Described a car over the phone and took a deposit, in good faith I left a deposit which I was told would be refunded if the car wasn't as described and if I wasn't happy in anyway, When I arrived the car was filthy, poor previous paint repairs all over, tyres with chunks out of the sidewalls, the alloys were cracked with filler hanging out of them, and to top it all off there were wheel nuts missing from all the wheels, the salesman said he had ordered some more and would post them to me, For the reasons above I declined the car, They wouldn't refund my deposit, They are not trustworthy.

Awful. We bought an Audi Q5 from this company for £16000. They sold us the car assuring us that the car was 'in excellent condition' and that it had been through their 'RAC approved' 82 point check' - a tick sheet of the major components of the car checked over by their mechanic. We suspected there was something wrong with the car as it was making some strange noises when going over bumps in the road. Three months after the purchase, when taking the car for its MOT we faced a £2500 bill as it became clear that the car was not in good condition. The engine mounts were collapsed, cv boots were cracked, the cam belt needed to be replaced (they hadn't followed manufacturers guidance of replacing after 60,000 miles or after 5 years), one of the tyres was balding. All of these items were ticked as in good condition on the 82 point pre sales check. Given that these items were deemed to be 'wear and tear' the warranty we purchased from them didn't cover us for these costs. Even with a warranty, you take a certain amount of risk when purchasing anything, but the most disappointing part of it was Berkshire Specialist Cars' response when I raised this with them. Having made numerous calls I was constantly fobbed off being told that the person dealing with it ('Brian' in this case) would call me back. He never did, not once. This went on for 3-4 months. Every time I called back I was told that he is on holiday, or that he is around the country picking up others cars. On one occasion, when told that Brian was again out of the office, I lost my patience and (mischievously) asked my wife to anonymously call back asking for Brian about a purchase - lo and behold Brian comes straight to the phone! One day, having spoken to the Director ('Nigel') in the morning, I called back in the afternoon to follow up on something and was told that he was away all week on holiday in Spain! I guess they hadn’t coordinated on that occasion but quite honestly it was embarrassing at times and wholly unprofessional. Now I am a fairly typical englishman - slightly shy in challenging customer service and not keen on making a fuss (this is my first review of anything) but I couldn't let this go so just kept calling and calling and calling. Eventually I got a response (but only after I had contacted trading standards and quoted the Sales of Goods Act to them) and they offered a £500 ‘goodwill gesture’ with the distinct impression that they were doing me a favour. This was something I suppose, but my god I had to work for it and still left me significantly out of pocket. We made some mistakes in the way we purchased this car (short MOT, and only taking it for its MOT on the day of expiry) but for all their assurances on pre-sales checks, BSC's modus operandi seems to be very much 'buyer beware'. I don’t know if my experience is an outlier or not, but I would just urge people to be careful with these guys. I hope this is useful to anyone considering purchasing a car from BSC.