Kieran D

First car turned into a nightmare.

First car turned into a nightmare. In December of last year, I purchased a 2011 Polo match from this company and was immediately faced with issues. Less than a week after purchase, I had to return the car to the garage briefly as there was a spark plug that needed to be replaced. This was replaced quickly and with no cost to me which I thought was a good sign. As this is my first car and no one in my immediate family drives, I am inexperienced and unknowledgeable about the mechanics and daily running of a car. I then began to realise the car was drinking a lot of oil, more than I felt it should do. I went back to JMC with this problem as there was an engine light (amber) and an oil light (red) on the dash. The salesmen were dismissive of this but agreed to go and look at the car. When they came back, they said there were no lights on at all which I found strange as there had been when I left the car. These lights came back on a day or so after I left the garage. No help had been offered, which is unusual because JMC cars have stated in another review that they would like to have the chance to fix any issues with the cars they sell. In March, a couple of months after this last visit, I realised the car’s problem with drinking oil was growing worse. Me and two family members had a closer look at the engine and realised the oil had an internal leak, causing it to get into the coolant and leak over the belts. There was also a lot of sealant around the head cylinder, which was most likely the cause of the problem and someone had clearly tried to patch it together shoddily. On further research, I put my car’s reg (SY61 UXU) into the DVLA MOT checker and found it had failed three times in two months, wil only 200 miles driven between these failures. I bought the car a month after it’s last MOT, which was successful but had advisories for an oil leak. I went back to the garage and fully expected them to offer some help. I didn’t want to turn it into a long ordeal or a bigger issue as I need the car to take my gran and my mum to hospital and doctors appointments frequently. The salesman at the garage was dismissive and said, in his own words, that he “knows nothing about cars.” He did also say he had worked for a long time in the motoring industry. It was weird to me that a salesman would claim that they knew so little about the product they were trying to sell, and I wish I had known that before I bought a car from him. He told me to wait until Friday and call the salesmen who had directly sold me the car, once he was back from his holiday. I phoned on Friday and was met with a dismissive disrespectful attitude which was harsh because I haven’t been disrespectful at all during this process, as I just want the car fixed. The salesmen kept referring to the fact I was technically out of their warranty period, which was true, but forced me to say that I was still protected under trading standards. I have no desire to waste the time and effort it will take to go through trading standards and court, and only said this as a reminder as it was true. When I said this, the conversation was effectively over as he told me his ‘lawyers’ would deal with any trading standards complaint. The three options for a trading standards complaint are either a repair, a replacement or a refund. I have been offered none of these and I’m not sure I would trust a repair, given the shoddy state of the car currently. Overall, I can only give a very low review both for the quality of car and customer service support I have received. I had heard good things about this garage from friends of mine and from AutoTrader reviews but this has not been my experience with them at all. Make sure to complete due diligence and be aware that they are not overly pleased when asked to help with the car they have sold.