AvailableCar Review
Website: https://www.availablecar.com
Phone: 0800 804 6568
Address:
Station Road
Castle Donington
DE74 2NL
ABOUT COMPANY:
A family business of over 20 years
At AvailableCar, we are a family owned and operated business established for 20 years. Our family values are at the heart of our business, and since opening our first Store in 2002 in Castle Donington, our family business has grown to become one of England’s largest and most successful used car retailers.
Our unique approach, offering our Customers a hassle-free and relaxing but friendly and helpful car buying experience, and our wonderful Staff, have earned us our incredible reputation for outstanding customer service, and over 250,000 satisfied Customers to date.
6 reviews to “AvailableCar Review”
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Purchased our car 18mths ago from available car for £12,000.The multi point check is a joke as on delivery a friend of mine who is a mechanic noticed the brake pads and discs were illegal !!Had to threaten legal action before they were interested in changing them.Made a big mistake by giving them a second chance.Have been in this week to look at changing our car and was offered £5,000 for a car they charged me £12,000 for 18 mths ago.When i pointed out that they were selling the same car,same year,spec etc but with 5,000 more miles on the clock for £9,499 the salesman went back to the valuer who then came back i said £5,000 was the price take it or leave it.When i pointed out that they were making just under 100% profit they disagreed saying they only make aprox £800 on each car, even though i was looking at the same car on the forecourt for £9,499 (Not the brightest!!)Would never go back or recommend,worst customer service ever come across and no faith in standard of the cars
We didnt buy a car from availablecar,the reason being we found on thier web site an Audi A6 2.7tdi Lemans 2008 with 59000 miles. The pictures on the web page looked great,the car looked in good order. We phoned to arrange a test drive the next day. We asked the sales man on the phone if the car was in good condition as we were driving up from Bristol, Great condition he told us. When we arived we were taken to the car, i looked round to check panels,wheels,tyres and interior. Three of the 19″ alloys were heavily damaged due to curbing. Rear tyre had 3″ gash on the side wall. There were 9 deep scraches and three small dents in body work. The drivers seat had damage to seat that would require specialist treatment. The pictures on the web site did not show any of these defects. the alloy wheel in the picture was the only good wheel on the car. I used to work in a body shop and roughly priced the repair work required to get car up to standard,£80 each for wheels, £150 for seat reair, £180 for new tyre and up to £300 for body repairs. I spoke to my wife and agreed if they would knock off £300 from the £14499 asking price we would buy it cash. They would not budge on the price at all and the idiot sales man tried to tell me to expect this kind of wear in a car of that millage and age. I did not and will not ever buy a car from this company. I bought an emaculate Audi A6 2.7tdi Lemans Quattro Multitronic with 59899 miles which is higher specced for £15000 at carbase they dropped from £15999 for cash sale and no repairs to worry about.
i to had a bad time with available car castle. when i looked at the car i noticed some bts wrong… paint chips, top cover missing from engine and the headlight was out of line with the body! i was told this would be done for collection! “NO”… i also asked if it had been in any accidents or used as a driving school car for lessons as an ex instructor i no these cars get a beating!! on both counts i was told no!
i arrived to collect and nothing had been done. the car was taken to the “workshop” for the bits to be done,
when it returned the paint chips were gone… thats it!!
i was told thats the best they could get the headlight and it depends what garage they come out of if they have a engiine cover or not…
i decided in the end to take the car with a full mot on the friday, on the saturday i was out driving and heard a banging sound when turning,
i rang the aftersales and was told to ring back monday as they had gone home this i did and was told “i can book you in a week today”!!!
not good enough when my two kids travel in the car so i pushed and got in on the tuesday were i was told they don’t know what it is but it’s not dangerous… i noticed on the paperwork he had that for the mot it had a n/s/f suspension arm… bit odd for a 06 plate i thought…
i booked the car in for the thursday and collected a courtesy car fully loaded with there stickers… they came off with the hairdryer!!
i picked the car up a week later and they told me both shocker top mountings on the front had been replaced and this was the cause of the noise… again 06 plate with 45000 miles… i’m not a fully skilled mechanic but it just don’t add up to me!! then i found out it was owned by a company that lease cars to driving schools i rang them as i had a car from them when i started instructing an they told me it was sold at auction with accident damage to the front…!! i feel my pants have been pulled… NO “RIPPED” from my backside!! i would never reccomend them and couldn’t say enough “AVOID BUYING FROM AVAILABLECAR.COM there are many other car supermarkets out there that offer more and tell the truth!!
