Strood Motor Company, Strood, Kent

We bought a car from Strood, desperate as we were moving from Germany to UK my wife flew to fetch a car that claimed to have airxon (in the advertisement description) and then they had the cheek to charge their standard £600 servicing fee for the vehicle. A day after getting the car we get a flat Tyre, head to a repair place and get told the tires are shot, four brand new tires later we get told the brake pads are also shot, so £7000+ for a car we had to replace tires and brakes a few days later on....would never recommend my worst enemy to these clowns.

My bro and I drove 80 miles to buy a car advertised on Autotrader.

Should not have bothered,they tried to sell us a 'car package'..it had 800 miles more than advertised,and the sales guy we spoke to had 0 charisma and wouldn't even entertain any price bargaining/discussion.

Messy cramped car lot with unprofessional sales people,trying to sell mis advertised dodgy heaps of junk.

Avoid like the plague

Firstly, if I could have selected the option for zero stars I would have, please read, this is factual and not a rant. Went there with my partners daughter to look at potentially buying a car. It was a Grey Ford Fiesta 2014 with 38,000 miles MJ64 EKH.

When we asked anything about that car the person I dealt with didn't know the answers, such as how many owners, last serviced etc which was odd. I asked if it had had any paint or repairs as I’d already detected it had as nearside rear door had been painted and the rear bumper didn’t align properly and no direct answer was given. In fact at no time did he really try to sell us the car, what he was most interested in was selling the so called 'Care Package'.

The care package consisted of replacing a boot floor/carpet and a dash vent that were missing, a service but no detail as to what the service Included and an MOT which the car currently didn't have.

We made him aware on several occasions we would not be interested in the care package at all, but he still insisted throughout our conversation that he would continue go sell the virtues of it. At no point did he try to sell us the car, no mention of any features, advantages or benefits of the product we wanted to buy, just of the "Care Package" we said we would want to buy the car but needed to make a few calls to allow my partners daughter to source some extra funds in order to achieve the asking price of £6475, so we said to him, we're popping for a coffee down the road while this happened. He then said he could sell us the care without the care package but we would have to fill in a disclaimer, with that he produced a large sheet with loads of scary small print, to which I said was absolutely fine and we left.

20 mins later, he asked boldly, “so what do you think" we replied we’ve got the cash and would like to buy the car, he looked delighted until we then said without the care package! He then said his colleague has got someone on the phone right now coming to see the car which is really awkward. I said why is it awkward, just call them and tell them its sold, he then went in to say about he can’t have battles with other salesmen, to which I said that was not my concern I was there to buy the car. He then said it’s just not fair to waste the other customers time in coming to see it, but he failed to realise he’d just wasted our entire time, speaking to him on the phone the day before, driving all the way there to view the car and test driving, then spending time on the phone arranging the funds to buy the car. He was talking utter BS! My partner called his bluff at this point and said, so what if we'll take the car and with the care package, of which having a very awkward look on his face he said no, how would we like being messed about. if he had agreed to that it would have proven him a liar, my partners daughter was so noticeably upset and in tears which he totally ignored. He said look, let me help you out, as soon as this other guy has seen the car I will call you back.

He called 2 hours later to say the other viewer wanted to buy the car, but he needed to trade-in a car but SMC wasn’t interested in his car. So the good news my partners daughter could buy the car, but she had to buy the care package and if she didn’t he would not sell her the car. Not only that but he gave her 1 hour to respond with her decision.

So I will leave it up to you good people to make your own minds up, but I will strongly urge you to read all the reviews available on the interwebs, then you’ll find out what we did and that there are far more skeletons in Strood Motor Centres closet than meets the friendly salesmen’s eye!!!

I’m not telling you not to buy from them, I’m just sharpening your senses before you go to view and potentially buy a car from them, so you know what to expect.

I have just got back from visiting Strood Motor Company after seeing a vehicle on Autotrader I was interested in. Once I looked around the car I was then told I would need to pay an extra £150 for the warranty then another £300 for the care package. He said that he will not sell the car to me unless I pay these extra costs because he did not want to the garage to have a bad name if anything goes wrong with the car. Absolutely ridiculous. I do not recommend this garage at all stay clear!!

Buy a car here at your peril!

As previous reviews state, they add the warranty cost onto the advertised price and then also insist that you sign to agree to take your car back for it's 6 month service. I (maybe stupidly) thought this was part of the sale deal but they charged me another £50 for the pleasure!

If you DO decide to buy from them, keep your fingers crossed that nothing goes wrong with your car! The year's warranty holds no weight at all and they will do anything they can to get out of fixing the problem. I have 7 weeks left of the warranty and I'm STILL waiting for the faulty gear box on my car to be fixed after 3 visits over the past few months. They claim to find no fault and said it needed to go to a Fiat specialist. After being told that the Fiat mechanic wasn't returning their calls I called him myself and got my car booked in for the same week. Funny that!!! I had explained the problem with the car to him and that it was still covered by the warranty. He asked that I left the copy of my warranty in the glove compartment for him. Strood Motor Co did actually take my car there for me and I have now been told that they had removed the warranty and told the mechanic that he didn't need to see it until he had found any faults.

As it stands today I am driving around in a dog hair covered "courtesy" car waiting to get my own car back.

Strood Motor Company staff are rude, sarcastic and talk down to you with a laugh in their voice! And speaking to the boss doesn't help as he is as rude as the rest of them!

I wish that I had read the reviews on here before I bought my car and would now like to warn others of them. Avoid at all costs!!!

Just been to Strood Motor company! Horrendous experience!! The price you see on the website isn't the price!! They make you buy the £300 care package and £150 admin fee! They can't explain what they even are and won't let you buy without! We have driven two hours up here to look at a car that isn't the price we thought it was! Went through the finance for the car and with all my name, bank details etc and then he just got his calculator out to work out if I could get the finance!

Everything about the place felt dodgy!! We knew something wasn't right and as we were leaving he said well I've got your details now so we can keep in touch! I didn't want to leave all my personal information there with bank details etc. When I asked for the sheet with all my details on the take away he wasn't friendly at all!

Avoid!!

They include two additional charges which are not declared anywhere on their website. There is a £150 admin charge and it is not clear exactly what this is for. Then there is a £300 care package. It is not clear whether the care package is optional or not, but it certainly appears that without the care package you will be left with no warranty.

I purchased a BMW 1 series over a 18 months ago now from this company, wish i had not. Nothing but issues after the 12 months, you name it it has been replaced on the car, now the car has completely packed up, turbo gone, engine now needs a recon, not very good at all. I would not recommend buying a car from Strood Motor Company, bad service and you are also forced to spend £500 on a warrenty and service pack which is useless.

TAKE MY ADVICE, STAY WELL CLEAR...

I have just got back from visiting Strood Motor Company after seeing a vehicle on Autotrader I was interested in. Once I looked around the car I was then told I would need to pay an extra £150 for some costs but couldn't explain what they were plus £300 for warranty etc, after saying I would just take the car without the warranty, I was then told we only like selling cars are way, he come back to me with £150 for costs plus £150 for 6 months warranty. When I said once again I didn't want the warranty he didn't want to sell me the car and questioned if I could afford the car, to which I left.

I planned my Saturday to go and view one of there very reasonable priced cars.

The Friday before I thought I will just check the Garage out before I drive over hundred miles .

Thankyou everybody who has left a review about this garage because there is no way I would buy a car from this garage with there attitude to customers and after sales.

So many reviews cannot be wrong.