So why the new car?
There comes a time in the life of a school of motoring car, where it is just simply a money eating machine. They all have been stalled numerous amount of times, scraped the alloys on the pavement, and despite regular servicing, they are finished after 3 years, or about 90.000 miles.
The previous car was the Ford Puma. This car spent a lot of its time in Perrys Ford at Alfreton. It was a poorly made car in my view, let down by its owners, and Perrys Ford.
Now for the standard of the build, that lies at Fords door. Unfortunately Perrys Ford at Somercotes didn't understand the concept of a sole trader and the need for the vehicle to be on the road to earn money. They just thought that if you bring it in at 8am, then we can maybe look at it about 3pm. Now if this is once a year, then no problem, but when it is 5 times in 3 months, thats a lot of hours off the road. One day we lifted the bonnet up and the dipstick was still laid across the front, having been in Fords the day before. When I accused the dealer of letting the cleaner look at it, they strongly denied the cleaner touches any cars, So I said " so it was a Ford trained mechanic who left it out?" I reported the Stop/Start not working. It was booked in for all day as usual at 8am. Around 4pm I was contacted to say it needed a new battery, and one was ordered. It was booked it the following Wednesday while you wait. After waiting 3 and a quarter hours, It was said, it is not the battery, but the battery sensor monitor. For that, I had to go back for that the following Wednesday as one was being ordered. Another 3 hour rate, only to be told that it hasn't solved it, and we now need it for a whole day to investigate it. So 8 am it was presented on another day. At 5pm I had to ring in having heard nothing. Yes you can fetch it but it needs a new clutch. I said there is nothing wrong with the clutch this morning or any other day. well you can fetch it now. My eyes rolled, If it needs a new clutch, what is the point of fetching it. So you can do lessons with it was the reply. So I was off the road all day just to decide it needs a new clutch, which it drove away from Ford perfectly fine, as did it in the morning. Over 10 hours of lost wages again, and Ford seem to not understand the sole trader customer who needs a vehicle to earn a wage.
So on to the Owners.
This really pains me, because I had leased my vehicles from CA Cars of Leicester for about 14 years. In the early days they were fantastic, but the latter 3 years, the customer service fell away sharply and I felt far from being a valued customer as they used to say in their emails. Whilst I have a string of complaints about CA Cars, I am only going to concentrate on the ones where I have email proof, to back up my complaint. Just over 3 years ago, I requested a new Puma petrol Vignale. That was agreed at a price of £659.00 per month on a 3 years lease. That was ordered and a few months later, I received a contract by email for the new car and noted on the line of the vehicle, was the word St line x with no more room to write anything further. I had emails saying I was ordering a Vignale, so I just accepted it. When I realised sometime later, that an ST line x was to be delivered, I questioned why I was not getting the higher specification Vignale as requested, to which it was said, they substituted it as they could not get the Vignale. They said they had changed it on the contract which I had signed. I said I had not been told officially, to which the email reply back was "Sorry" No drop in price for a lower specification vehicle. 2 months before before the 3 year lease was due, I was informed that as I had reached 90.000 miles, The vehicle was being fetched back and I had to pay the remaining two months rentals in one advanced payment. So my business without a car would be finished. I requested they fetched it, and on the Monday I had to pay £120 for a driver to come up on a train on the following Friday, I was asked to go to Derby train station 13 miles each way to fetch the driver. This I flatly refused to do. On the Thursday before that Friday, I asked if I could keep the vehicle a further week as I had tests planned. They said "No" because a train ticket had been purchased already. On the Friday 2 guys came to my house in one car to fetch my car. I I said, have you not come up on the train? to which they replied "No we were never coming up on the train" Now I am not going to name the person because it would not be the right thing to do. My complaints are with the company as a whole, who did nothing to support me all the days I had no car because it sat in the Ford dealer. I have sat in the test centre telling other ADI's of my treatment and too their astonishment, I am telling ADI's my story.
I have now moved to another company with whom I am very happy with.
If you are an ADI and thinking of using CA Cars, messaged me first would be my advice. I save every email and I can support what I have said. A complaint to them fell on deaf ears. They were once a good company, Sadly not now in my view.