Car Giant, White City, West London Review

Overall Rating

Have been to Car Giant twice, second time I did buy a car. As others have said, the choice is superb, but likewise others have also pointed out that there is a fair amount of dings and scratches on a good number of vehicles. In fairness I suspect this is in part to the nature of some of the vehicles, particularly ones I looked at i.e. ex rep/company cars, and also as there is I expect not much money spent on them tarting them up i.e. a main dealer would get smart repairs completed etc., but then you will pay for this ultimately.

The other positive is that as said, there is loads of choice, open late, and with no pressure to buy or requirement to haggle. Don't like, walk away, simple as that. Bad points, regardless of what they say I wouldn't expect a vehicle to be held unless a deposit is on it, to me it seems daft that they won't take deposit on the phone (and can me a second long trip if you thought about it overnight, maybe they are not daft after all ;O), very little if any room for discussion if you wanted to make the deal work by rejigging things slightly (fixed pricing and the car is as it is etc), and as others have said, dubious re the quality of the mechanical checks. Oh, and whilst you can test drive, 600yds around an industrial estate can't class as a test drive in anyone's dictionary I'm afraid.

So, after all that I would still give a positive review, because you don't expect to walk into Tescos and get Harrods service, you also don't expect to get hit with the same pricing. So, as per Tesco's, stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap. I was looking for a 3yr old Merc estate with a particular spec, I found one when I searched throughout the whole dealer network for Mercedes, there were 2 to choose from at Car Giant. Yes more mileage and a few chips etc, but also £4k less.

I'm also giving a good review, as whilst I wouldn't say the process of buying etc is a great customer experience, it's not bad. I did point out an issue with the folding mirrors i.e. they didn't fold properly, and this was claimed to be fixed prior to sale, it wasn't fully but they were happy for me to get an estimate for repair from my local Merc garage, and then signed this off and sorted this direct with the garage within 15mins of me phoning. That's good in anyone's book frankly and I was very pleasantly surprised (it was for circa £300+vat as well, so not a £10 repair).

So overall I don't think you can beat the choice, and if you have done your homework and checked other cars, or know what to look for, and you don't want pushy sales folks and haggling (barring not wanting to buy extra warranties - which are a tad expensive and limited in cover compared to others in my experience), then i think car giant is well worth a visit. Would I trek 300miles or more, probably not, an hour or two yes. If you like then you can make the choice from several models and colours most likely and test to your hearts content, not for you then at least you will have seen plenty of spec and price options.