READ HERE WHAT SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY

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ARNOLD CLARK AUTOMOBILES LTD
After complaining about a service last year, in which the wrong service was carried out(!), I complained to head office and got a response from their "new" service manager. He apologized for the "incontinence" I experienced. I think he meant "incompetence", but the letter will be used in any future problems encountered with Arnold Clark Fiat, Aberdeen - who to be fair, have been extremely helpful since. .

 
I have been arguing with Arnold Clark for 6 months now. But today I have a digital recording of my telephone conversation with Alistair Craig. A name I'm sure you are well aware of. I'm going to the papers today 28/5/02 if you want to have your story put together with my case please e-mail [email protected] with your details. if anyone has went down this route and has some advice please feel free to share that too..

 
Superb site ! I wish that I had the good fortune to find it before buying my car. I used to work for Arnold for the grand total of 6 months in the Hamilton road branch in the sales dept. yes I know I should have known better. but from what I have seen the forging of customer signatures the forging of service books. all they are doing is marking in the dates and mileages and then stamping it up in one session then passing the book around to get the service records.
  I got my car from Rannoch Drive Renault branch in Milngavie. below are some of the problems the service manager then had the audacity to call me up at my office to start shouting down the phone with the words " if you ever go to my head office again I'll tell them that you asked me to cook the books. " he then proceeded to do so when I called the dealership manager and told him that I wanted him to fit a cd player against an insurance claim. Two problems with this.
I already have a CD player in my car as standard.
All my calls are recorded and he basically shot him self in the foot.
another three months of wrangling led to my handing in a pack of everything including correspondence to Arnold Clark himself. I then called Alasdair Craig the " customer service " manager at the head office to see if they had received everything for me. the response I got was that Arnold himself said that it didn't warrant a response. nothing. again I have this recorded and downloaded to my ipaq for anyone to hear.

1.)    when car was picked up it was not valeted,
       didn't have the mats in it as specified
        Didn't have the full tank of fuel as specified
        window rubber seal was broken.
        All of the above was sorted at the garage after a further 2 trips
2.)    rattle from the exhaust causing high static shock with the doors were touched ( 4 trips to get this resolved )
        the problem has now returned.
3.)    leak coming in the back door ( two visits to the garage to amend this issue )
4.)    I work 13hrs a day mon - fri. so I need a courtesy car I have only been given one all the other times I have been told that they didn't have a note that I requested one even although I had double checked before my visits to the garage. But they did say that I could rent one. Isn't this against what they have agreed with Renault?
5.)       At motorway speeds the vibration causes a rattle somewhere above the drivers head ( I suspect that this is due to foul play by the garage as the last time I took the car their the rubber seal around the door was now separated from the roof lining. I think they have put something up there like a loose screw. I don't trust them to go back )
6.)      The service manager at the dealership came on shouting and threatening me on the phone at my office for contact his customer services for the above. even although I didn't even mention his name as he had been quite nice before that. ( this was recorded on my office CTI telephony system )
7.)    Spoke to the dealership manager about this who didn't apologize for his staffs actions and didn't give a very satisfactory answer stating that it must have been some kind of mix up.
8.)    I damaged an alloy wheel and took it in for a quote to be repaired. they quoted £1000 but after the above incident said it was just a new wheel. 1 month later the wheel bearing went ( the car has less that 20k miles ) this means that I couldn't claim against the roads dept for this meaning I am out of pocket. I still haven't had time to get it fixed because I work from am to lop in two jobs Monday to Friday.
   What I am going to do now is contact watchdog. although I need seven other complaints. if you wish to put you file across to this please e-mail me on [email protected]
I will post further details once watchdog comeback to me personally with what I need to do.

 

 
I WAS GOING TO BUY A CAR FROM ARNOLD TOMORROW, BUT THANKS TO YOUR SITE I HAVE SAVED £15000 AND POOR ARNOLD HAS JUST LOST A CUSTOMER. PLEASE DON'T SHED A TEAR FOR ME, I WILL GET A BETTER DEAL ELSEWHERE. MANY THANKS.

 
Hi,
Great site, I bought a Vauxhall Vectra from AC Kilmarnock with 13,000 miles on the clock. All was well until I took delivery and registered with DVLA and to my surprise it came back 1st owner was a security company, this has also been the case from my mate who bought a 306 at the same time.
Also the second gear would jump out of gear no and again probably because it had been hammered by about 300 security guards .
Never again will I buy from AC who rip people off and sell ex fleet cars as one owner cars.
ps I also never received my service owners manual mmmmmmm.
Have now sold car privately.