Despite the accolades from the press the availablecar.com business seems to receive, so far my experiences of dealing with them, has been less than positive.
I was a genuine buyer looking to buy a car in the popular £5000- £7500 price range. I was interested in two cars within this price range and submitted an enquiry via their website asking to be contacted. However, nobody rang me, so I decided to drop in on my way home. I had already done some research on the internet prior to my visit on which cars I wanted to look at and what my car was worth in part ex or trade value using the parkers.co.uk, whatcar.com and wisebuyers.co.uk valuation sites, and printed off the information I needed.
I arrived on site and was warmly greeted with a smile by two ladies at the ‘reception desk ‘who handed me a booklet with all of their cars listed. After a short walk around the pitch, I located the two cars I was looking for and after giving them a look over to see if the cars where in suitable condition etc. I returned to the reception desk to book a test drive. Unfortunately it was at this point where my experience began to deteriorate.
I was asked to take a seat, allocated a number and was shown the coffee machine which costs 25p a cup (I don’t think so) but was not shown the free water machine (I found this later on). After a wait of 15-20 minutes where people who had sat down after me had been greeted and led away to a desk by their ‘sales person ‘I was eventually found by a member of staff, who apologized for the delay and blamed reception for not informing him of my interest. I had seen the reception area call him some time previously and he stank of cigarettes so it doesn’t take a genius to work out where he had been instead of dealing with customers.
I asked why nobody had contacted me as I had asked to be called. After a bit of looking around on their system after initially denying they had a request from me, my enquiry was found and the ‘white ‘team that had been allocated my enquiry had not called. The member of staff told me he was from the ‘black’ team so he would take over my interest. I then gave the member of staff the registration numbers of the two vehicles I was interested in. After tapping this information in their system, he then recited the information from the computer screen to me very quickly. When I asked a couple of questions regarding the documentation and servicing that was available or would be completed on the car I received a company line ‘script ‘response about ‘dealership standards servicing ‘if it needed doing… I was then spoken to about the interest free extended warranty and how much that would cost a month on top (even though I had yet to discuss finance or payment or actually driven a car at this stage). We then moved to the subject of my part exchange vehicle, the member of staff asked me lots of questions very quickly about the car, and we went outside to my vehicle whilst he looked around it. This took another ten minutes. I was asked to leave my keys with him so the ‘valuer ‘ (I am dubious if such a person actually exists) could look it over and get a price. So why did we just waste ten minutes going over it if somebody else was going to repeat the exercise?
Still dealing with my part ex, we came to the issue of car tax. I had taxed my vehicle only 4 days previously for then next 6 months at a cost of almost £100. The member of staff implied that it was against ‘the rules ‘that had co-incidentally only been changed two weeks ago (yeah right) for me to remove the tax disk and that I had to leave the tax on the car because it was illegal to put a vehicle out to the trade without it. I questioned this so called rule as it was news to me (and I have bought enough second hand motors over the years) I was then told in a cold and impersonal manner that if I took the tax off that I would have a further £100 deducted from my part ex value (come again!). Still reeling from this insult before my car I had actually been valued (never noticed parkers.co.uk having a taxed or non taxed vehicle value!) I then had to wait a further 15 minutes whilst Simon fetched the first car of interest. Eventually after he obtained some trade plates the car was ready for me to drive. The car had admittedly not finished its full preparation cycle (and the valet is the last thing to be done apparently) but it absolutely stank of cigarettes. The member of staff ‘ s response was that he was a smoker (no kidding) and he couldn’t smell it. His next response was to turn up the air conditioning and set it to recycle which only increased the stench. The test route was a quarter of a mile route around the block which in my view is not enough time to get used to a car at all. I asked for a longer route but was told they are not insured for longer routes.
After arriving back at their site, whilst parking it when the member of staff engaged reverse, a bleeping noise sounded from the car. I asked it if had parking sensors, the member of staff joked (I think) that he could reverse into another car to see if it did or not, and it didn ‘ t matter if he hit the other car as their excess would cover it! Once the car was parked, I was left to look over the car in a bay nearby to their office area, and had a good look over it. Bearing in mind the car had according to the member of staff just been serviced to ‘dealership standards ‘the oil level was below the maximum mark and the air filter was filthy and black with road grime and needed replacing. The second test drive came and went with the same waiting time for the car to arrive and the same short route offered, and was again left to look around both cars until I was ready to go back in and speak to the member of staff .
