READ HERE WHAT SOME PEOPLE HAVE TO SAY
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ARNOLD CLARK AUTOMOBILES LTD
I would appreciate it if you could add my experiences - 4 years of woe at Arnold Clark.
Arnold Clark - Nissan Service Department,
Kingsway, Dundee
Or should that read Cowboy Clark.
For 4 years the catastrophes and disasters just keep on happening at
this god awful place. And yes I now have leant my lesson although
it took me a while.
Situation 1 - I originally bought a
Toyota Corolla (Second hand) from them in 1997. It was a great car
until the service department got their grubby paws on it. I put it
in to get a problem sorted which in the end as I had predicted was the
misfiring plugs. However they had gone into umpteen things which
in the end so the downfall of the car. They started tweaking about
with the alternator and at the same time forgot to reset the timer.
Of course this proved to slow down the car and restrict the pulling
power of the vehicle. I was due to on a long journey of
mountainous terrain so I quickly popped into see them before I left.
This was on the Saturday morning - one day after I had originally been
in - to be told that the car would be alright. A typical Saturday
attitude from Arnie's boys. Lo and behold on our journey my car
failed to climb any of the steep gradients and in the end blew my
radiator. Of course Arnie's boys wouldn't accept responsibility.
The end of that car.
I decided to give them the benefit of the
doubt after all the sales people have always been very good with me and
my family. So we plumped for a fairly new Primera. Great car until
its first service and MOT. A whopping bill of £450 to pass its
MOT and a further £600 worth of 'recommendations'. These of
course if I didn't agree to them would rear their ugly head next year as
they keep a file of your details. So I decided not to get them
done and get rid of the car before they got anymore money. Amongst
the recommendations was a new tyre. However they had tried to
catch me with this one before. This time I had proof that all 4
tyres had just been replaced a month or two earlier. Their
response - they suck by their judgments!
You may think that this is starting to go
on a bit but hey this is only the start of it!
Most recently my car needed to go in for
a new ABS sensor and also to tighten the front heat shield. What a
drama this proved. From the initial enquiry it took 5 weeks to get
the car fixed. Reasons for this - lack of communication by two
people who's identity we shall protect and will therefore name 'Drew'
and 'Alistair'. Message goes to Drew - (Skivvy) never gets to
Alistair - (Service manager). To paint a picture Drew is a Plonker
- full of good intentions but never reliable and Alistair is very nervy
- not cut out for the cut-throat world of cars. When they first
check the car it takes them a large amount of my time - 5 hours to be
precise. In that 5 hours they hadn't actually done anything.
Car goes in at 12 noon. I phone at 3.30pm expecting work to be
finished. They had just started looking at it. 5.00pm comes
still no phone call so I phone them. Yes your car is ready.
Would they come and pick me up...only just. As it was a Friday
afternoon the attitude I got was so bad.
I keep phoning to check to see if part is
in - Drew never knows and will get Alistair to call back. I
wait......and I wait......you get the picture. Finally the
car gets booked in. Guess what they order the wrong part.
How incompetent can you get. Again they have the car for a good
while and still haven't fixed the rattling heat shield. I was then
promised from Drew that the part would be fitted free on its return.
I should have got that in writing. When it did go in they were
instructed to pick the car up at 1.00pm. They turn up at 9.30am.
My car wasn't there but they sure got a mouthful down the phone.
It felt good after 4years and I knew my affair with Arnold was coming to
an end. The car went in and when I went to pick it up they tried
to tell me that I had to pay for labour as well. Of course Drew
would back me up here. Did he what. He blatantly lied about
wavering the labour charge to which ended up in a massive argument in
front of customers in the showroom. Nervy Alistair backed down and
gave me a bill for the part only. Boy what a struggle but its all
over.
These were the big ones but there were a
smattering of incompetence along the way such as; Arriving at the wrong
work place to collect me, 4 attempts to cut a key, lack of knowledge and
co-operation/service on fitting and supplying a light bulb, Faulty parts
- 2 faulty alternators resulting in car breaking down twice. You
all get the picture.
I'm so glad I won't be going
back........................EVER!
Don't worry too much about that as he wont get much change from £5.000 going down that road, I know as I have had this kind of thing thrust before me in the past.
He had better buy up every single domain that has his name on it because I suspect you are the first of many dissatisfied customers to air your grievances through this medium.
But enough of that, I bought a car from Arnie some years ago, took it back to have some work done on it under warranty only to find that they had carried out £200 worth of work without my express permission. they claim to have phoned my office and I agreed to the work, trust me. they phoned no office. well certainly not my office.
anyway. best of luck with your campaign for justice and power to the Scottish car buying public. you should claim that your European human rights have been violated, you know the kind of thing ? freedom of expression/speech and all that. might be worth looking into.
I'd rather not name myself if that's okay with you
But I have something to say about the corporate side in that I used to
work for the (this part took out by pagemaster to protect identity)
Service in Glasgow and a few years ago, Uncle Arnold had the
servicing contract for our fleet cars.
