James C

Avoid at all costs, it not worth it!

So this saga has gone on for a year, I say that but after buying a 2 year old Nissan with my wife we have actually only had physical ownership of it for 9 of those months. Firstly the buying experience. Go to dealership, test drive car, agree to buy the car, then the fun starts. We are then told that the price it’s advertised for is not the actual price and in the day it’s taken from booking the test drive till making an offer, the cost of a used car has actually gone up. Riiiiight. Fair enough, so we will just jiggle the finance agreement so it still fits in the monthly amount. Our little sales friend Ali goes and speaks to his manager. Ali comes back with a figure that was nowhere close to the price agreed upon. That’s because Ali has added on every single extra he could. Ask for these to be taken off, Ali comes back and ……. Still not the correct price, because Ali said I need paint protection and that cannot be taken off. At this point we’re £6 off the monthly payment we had in mind so….. whatever, just get us out of here with our new car. After this is a week or so of silence until we’re told that we need to come back to Penge from Essex due to the manager, Adam, needing to see my wife’s ID in person. No idea why this couldn’t have been done on the day the finance agreement was signed but another 4 hour round trip and everything we believe is now sorted. Oh boy were we wrong….. So a week after this we finally take the 2 hour trip to Penge to pick up the car. We sit there for ages waiting for anyone to come with the key so we can drive away. Finally get the key and while the Mrs is sorting out the road tax with Ali I go and check it over. Start the car ……. Rattling noise from the engine bay, small amount of revs applied and in come down there’s ticking from the turbo. It’s evident at this point the turbo impeller is knackered and I go to Ali and Adam to make them aware of this. At this point I am asked “well, would you mind taking it away and we can sort it later.” Yere I mean, that’s just how engines work I spose. It becomes incredibly evident that these guys have no idea what they are selling or any technical knowledge whatsoever. However, begrudgingly, we leave the car with them to diagnose and repair as at least it’s under warranty. In this spell away from our car we have not driven yet, we manage to get married and have a 2 week honeymoon before the car is ready. We only get confirmation the car is ready to be picked up the day before we fly back. So, fresh off a plane after a 9 hour flight, we head to the dealership, wait an hour and a half for our car that’s “ready” to turn up. Then make our trip home. All fixed right? Huh, that’s funny. I’ve included a screenshot of the email I sent once I got home, it had multiple issues and some of them just insane. The 50 point check or whatever it is they have is not worth the paper it’s written on. Well I would say that, but when I asked for the list they use for this check I never actually found anyone who knew what it was. So we were given a lovely new Nissan juke as a courtesy car while our micra was back in the workshop now for the second time in our ownership of a month. Still, I got to drive a total of 86 miles in it, so that’s something. The juke was a crash damage example with half the sensors disabled and a questionable road worthiness, still, I didn’t own it and it still had less problems than our car so it was at least serviceable at the time. This was our first spell with this car. Realise I say first. So 2 weeks go by, and it’s time for the micra to come home. I ask for a full list of work carried out and a copy of the 50 point checklist signed by the mechanic to state its been completed this time. I get the car and nothing else. Well at least the cars back in one piece……… or not. The main complaint it was sent with was a drivers window sill that let air in at speeds over 60. By let air in I mean it was like having a fan hitting just your right ear when on the motorway. I took the car out as it was dropped back to me. Asked the driver who was picking up the duke to wait, and set off to a nearby 60 Road 2 minutes away to check. Far from fixing this issue it now did it at 50mph. At this point very cross I called Adam and explained how this was not to my expectation. His reply, “well they told us they fixed it so it must be done”. After explaining to my now poor naive friend how people do lie to you from time to time he then could not work out what he could do next. After I gave him the reasonable option of take the bloody car back or take it back to fix it, he chose the latter. 2 weeks later the car goes off again, juke returns to its surrogate parents (us) and a month goes by while they try and develop the technology to repair a window seal. Get the car back, take it for a drive, it now does it at 70. Ok whatever, it’s a micra, it’s not going to see 70 a lot of its life and after this ordeal I just want a car to drive. But now it also pulls right while at motorway speeds. And the internal air vents are awfully weak. And the engine still feels rather rough. Satisfied that my at this point long term relationship with Ali and Adam may be coming to an abrupt end I decide to cut my losses, fix the car myself and have nothing ever again to do with this company. I emailed them one last time in June to see if I could at least get some sort of warranty claim through for the engine issue, but alas it seems they wish to have nothing more to do with us. Moral of this epic tale, do not use Ancaster to buy your car, Do not use Ancaster to repair your car and under no circumstances use Nissan Penge for anything other than to test drive a model you might be interested in. Use them for that and buy somewhere else. I thank you for coming to my ted talk on Bad Nissan