HI, I was in the area so I thought I'd have a look in 'carland' thurrock. Loads of realy shiny fairly new motors in a comfy indoor arena but the prices seemed to be ridiculously high! A year old megane 1.6 cabriolet £18000, 2 year old megane cc for £16000, 3 year old mx5 at £13000 without alloys, and the car I had with me was only worth £800 in px, although I was offered £2000 straight cash for it earlier that day even without buying a new car! No wonder the place was empty!
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They wanted 7 grand for a tatty mk2 Mondeo I could have picked up for £2500 tops a couple of years ago.
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I went there several years ago; never again!
I only went to look at their cars but, when I arrived I was grabbed by one of their high pressure salesmen. However, he didn't especially want to sell me a car, he was much more interested in selling me finance!
I was just about to walk out and he then suddenly decided to remove the rope barrier and allow me the look around that I had originally wanted.
I may as well not bothered.
All the cars I saw had fairly high mileages, were incredibly expensive for what they were, and quite a few of them were actually in pretty poor condition bodywork wise.
As I say, I would never ever go there again and I would never recommend that anyone else does, either.
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The Carland sites have been taken over by Carcraft. So, whilst the quality of the vehicles may improve, the prices certainly won't!
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Similar experience to Galaxy - they do not want you to look around on your own.
Also don't they limit the test drive to up and down the site at low speed?
Would not go back!
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They sell cars to people with eyes bigger than there wallets in fact they sell money with a free car,if you work it out a punter will pay double the real price at the end.
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Exactly my experience too. Last year my son and I went there to look for a used Zafira. Shiny, glass and metal showrooms, all the staff in a dark suit and finance offers everywhere. Sit down gents, have a coffee, are you buying today? All so utterly predicatable as were the hugely inflated prices and the stupid trade in offered on my son's Clio. I calculated that an £6.5k Zafira on their finance with their trade in offer on the Clio would have cost my son nearly £4k more than he ended up paying "to change".
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Recently went to the Carshop in Northants - similar tale, if you're not buying today they're not interested. So you tell them you're interested and break it gently when you've hadt a look at what you wanted to.....strange but necessary. Neighbour has bought from them and it was far from simple getting problems sorted out.
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I too have been to Carshop Northants.
Would never go there again though, Also knew someone who worked there for less then 2 months, glad I never bought anything from them.
Parents also looked round there January this year, They where asking silly money for low spec high mileage Mondeo's when Ford main dealers in the area where undercutting them for year old lower mileage & higher spec cars in the Ford direct scheme.
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The one in Manchester closed recently - any surprise?. It is about to become a Vauxhall dealer. I went there once. A boring range of cars which were highly priced and poor part exchange offers.
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I went there. The one near Northampton, and they were very keen on telling me that I could borrow money to buy a car and pay less in interest that I was receiving in interest from a bank. They must have thought that because I had postman's uniform on, that I don't understand arithmetic. I do, though. and I didn't buy a car from them.
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These places are basically loaning money at high interest and the car is almost incidental to their business.
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The high pressure selling technique didn't work when my parents looked round there, silly finance rates & over the top prices where enough to put them off in less then 10 minutes.
Local Ford main dealer, totally different world, much better & larger range of approved used stock, nothing high pressure or silly there, how car buying should be & that's why they got the sale.
A lot of people knock main dealers but they can be a much better place to buy from then car supermarkets.
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Walked around the one in Enfield a couple of times, while awaiting 'provisional sales' at BCA , almost next door.
Experience similar to above, but very polite girl on reception & was more than professional - unlike the ex double glazing salesmen in the showroom!!
Place IS GOOD for looking at vehicles, in a warmer/drier enviroment & OK if the customers have kiddies with them, also the vehicles are somewhat better than the now done away with YES! Car Credit - althogh similar scary finance deals.
so there's some good ponts almost, for them!
Other than that, hope anyone going there, gets chance to visit the auction centre, too - see how much they can save, if they sort their own finance!!
Saying that, I can quite easily see why inexperienced car owners/buyers will still be tempted - if it's an 'easy' £ amount per month, then they will be swayed!!
VB
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The one in Glasgow is no longer. I think they got sussed out . . . . . . . . . thankfully
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Went to the one at Cannock. Apart from a relatively limited selection the desperation of the sales staff who started examining the car we'd brought with us, before we'd even discussed purchasing one off them (which we didn't) was appalling. anyone nearby would do best to go up the road to Motorhouse.
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