 

 
 great website.... when I bought my 1998 fiat Punto in Jan 02, I received one
broken tattered blue key. Prior to the sales, the salesgirl promised to
deliver the red (master) key within 2 weeks..... it took two months for her
to tell me that she couldn't get the key, nor anyone who could do a spare
key for me. My fiancé and I searched for 15 minutes in the yellow pages and
found a locksmith who would do a spare key for us in Dundee. Little did we
know at that time, how important the master key is. Four months after we
bought the car, the battery went flat, and we called the AA and found out
about the importance of the red key. After another 3-4 weeks of constantly
calling the girl in Arnold Clark, and finally after threatening them with a
report to the trading standards, we finally got the key in 3-4 days. The
silly annoying salesgirl who knows nothing about everything, and the stupid,
rude and pompous 'manager' did not say sorry at all for all the
INCONVENIENCE they caused us.
And..... a few weeks after buying the car, the driver door wouldn't close
properly, the headlights were not aligned properly, the fan was noisy, the
exhaust split into two (they refused to repair this), the windscreen washer
was not working properly..... etc etc etc.... by the way, we bought a repair
and breakdown guarantee (395 GBP for two years) which was a rip off... it
did not cover anything!
And.... the workers at the Vauxhall branch Dundee and fiat branch Perth are
all extremely RUDE, incompetent..... and amazingly stupid.
We still haven't received the radio, key and immobilizer cards.... hopefully
we are much wiser now in buying our second car.... and give us anyone but
Arnold shark and the silly salesgirl.
I really wish that future victims of Arnold Clark could read this first....

 
Having bought Daewoo for sometime I'm appalled to find Arnold has taken on the Franchise in Glasgow. Now I get silly things "replaced" under warranty eg door locking activators which never gave me any problem...but the main difference is trying to phone them, previously the Daewoo  Service was answered right away. recently I spent three days trying to contact them. left my contact number 6 times and nobody phoned back. I liked Daewoo there was never any pressure to buy...What You Saw Is What You Got. an real honest deal, now Arnold has got into it I doubt if I'll be back..

 
I picked a ford escort estate from Arnolds in Motherwell. After the sales patter a price was fixed we agreed and went home. My wife did her own sums and found out he was in fact overcharging us by £280 pounds. Next day we went back in and told the salesman this he said after much doodling with calculator we was right, so promised a cheque would be sitting day we picked up car. When we went to pick up car was told no check one of the head boys was on holiday and needed 2 signitures,so us being naive said okay and took car. After 3 days went back in an got told definitely next week. so went back the next week got told no chance and as they had sold my trade in an 8 days had passed with nothing in writing we would just have to lump it. .

 

My wife and I drove all the way from Falkirk to Linwood to see a car that we were promised was "minted" we had previously paid the salesman £100 so that he would keep the car for us to view, on paying this £100 I insisted on a written agreement that the £100 would be paid back to us should we decide not to purchase the car, this was agreed. when we went to look at the car it was falling to bits, a 51 plate Vauxhall Vectra with 14000 miles on the clock, he wanted £11.000  rust showing through where someone had removed a badge. the front under the lights had been painted black recently I suspect to cover up more rust. there were paint chips all over the bonnet etc etc.  plus a few other things. however  we decided not to buy the car and asked for our "100 deposit back, "Oh, I can't get access to the safe today"  was the reply from the salesman, his attitude changed as soon as it was apparent that he was not going to get a sale out of us. "I will post you a cheque next week"  he said. well guess what ? its next week already and you can guess what else ? still no cheque! I'll give him until next week to come up with the goods then its off to see my legal representative and as I have a couple of witnesses and the written agreement that I would get my cash back Mr. Clark  better pay up or he will end up in the small claims courts again. I will keep you posted on the developments and if you want my name and address just let me know by return e-mail. 

Second part. I went back to the Linwood Vauxhall on the Wednesday to ask where the money was. he told me it was in the post ( yeah) on the Thursday I still did not have the cheque so I went back again to Linwood. they gave me a cheque there and then. now whatever happened to the cheque in the post ? you tell me cause it still hasn't turned up in my letterbox. my view is it was never in the post and the salesman is a friggin liar.

 

 
I bought a brand new astra from Arnold Clarks in Glasgow. Guess what it had major engine problems!! Three times the RAC lifted and took it to Glasgow, it should have had the engine replaced (free) from Vauxhall's factory, but Arnie's foreman said no. Strip it down and rebuild it!! and that's what they did twice. Got rid of it as soon as I could. Buy a car from Arnie?

Never again

 

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