After a few minutes of looking over the cars having pretty much decided to go for one of them, so I returned the office area and sat down where I noticed the member of staff had the clip board on his desk with my car keys and valuation notes on it. According to my research using the three previously mentioned valuation websites my part ex value should be some where between £1975 and £2453 and the trade value between £2060 and £2295. I was offered a blunt and insulting £1300 with no explanation other than the ‘valuer’ had got this figure from the CAP trade guide and the offer was fixed and non negotiable. (I should point out that my car was spot on mileage for the year of car and had a full service history and only two private owners with straight metallic paint bodywork and a mint interior.
Obviously slightly offended by the low offer I produced my information printed from the three websites I had used and said I would accept the lowest website valuation of £1950 for the car and I would sign the deal right there and then. However the member of staff was totally disinterested claiming he had not heard of any of the sites is used and they only use CAP and repeated the statement that the offer was fixed and non negotiable and then added neither was the screen price of the car or the APR of 11.9% (their advert states 10.9%). I asked to speak to the ‘valuer ‘and was told this wasn’t possible.
Needless to say communication broke down very quickly and the member of staff probably in rush for his next cigarette break, was quick to hold out his hand with the statement ‘ thank you for trying us’. He was lucky he didn ‘ t receive a swift left hook. Two hours of my time wasted with under pre-prepared cars, a passionless ‘Salesman ‘who seemed to be devoid of motivation and minimal effort made to please the customer in so many ways. the member of staff seemed keen to point out to me on more than one occasion when discussing my potential purchase if the subject was a bit tricky for him, that he wasn’t a salesman, well in that case can I speak to one please?
I am sure there are some who have been happy with their service or vehicle purchased from them, but my own conclusion with Availablecar.com based upon my own experience, is the deal you get is ok if you are an inexperienced buyer, have no part exchange and you want their rate of APR finance for the full term. Other than this you will struggle to get genuine value or service or interest from the staff at availablecar.com.
Available Car – First of all, the new all singing and all dance website is dam slow!!, then going onto the test drive it was like having J.Clarkson sitting next door to me (yes he even tried to do the deep voice) then as soon as we back at the office he left to chat up the girl on the reception lol. Then i asked a few questions about the finance and the guy just didn’t have a clue (just looked at me very goorm-less throughout) and they keep on saying its 6% when really its more like 13%, must say though, the car is good and got a very good price for it about the only thing i was happy with. Got a good part exchange price too, considering the car was being held together by string etc, even parked it right up against the wall so they couldn’t see the dripping water pump LOL. one last thing, would they please allow a small amount of cash to be paid on the day (like the tax), caused so much trouble!!!! overall 2 stars
All in all a good experience to me, a new way of buying a used motor, I know part ex is abit low, but I do not use any printed CAP or Parkers guide, just go onto eBay and look for you ‘ re make and model car that IS SELLING not the advertised price but the true second hand market price which is the selling price (they are not going to give you more than they can buy one on EBay for). On my Part chop I was offered £1300 against a £15000 1 year old car, I negotiated another £100 by asking for £1500, you guessed it they met me in the middle, the tax on my old motor runs out in a month, but NO WAY would they get a 6 or 12 month road tax from me for NOTHING. If the car was going in P/X the tax if worth anything SHOULD NOT be part of the valuation. If so WHY did I have to pay for my road tax on the new car?
Extra warranty did not apply to my new car as two years manufacturers warranty still left to run,
Finance at 10.9%? Why have their finance, if you have good to excellent credit rating why limit yourself to high interest rates, I got mine at 7.2 and saved £1800 in charges, even in this Credit crunch we are going through.
So to sum it up, YES buy from them, LOOK at the part exchange price against what you ‘ re motor is fetching on eBay mine was £1500 to £1800 on eBay and got £1400, shop around for you ‘ re own finance.
Go to a dealer and test drive their car then return to Available Car to buy and save on a main dealer price.
Also check the site at Sutton in Ashfield they may have a better offer.