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Worst car buying experience ever. Lied to me and let me drive off without taxing car.
Credit rating isn't great so had to use them and unfortunately not realising they are part of Rix motors who I vowed never to use 20 years ago after buying a POS from them and then having the delight of getting the runaround to get anything done. Nothing has changed, still an amateurish business who fuel the perception that second hand car sales are sharks. I applied not expecting to be accepted so I kind of accidentally did my due dilligence back to front. So once I'd paid a small deposit (that I was told would be refunded as the finance deal was no deposit) I then looked in depth into the car, a 2015 E class E220 CDI. To be fair, they've dressed the car impressively well, for 63k on the clock and 5 years old it looks and feels like new, so I'm relying on Mercedes reliability to get me through the next few years. Their 3 month warranty has more exlusions that inclusions. Once I agreed the deal, Dan the salesman siad it's good to go once finance do their security checks. Because of Covid everything was done remotely, so they now have photos of everything they need to clone my ID. The last MOT was a failure and to be fair they have addressed the issues which were brakes and the car had new tyres. The car was £15k and it books at £9700 as trade in, so with that margin and a huge kickback on 17% apr finance I'm sure there's room to address some issues. Nope. I wanted a short finance term and was offered 30 months. I have a company car allowance with 7 year max policy and want this for two years and sell it on, by then my credit rating will be clear and i'll buy/lease new. This was accepted and told it would save interest. Then at the point of signing the finance docs it was conveniently dropped into conversation that the finance company would only agree 5 year deal (which I will be taking up with them) and had a max £350 a month limit. I was told i could easily over pay and shorten the term after. I asked if it had service history and was told it had three service in it's 63K, which seemed right. When I delved deeper and checked out with mercedes online it transpired that it had two of them between 2015-2018 with original owner at 19k. No other history for the remaining 45k and two years. They 'serviced' it at 63K which is basically an oil and filter change. The all important transmission change at £240 hasn't been done. I asked if they would do it or discount accordingly but refused. I asked if they would tax it (£125) for free as compensation and that was refused. When I came to pick the car up i was told I had to pay another £50 as the finance company demnaded £100 min deposit so had to pay that on top of the £50 i already paid. I asked earlier if I paid for the tax on arrival and was told yes. When I got there i was given one key and the documents, when I asked about the tax I was told I had to take the green slip to the post office and tax it myself at 5pm at that wasn't likely. When i said that the car wouldn't be taxed and I could be stopped by an ANPR equipped Police vehicle I was assured it WAS taxed. When Dan went to get card machine I checked on gov.uk and car showed as untaxed. I asked if I could tax it online and was told no as the green slip wasnt the right one. So I had to drive home from Warrington to Wigan with an untaxed car. A couple who were getting their car next to mine were in the same bewildering predicament. I emphasise, the car looks tip top, drives beautifully but I now have to pay £250 for transmission service and probably £400 min for a new key and existing key recoded as I don't trust the spare key and my personal info won't meet together in the future. I'm hoping Mercedes build quality gets me throught the next few years, similar cars were elsewhere for £13k and if I need to dispose of a troublesome car in the future the high price and APR will cripple me. It really felt like they had me over a barrel and had no shame in shwoing it.