Evans Halshaw, St Albans, Hertfordshire

I had my car serviced last Monday but yesterday I noticed that my lockable dust caps were removed and normal ones put in their place. I rang the dealership and spoke to the rude guy in services, he didnt give two hoots about and then funnily enough the guy that carried out the service was off sick today, likely story. But I know his name so Ill keep phoning. They cost me £15 and I want them back.

SHAMBOLIC CUSTOMER SERVICE

Seriously disappointed with the customer service received at Evans Halshaw in St Albans

I have owned 4 Vauxhall’s the last three bought from CD Bramwell (excellent customer service)separated by a ford Mondeo(bought from new in EH's ford dealership next door, excellent customer service. didn’t breakdown in 8 years)I bought the ford out of frustration over EH Vauxhall’s customer service. I thought 8 years they must have changed. I was wrong! my latest car is a Vauxhall Insignia sport tourer (top end a £35k car) is 6months old bought from new. In the last month it’s been in Evans Halshaws (EHs)workshop for 6 days in all all to fix the following issues

•2 recalls (carried out on 1st visit)

•1 engine management issue (still not resolved after 6 days of investigation)

•Replacement of a side skirt that started to fall off (unsure if this is resolved as no one has told me)

During this time I have not received a single phone call, email or text informing me what was happening.

Bering in mind that my car went in tuesday morning to have only the side skirt replaced (apparently a 2 hour job)

It was only the fact that I called EH tuesday at 16:30 to ask what was happening that I was told the car wasn’t ready as they have it on a ramp fixing the engine (a job that I was told that morning couldn’t happen until the following week or so, due to parts not being available) and the car wasn’t fit to drive so it needed to stay in.

on Wednesday Having not received a call I rang at 16:00 again I was told the car was still not fixed and not drivable.

I have asked each time for a curtesy car (not unreasonable barring mind its brand new and issues are no fault of mine) and all I get is fobbed off “we’ll call you back”

My issue is, baring in mind I use the car for work, it’s brand new, I live in a village no we’re near the dealership and I have had to cancel meetings, obligations & evenings out at short notice numerous times now

•it's not unreasonable to receive a phone call from the dealership in good time telling an owner that there was a delay, allowing them time to make arrangements (ie how they are going to get home from work)Why should I have to do all the leg work,

•it's not unreasonable to provide a curtesy or hire car when it is clear that you have no idea what the fault is or how to fix it

With this in mind I wrote and asked on their Facebook and twitter feed the above summery and the below questions

A. how are you going to fix your processes to ensure this doesn’t happen again

B. how are you going to compensate me for the disruption and inconvenience caused not only to me but to friends and work mates who have had to ferry me about

this morning I recived a facebook message direct (privet)from there presumably head office. standard off the shelf answer apologising and promising to investigate blah, blah, blah. so I said great when can I expect this

response

"Within 48hrs"

what a joke, what am I supposed to de in the meantime.

They couldn't run a bath!!

last time I buy a car from them! I may even send this one back!

oh and by the way they hide your comments away from the main post stream so don't be fooled into thinking its all good and smelling of roses, there's far more bad reviews than good you just need to dig for it

wouldn't touch them with a barge pole

Our experience of the St Albans dealership was absolutely shocking. They did not deliver the service expected and they tried to keep money that was rightfully ours. They promised to do things which they didn't, the staff do not respond to e-mails or phone calls and use underhand tactics to extort money from people. DO NOT USE.

Booked and appointment, when I got there nobody greeted or asked me who or what I wanted. Sat there for an hour before I lost the plot. After finally agreeing a sale price for my car I now have the finance company still saying I own the car after leaving it with Evans Halsham. Called them and they can't find paperwork or the fact I paid them £4500 to close the finance off. I'm fuming now I have to go back to them and show them their receipt they gave to me. Worst service ever

Booked ahead to test drive two cars. When we arrived they had no record of the booking or our details. Took ages taking details, licences etc. Of the two cars we had asked to test drive one had no fuel and the other the keys were lost! Over an hour after arrival the keys to one were eventually found and we had a brief test drive. Asked the salesman one question, the engine size and he didn't know! Gave up on the second car. What a shower. Don't waste your time with them.

I dealt directly with the sales manager (MB) great bloke. We had a laugh and he did me a fantastic deal. The car was ready to collect on time and I even had a call afterwards. I'll be back for more.

After looking through their brochure thoroughly, I attended the Evans Halshaw Vauxhall Dealership in St Albans via appointment to see one of the salesmen. We initially sat down and I told him exactly what car I wanted and asked him to find me the price. He found the price and we then went through the car in detail. I asked him to print me the quote, but he told me that the printer was broken, which I knew at the time was a lie as he didn't want me to go elsewhere in case the quote got beaten. After this he proceeded to try and sell me, in every way he possibly could, a completely different car than the one I wanted. When this didn't work he tried to load on extras like wheel protection at £300 a year and dent protection at around the same price. When this didn't work he proceeded to tell me that I could get up to £1000 discount if I could show that I had links to a Vauxhall associate partner (i.e. being a member of unite union etc.) hoping that I would be stupid enough to sign the hire purchase agreement without confirming this first.

