written by scallywag3 on 30/03/2015
Ordered a new Vauxhall end of November 2014 12 week estimated delivery time. after 14 weeks they still couldn't give me any information when it would be delivered. Wherever they were getting the car from apparently weren't giving them any information, so the car was cancelled and the deposit was returned very promptly. Who is to blame that the car didn't turn up ? I have now gone to another online site "orangewheels" and happy that they have actually put me in direct contact with the dealer. The price is great and contacting the dealer direct is so much better than through buyanynewcaronline who don't
written by on 04/08/2011
I recently bought an 06 Nissan Navara from Sonnauto and within the first week, experienced the following problems: 1. Roof leaked 2. Central locking incorrectly wired (I was later told by Jonathan at Sonnauto that this was a feature - the side lights needed to be on for the central locking to work!) 3. Four-wheel drive failure 4. Speedometer failure 5. ABS failure 6. Odometer failure (the car had extremely low mileage for its age!). 7. Sat Nav failure 8. Battery flat In addition when I turned up to collect the car I found that there was no log book, no spare key, and the 'gold plated' warranty had a £500 cap and a 14 day cooling-off period before it was valid (Steve at Sonnauto seemed surprised when I pointed this out but has since informed me that I could have paid more to get it upgraded). Sonnauto offered to fit a 2nd hand ABS as they could get hold of one for £250 but refused the Nissan recommendation to fit a new one (as this would have cost over £2000). After many heated discussions we agreed to give the car back and when they came to collect it we were presented without warning with a legal document demanding that we surrendered any rights to pursue the company. When I refused to sign this letter, they took the car and refused to refund our money (over £10,000) until we did. Not exactly
Written on: 05/08/2011
Hi, this is Jonathan at Sonnauto, just wanted to offer my views on the transaction. I am not going to get heated or start arguing just state what we told the customer at the time.
What Mr Smith fails to point out is that he never gave us the opportunity to put the car right or even tell us it had gone wrong. Instead he drove past our dealership to Nissan Birmingham (quite a considerable distance past us). When they couldnt diagnose he took to Trowbridge Nissan who stated the abs/pump had gone, a £1800 plus vat part which took the total bill to £2500 including fitting.
It was at this stage Mr Smith phoned us (a good week after the initial problem). We advised we would either fix or refund in full the vehicle transaction. I must also note there was a mini we took in part excahange which had gear box problems which Mr Smith was not aware of. We made him aware of this on the same day we noted the issue (I believe the day of initial purchase) and agreed that he would contribute to the repairs, no issues there and both parties happy.
Mr Smith stated he would be happy to keep the vehicle if he could drive in and out of the Nissan dealership so that he knew they had carried out the work. We offered to repair the vehicle with a used part which we checked was acceptable with trading standards. Nissan Trowbridge also stated that this would be fine and the ABS issue was a common problem on the Navara's. In fact when looking for the spare part, most breakers told us that it was always the first part that sold from vehicles they took in which indicates a common issue.
Mr Smith did not want this so we offered a full refund of the purchase price along with 12 months tax paid for and a return of their Mini. Again this was not satisfactory as he had paid for a new spare key, rewiring of the snugtop (not an original feature of the vehicle), diagnostics and travel expenses, all of which he expected us to pay for.
I stated that I was surprised he had all of this done in the knowledge there was an issue with the car and that we would not be liable for this as they represented costs that we should not incur. At the time I checked this with Trading Standards and again, they stated we had done everything right. In fact they told us we were under no obligation to take the vehicle back as work had been carried out that was seperate from the original issue. However, we are a small family run business and we would never put someone in that position.
To resolve the issue we offered to pay for the spare key and diagnositics work so that he had some contribution. It is important to note that if the car had been returned to us for warranty work, Mr Smith would have been given the option of a courtesy car whilst his vehicle was being repaired and would not have incurred addiotional travel expenses. His comment about the warranty is true, however, he fails to mention that we stated we pay for anything over the £500 cap. The warranty was an RAC issued warranty and helps us to manage our costs if problems arise. We are no different from any other trader in offering this facility.
We finally settled on this resolution and Mr Smith was to bring the car back to us on Sat 30th July and swap the vehicles over with our mecahnic Dan. We could not deliver the Mini back as it had no MOT and we didnt feel we should have to put an MOT on if we werent keeping the car. Dan received a phone call on Saturday demanding we take the Mini to Mr Smith as the battery was dead and he didnt want to be inconvenienced any more. Well, this was out of our hands especially as my father was on holiday and Dan was the only one who could do this. We did not want Dan driving the car without MOT (and we had e-mailed Mr Smith to advise him to book the car in for the same day so that, if stopped, it was at his own risk but the car was at least booked in). Dan had to borrow a low loader to collect the vheicle at cost to himself and take his father to recover the vehicle.
The issue of a legal document was to cover our own backs as we felt there was a lot of bad feeling from Mr Smith and we were advised to do so as we had reached a satisfactory resolution. The document did not state any more or any less than we had already agreed via e-mail. As far as we are concerned we leave this with no bad feeling to Mr Smith, we can understand his frustrations but we have always acted reposnibly and in adherence with our legal obligations. Vehicles going wrong can and do happen, we try to fix them as best we can when they do go wrong.
If anyone would like to speak to me about this feel free to contact us.
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Buyanewcaronline's Response to scallywag3's Review
Written on: 08/04/2015
Hi, we are sorry we couldn't conclude this deal. In this instance we were let down by the supplying dealer, but as the review states, as soon as we realised this we refunded the deposit promptly. Sometimes mistakes happen, as they do with any company, but we always act in the appropriate way. If anyone wants to speak to us regarding this specific deal please just call and ask.