levels of customer service and blatant disregard for the financial damages they have caused. Even after explaining it all, all they care about is their own profit margins. THEY are in the wrong and expect me to lose out so they can 'fix' THEIR errors. Absolutely disgraceful service.

Probably fine to use this company so long as NOTHING goes wrong with the car. If anything does, then good luck because they'd rather cover their own pockets than help.

I will now have to go through the added stress and financial loss of taking this to court as we have tried to reach a resolution but all they care about is making a profit over correcting THEIR many errors and poor service.

Do yourself a favour and avoid this company.

Was given the vehicle registration to check M.O.T history and mileage. No advisories on most recent M.O.T. Travelled 170 miles one way to collect the car. After 3 days, synchro mesh in 3rd & 4th gear was failing, rear drop link snapped and all rear suspension components were severely corroded. Car was collected 2 months later after not being used for over 6 weeks. Refused to refund extended warranty also. I would never recommend this place !!

I had unfortunate occurrence with this dealer which was involving my bank fraud prevention team for "fully refundable holding deposit" for a car.

Firstly car was never reserved in the first place. Seller managed to secure another buyer.

Secondly when I wanted to claim my money back I was told deposit is not refundable anyway. Needed to involve fraud prevention team with my credit card provider.

Thirdly, when providing payment for the deposit the lady at the dealership was trying to hide the receipt and also didn't print the second copy for me - pretending the machine doesn't work. Bizarre, I have never seen something like this before.

I would not recommend this dealership due to poor working practices. There might be transactions that genuinely go ok but there is a high chance of potential buyer being scammed in the process.

Why risk your reputation for trying scam people out of £99?