As it happened I had a family member with a lifetime membership of the magistrates association and when I informed him of this, his face dropped as he knew he had been caught out and he might lose £1,000 off of the sale. To attempt to counter his mistake he pretended to phone head office in front of me and then lied to me by telling me as it wasn't an immediate family member I couldn't get it. Anyway I eventually had enough of listening to his lies and trying to load all of these useless and expensive extras on by saying "oh go on, its only 300 quid, whats that over 12 months?" that I complained to his manager. Let me be clear that all the way throughout this I knew EXACTLY what was going on as I have been a salesman and know all of the dodgy tactics. I was just bored of it and I used my complaint to his manager, as well as bringing my magistrate grandmother in, to get the car I wanted at the price I wanted with the £1000 discount. I ended up getting £2,500 off the list price...... I won.

Anyway, the day came and the car got delivered to the garage, I came in and paid the other £4,500 of my £5,000 deposit and took the car away. Happy days! Although I thought.....

After about a 5 days of owning the car I went to adjust the driver’s interior mirror and it popped out of its socket. I thought that this simply must have been a mistake that they didn't fix it on properly when building the car and rung up the dealership who advised me to bring it in for repair. This is where the problems begin. One of the mechanics came out to look at it and in attempting to force the mirror back on to its socket, cracked the wind shield. When informing him he had just cracked the wind shield he flatly denied it and said that it was there before. When informing him the car was only 5 days old he still denied it. So I asked him to get his manager who also attempted to deny it until I told him I would raise a formal complaint. He then offered to repair it free of charge.

About two months into owning the car I noticed that the Stop-Start function had slowly, over a period of about a month, stopped working until it didn't work at all. I again phoned up the garage and they advised me to bring it in for tests. I did this and before the testing a mechanic came out with me for a drive for me to show him what the problem was. He told me that it was "odd" that the stop-start wasn't functioning. Back in the garage and the tests came back with nothing wrong. The lady at the desk told me that there was nothing they could do as the tests came back with nothing wrong, so I asked for the manager again, who came out and also said there was nothing they could do as the tests came back all clear. Basically made me out to be a liar!!!!

I had enough and decided to go home. At home I asked my grandmother (ex magistrate) for advice and constructed an email to the manager quoting, in great detail, the sale of goods act 1979 and giving him 7 days to respond or we start issuing court proceedings. He responded and offered for me to drop the car off at the weekend and he would provide a courtesy car whilst they looked at my car. I dropped it off and the guy on the service desk offered to take it home over the weekend as a runabout to see if the problem was replicated, to which I agreed. I went to pick it up on the Sunday and the guy on the service desk agreed with me 100% that the stop-start wasn't functioning as it should and said that they had replaced the battery.

This worked and I thought the problem was over, but now, exactly 1 year later (I bought the car 3/05/2015) the problem, it appears, is back. I am so stressed about having to go through all of this again with them. I really wish I had never bothered stepping foot in that garage. I won’t go into detail surrounding the recent 1 year service I had done at their garage, but to put it bluntly I am going to pay the extra 50 quid and travel 5 more miles to get it serviced elsewhere next time.

Summary:

The people that work for this garage are utterly incompetent. They seem to want to do all they can for you, treat you like royalty offering you tea and snacks until you part with your hard-earned cash, then it seems they simply could not care less. They have an appalling after-care service, they refuse to fix anything that goes wrong with the car (even though it has a three year warranty) until you demand it, or send threatening legal messages to the manager.

If you’re thinking about going in there t buy a car because the 0% finance is attractive, I wouldn't bother at all unless you want mountains of stress and to deal with a bunch of clowns.

It’s not that Vauxhall are a bad company, it’s these clowns at the Evans Halshaw Franchise who are damaging the image of the Vauxhall brand. A copy of this is going to the CEO.

I saw a car I liked but it was up in Grantham. Evans Halshaw drove it down to St Albans for me. It was a fab car in perfect condition and reasonably priced. Buying the car was so easy, the staff were really helpful and friendly. I've been looking for a car for a while, and encountered some truly laughable service along the way. This was a refreshing change.

Drove from Suffolk to St Albans today to look at a couple of cars seen on the website. Salesman was uninterested and not forthcoming in talking through our needs or indeed searching any database to help our search. He did get a car out from round the back of the garage for us to look, but totally unhelpful in all other areas of looking for a car that you would hope for in a dealership.

We left the garage with the certain knowledge that we would never spend a penny there if that was representation of the service offered. I am sure the management would be interested to hear this feedback, but then again, maybe not.

We took our car for service last Saturday, 10/10/15. We were there extremely early; the showroom was not opened yet but surprisingly, there were already 2 staff members in the car service dept. The Manager kindly opened the door for us to let us in - really welcoming. Then, the other staff called Delano, booked our car in and sorted out the paperwork ready for our car service and MOT. When everything was done, we were texted to collect the car. Such Good service from the Service department - THANKS TO MANAGER AND STAFF. Can't comment on the showroom staff though as we have no dealings with them.