Fords Of Winsford, Cheshire www.fow.co.uk

Where to begin, if Fords didnt have the exact colour and spec of car I wanted I would of walked many times

I made an appt to view a car and trade in my car, I gave all details and within the week leading up to the viewing 4 people from FoW called to confirm our appt. One gave a valuation for my vehcile which I was happy with.

On the day we turned up our appt was "not on the system", he had gotten a babysitter and driven 2 hours for an appt that had been confirmed at a minimum 4 times.

We were then sat down with a woman after almost an hour of waiting. She clearly had no interest in discussing the car with us, several times while trying to get information she got up and walked away from us to talk to another customer in the waiting area without so much as an excuse me, she offered no info about the car or paperwork to see and stated "you have obviously checked the listing online and all of the info is there". She then went to check my vehcile and came back with a valuation almost £2000 less than what I had been given over the phone, when I mentioned this she said there was no log of that valuation in the system and refused to talk to the man who had given me this valuation.

Over the next week or so after dealing with another member of the FoW team I decided to purchase the vehicle. In the week following me buying the vehcile fords called to tell me the tyres needed changing, I didnt forsee this as a problem but asked several times if the new tyres would match the performance tyres on the vehcile, eventually I was informed 3 budget tyres had been fitted to a £30,000 car so i cancelled the purchase.

A manager then contacted me and agreed that a "prestige" vehicle should not be given with budget tyres and assured me that brand new performance tyres would be fitted to the vehicle so the purchase was back on. everything went smoothly until we collected the car.

We soon discovered that the rear tyres were not new as he had told us, they were clearly used and sun bleached like they had been sat out for a long time. Pictures were sent to fords to have this rectified, it was then that a "manager" wrote in an email "those tyres are brand new, they clearly have 5-6mm of tread" (new tyres have 8mm of tread).

The big issue is that after a few weeks of owning the car we discovered it was modified, nothing on the autotrader or fords website mentioned the mods. I stopped using the vehicle immediatly and contacted fords, I had to chase them up alot for any response and kept getting passed between members of staff, i had the vehicle inspected by a local manufacturer garage (FoW offered to pay for this and have yet to despite me sending a receipt) and they confirmed the mods and how they were negatively impacting the vehcile, evidence of this was forwarded to Fow. We then discovered a folded receipt in with the service paperwork for the mods, FoW knew the vehicle was modified and did not advertise it. That paperwork was not given to us until after we had purchased the car.

Its been 2 months, i still have not actually received a response regarding the unadvertised mods to the vehcile, not so much as an apology. FoW will not comment on the tyres other than claiming they are brand new. I constantly have to chase FoW for a reply to emails and have been informed today that my case is being passed to yet another "manager" still with no resolution.

I would certainly never deal with FoW again, the reputation they once had seems like it is now being milked. It looks like I will have to take legal action to even have FoW take this serioulsly. Fortunatley I took copies of all adverts and will be sending these to trading standards and the motoring ombudsman.

Bought leaf in December decided to go back and trade for bigger car 7 weeks later FOW told me that the car was now worth 8k less than what we paid !

Couldn’t believe it we had done only 500 miles in it since purchase .

We think that the cat must have been way overpriced to loose that much in such a short time we have had 3 other cars from FOW over the years and always thought they were fair but never again .

I can only rate the service 5 stars as I can't do 10 stars...I have always been a main dealer buyer, but saw this car about 300 miles from me...paid a deposit and then spoke to agent, who answered all the questions I had honestly.

I then drove up to Winsford and collected the car and was well pleased.

Car developed a minor fault a little while after, I contacted After-sales and spoke to another agent, who authorized the repair at the local main dealer without any faffing .....

While the car was at the main dealer, another fault that could not be noticed was identified, agent was contacted again, and the repairs authorized without any faffing again ..

I don't know about other customers, but with the experience I have had, I would happily recommend this company and their customer service...

You guys are a credit to customer services worldwide !

Spent £18,700 on a relatively new car (9 month old) only to find a problem with the gearbox 30 seconds after leaving the forecourt. Exchanged for a similar model and on the way home, discovered a fault with the radio and then subsequently the clutch and the windscreen.