They obviously had pound signs in their eyes when they saw the contract
because we were getting billed for all kinds of crap like a set of new
rubber mats, a valet and other bits and bobs following a standard
service... yet when I phoned the keeper of the vehicle concerned to
confirm if they had been given new mats or a full valet, the answer was
invariably NO!
Actually, you could tell just by looking at the car it hadn't been
valeted
But wait, you think that's bad.. a lot of our cars at the time were
Peugeots (originally acquired brand new under leasing contract) yet when
we took them to Uncle Arnold that year for servicing, nearly all of them
were reported as having a problem with the "wishbone"
suspension!
And we know for a fact that this was all BULLSHIT!!!
Suffice it to say they never had their contract renewed!!
As far as any part of the Arnold Clark organization is
concerned....AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!
By the way, does anyone have any good recommendations re where to buy a
car?
Cheers and Thanks for reading.
through Lex and serviced every 10,000miles. Daewoo uplifted the car from my
office and left a replacement car with the car fully valeted on its return.
Arnold Clark took over the franchise, no courtesy car, no valeting
Christmas Eve last year the car wouldn't start outside my house and the AA
unable to find the problem towed the car to Arnold Clark Daewoo at Yorkhill
Quay, give the staff their dues they tried to get me back on the road, it was
almost the second week in January before I got it back problem was " something
wrong with the fuel pump.
Car was going in for repairs to air conditioning and prior to going in I asked
them to investigate a noise that came when I revved up, they said that it was
something to do with the air conditioning
When collecting the car after repairs to the air conditioning I found a bracket
on the floor of the passenger foot well
I asked what it was doing there and was told that the exhaust bracket was broken
and that they had temporarily fixed it, they did not carry spares and had
ordered replacement part and would contact me to return car to have it fitted
I asked why they couldn't tell an exhaust bracket failure from an air
conditioning problem but they couldn't tell me
Two weeks later I was contacted and told to bring the car in, I told them that I
was due a service in about three weeks and it could be sorted then, I was told
that they only held spares for two weeks and if the car wasn't brought in before
then the part would be returned. A few phone calls sorted that out
Last week, Tuesday the 10th December, the car cut out on the outside lane of the
motorway and through luck more than anything else I managed to get over straight
away to the hard shoulder, again the AA towed the car into Arnold Clark and
parked it adjacent to the quay wall. I was told that they were very busy and it
would be the end of the week before they could look at it. I was not happy about
this but despite complaining there was nothing else that I could do I contacted
Lex who returned my call saying there was nothing that they could do
I phoned Friday morning and was told to call back in the afternoon. I tried
phoning twice in the afternoon but no one answered the phone
I called Monday afternoon and was told that they were looking at it and were
trying to find out what the problem was, being electrical it was taking them
some time, they had my mobile number and said that they would contact me when
they had more news
I decided to drive into their place this morning (Tuesday) and found the car
covered in frost exactly were it had been left the previous week.
I was looking at the car when one of their salesman asked if there was anything
that he could do for me. I expressed my anger about being told lies about what
had not been done and told him to pass my message on that I was taking the
matter further. I have contacted Lex again who are dealing direct with Arnold
Clark as unfortunately I don't think that I could have a meaningful discussion
with them.
I bought a R reg renualt megane from Arnold Clark in Wishaw what a mistake. Car
was advertised as having one owner, received log book 3 weeks later. I discover
the car actually had 4 previous (surprised). When we picked up the car there
was a dent on the side which was not there before. our answer we got from them
was we wanted to see if you could notice the difference. The car cut out twice
on the way home. Phoned next day and they told us to bring it in. They said that
they could not find anything. We returned with the car 5 more times that was in
June. We are still waiting for the car to be fixed. We were asked what we were
expected from a 4 year old car and told us that they were not prepared to spend
any more time or money on it. Arnold Clark promises delivered? I don't think
so. The car was returned from the garaged still not repaired, covered in
scratches, grease and oil. Also a broken mirror. I thought the warranty was
there to fix the car if there was a problem. !
Arnold Clark seem to think that it is there to make it worse. My advice would
be to drive past in the car you already own. .
Renault scenic from Arnold Clark (which should have been here almost a week
ago), however i fear it may be too late for me, but for anyone out there
reading the messages on this site SAVE YOURSELVES!!!
Arnold Clark Armadale may be one of the biggest Citroen dealerships in the UK
but lets face it the showroom is an absolute disgrace. The floor was filthy,
the toilets were cramped and not clean enough to do the toilet in. I only hope
no claustrophobics attempt to do the toilet in this branch!
The salesmen are nothing but a bunch of chancers who openly use bad language in
front of customers. Do not take your children while purchasing a car as it would
be a complete embarrassment.
The service department is another issue. I do not know another company who
employs people that do no know how to do the job they are employed to do.
The place was a complete mess and I could not see the service receptionist as
the paper work was above her head.
I am sure Arnold Clark himself would be horrified if he knew the truth about
this dealership. In no uncertain terms purchase a car from here.
was then told i was due them £190 for a water pump despite taking the option of
extended warranty it turns out the warranty isn't worth the paper its written on. as
for a replacement that's a joke as far as I'm concerned he can stick his car up his
arse.
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