Ford Rental at John Grose
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I bought a new Mustang from Trust Ford…
I bought a new Mustang from Trust Ford as John Grose couldnt get me the spec I wanted. When the car arrived it had some paint issues and as JG is my most local Ford paint shop, Ford UK booked me in to have the issues fixed. The issues were a paint run on the bootlid, a stone chip on the bonnet that was there when I picked the car up, poor paint on the rear bumper and a scratch on the front bumper. The car at this point had 940 miles on the clock. JG said it would be a case of painting the bonnet, front bumper, rear bumper and bootlid. When I went to collect the car, it was clear that JG had caused more damage to the car. The front bumper was refitted poorly and they had polished the paint so hard that they had actually burnt through the paint, to the point where the primer underneath was visible (Please see pics attached). Worse than this was the fact that they hadnt bothered to refit the cars wheelarch liners properly and there was a clip missing meaning the wheel arch could have come loose at speed. They admitted the damage and missing clip and the car went back in to have these fixed. This time myself and a JG employee went round the car and did a 'damage report' this is attached below and shows that the only "damage" on the car was creases in the fabric roof (Totally normal for a fabric roof convertible) and the damage on the bonnet and Bumper for which the car was in to have fixed. So for all intents and purposes, zero damage. At this point the car had 1901 miles on the clock. When I went to collect the car, it was in a terrible condition. It was clear that the car had been through the wars and had deep chips in the paint down to the primer or bare metal on almost every panel including the front bumper, drivers door, both rear wings and on the bootlid (see pics attached). There was also a dent in the drivers rear wing that was so deep it had even cracked the paint. The paint quality on the bonnet was covered in bumps/pits and when inspected by an independent paint specialist, was described as the worst paint job they had seen in 12 years in the job. The thing that confirmed to me that John Grose were being dishonest though was when I noticed that the missing clip in the wheelarch had been replaced with a non standard clip that wasn't even a Ford item. The dishonesty continued when I checked the other side wheel arch and noticed that they had also removed the clip from the other side and replaced this clip with the same non standard clip that they had used for the missing one. This was in my opinion, so they matched and they thought I wouldn't notice. I wouldn't have minded if they called me to say that they couldn't find the original clip and asked me if they could use similar ones but they simply replaced both to cover their tracks. When I raised this with the assistant manager he admitted that they had changed both and even went back inside to retrieve my OEM clip. At the time of writing this, they are still yet to refit my OEM clips. At this point I escalated this with Ford UK who were brilliant and were very helpful in view of the evidence against John Grose. However, JG decided, instead of admitting their wrongdoings, to say that I had caused the damage myself after the car had left their premises! Despite me going over the issues with the manager in their handover bay when I noticed them. Lucky for me, I had time and location stamped photos of the damage on my phone which showed the time/location that I had photographed the damage and these matched the time of the handover, however I would advise anyone to film their handover with these people before you leave. Despite this JG refused to fix the damage apart from the bumper, clips and boot lid and it had to take Ford UK to arrange for another dealer to fix the rest of the damage. John Grose still haven't admitted liability despite the mountain of evidence and they are in discussion with Ford UK about who should pay for it. I have since found out that the bodyshop manager is 'no longer with the bodyshop'. INTERESTING! Cant think why!!!