Won’t take a gamble on trying a third car and wasting more time. Refund requested

I had a good experience before sale and during the sale of the car. The car we got was great, however, make sure you go through the specifications we were told it had Bluetooth but sadly is does not even though all the buttons etc are on the dash, the sales manager is not willing to admit fault even though his sales person admits he was "flabbergasted" that it does not come with Bluetooth, instead we were offered the chance to pay £150 to get it installed! - not an option for us. Just be mindful when purchasing a car that you get all the facts. Thanks

One star is one too many! Awful company to deal with. Top tip buy elsewhere but if you insist on buying from Fords of Winsford follow our tips:

1) Take a photo of the mileage when viewing & paying the deposit on your new car, then check the mileage when you collect it. FoW drove our vehicle 319 miles between paying the deposit and us collecting our new vehicle.

2) Ask to see the HPI Check, although FoW advertise all their vehicles are HPI clear they don't always do a HPI check prior to selling it. When we asked for a copy of the HPI check done prior to sale they sent us a copy dated the day we asked for it with us listed as the new keepers.

3) They only do a basic HPI check and do not enter the current mileage to be checked against the National Mileage Register (NMR) to verify the mileage.

4) If FoW tell you anything verbally regarding the vehicle, ask for it in writing. We were told our purchase was previously a Mercedes demonstrator vehicle to later find out that it was actually an employee of Mercedes company vehicle.

5) If you are told you cannot view the Service History as it's held online by the manufacturer ask for this in writing. As when you later discover your new purchase has no service history they will deny telling you that it did! Despite advertising that they check the service history this too is a story as apparently they cannot check the online service history as the V5 isn't in their name!

6) If you need to make a complaint make sure it is in writing to FoW and that they reply to you in writing. FoW prefer to deal with issues over the phone so there is no paper trail.

7) Make sure you know your consumer rights as FoW will exploit them. If you have any issues with the company contact Citizens Advice so your issues can be passed to Trading Standards. It will help other people in a similar position as Trading Standards have further examples of their Consumer Law breaches.

8) Be prepared for appalling, rude, unprofessional, flippant, intimidating, and vexatious customer service. This is no exaggeration- We're happy to show you the emails if you contact us.

As you can guess from our review we did not have a great experience with FoW. We only had our 3.5 year old vehicle 6 weeks before it developed a major fault which left us driving around in a tiny Hyundai courtesy car for 12 weeks until common sense prevailed and we finally got to return our lemon for a full refund and all costs incurred in resolving the matter.

Would we buy from Fords of Winsford again - no way, we'd rather walk!

Tried to line up to see a car which had arrived and calling the call centre they done just about everything to make viewing / purchase a car near impossible.phoned Motorpoint and they were twice as efficient and a no quibble over the deposit like Fords of windsford who ensured me if I travel to see the car and don’t like it you will not get your 250 deposit back!!!. I purchased a car from Motorpoint who clearly have sewn it up as far as car supermarkets go.i would not go near this place because I would not like to think what you would occur if you had problems with your purchase if you bought one.c glover

Very happy we have bought cars from them years ago and returned to find the whole experience even better with excellent sales team and although we had a slight problem with our car the after sales team sorted it out for us the next day.

Won't hesitate going back thanks from one very happy customer

Fords of Winsford was a name I trusted. Not anymore.

We were mis-sold a Vauxhall Insignia which gave us nothing but problems. Not least of these issues was the DPF, Which became the bane of our lives. Given that the salesman knew that we rarely drive on the motorway we should never have been sold the car.

The customer service we received after complaining was shocking. Fords Of Winsford were not interested in rectifying the complaint. After months of promises (often broken) of phone calls, emails, and great inconvenience we cut our losses and sold the car and bought a new one. The car we bought is older and lower spec than the Insignia but because we lost money on the Vauxhall we had no choice but to accept it. We do now however have a reliable car, which is more than we received from Fords Of Winsford.

I would never go back to this dealership and if you are thinking of doing so I would advise you to proceed with caution.