Places like Carcraft, Carshop, etc.?

I see their stickers on cars, but don’t actually know anyone who has bought from them. I’m a bit wary of them, but don’t know why.

Are they all fine? Do they offer and honour warranties? What is the profitability of their business based on? Extortionate finance deals or something?

From a bit annoying to hellish.

I’ve seen rough cars worth no more than £2k being pushed to daft kids who don’t know any better for £8k at 30% APR. I’ve been told I can’t walk in unless a salesman shows me around.
I’ve been lied to by pushy salesmen who’ve told outright lies about cars and worse ones about finance rates.

There’s a few good ones, but even the good ones I find too pushy.

Car dealer invariably get bad press, nature of the beast – but Google the name of any of them followed by “complaints” you might have to scroll a few pages as they often put a lot into SEO, but the horror stories will soon appear.

Last time i bought a car i used these guys – Car Finding Service
Worked great, and saved me a load of tyre kicking

More stock that they know even less about. Leave you sitting there whilst they ask their manager. Can run quickly after you get bored of waiting and walk.

What P-Jay said. I went to one once and wouldn’t go back. The salesman tried to sell me a series of small hatchbacks after I told him I was after a diesel estate. Then the finance guy sat down with me and made stuff up on his calculator for a good five minutes. By that, I mean he just sat shuffling papers and hammering his calculator, talking absolute carp the whole time. None of it made any sense and he was utterly unable to explain the final calculations.

I walked and he got pretty aggressive – one particular gem was, “Oh yeah, I can see this one’s properly pussywhipped” 👿

Went to one once (the one by the velodrome in Newport). Salesman in a word-mincingly obsequious way told me to test drive cars at dealers they buy them from him.

I left.

I bought a car from one. The cars are mostly sourced from ex company cars or fleet cars so generally above average mileage. I arranged to test drive a Focus estate and when we turned up it had just rolled off the delivery truck and hadn’t been cleaned up and prepped by the garage. I took it for a test drive and it was a really state. Tatty, dirty, slipping clutch. The salesman said they’d sort all that out to my satisfaction, but it was too late by then. I ended up buying a car from them – a different one, and it was a great car and didn’t miss a beat for 5 years, but they are all about buying a stack of stock, and shifting it as quickly as possible so don’t expect the sort of treatment you would get from a main dealer.

My parents bought a car from one, fairly wide choice of motr Astras. car has been fine no issues over many years of owning it

I bought an ex hire Hyundai i30 from one, low mileage less than a year old. Ran like clockwork for 5 years until we got rid of it.

As above, they shift units and make extra profit on finance and cross selling, no haggling on the price either, so if they’ve got something you like for the right price they’re good. The one by me (available car) is quite good because all the cars are unlocked and they leave you alone unless you want to buy one. We had a poke round loads before we decided on a 3 Series, didn’t get one from them though, choice was limited and a bit overpriced.

Carcrap, err, Carcraft went bust last year iirc.

We bought my wife’s car from the thecarpeople in Wakefield last year. There was no pushy salesmen. The sales guy did however inform us during the test drive that cyclists were a pain in the arse and should be insured. It was great watching him squirm when I informed him I was a keen cyclist.

We went to Car Giant, worked perfectly for us, we just wanted to sit in, look at, poke about in all the big estates to see if they were a worth successor to the Mondeo. Spent the evening there, tried out everything, Big Mercs, BMW, Audi, Honda, VW, Ford, Citroen, Skoda.

Decided after all that another Mondeo was righter for us than the rest, but the only one they had in our mileage/price range stank of fags, so we ended up buying elsewhere. Great no pressure sales though. “Can I have the keys to xyz and abc? Yup, here you go, let us know what you think”. don’t know how test drives work, didn’t get that far.

The cars are mostly sourced from ex company cars or fleet cars so generally above average mileage. I arranged to test drive a Focus estate and when we turned up it had just rolled off the delivery truck and hadn’t been cleaned up and prepped by the garage. I took it for a test drive and it was a really state. Tatty, dirty, slipping clutch.

Sounds like an ex-Motability car.
Even fairly low mileage cars can be fairly abused, although probably mechanically sound and serviced.
I’ve personally seen a Qashqai with just over 16k on the clock which was dirty all over, and the only parts of the car that weren’t scratched were the alloy wheels, amazingly.
But then I’ve picked up a couple of cars from clients that were incredibly low mileage, a Touran with just over 2200 miles on it, and a Focus estate, with mobility scooter hoist fitted, with 212 miles on it!
It was dirty from being sat outside unused, but a valeting would have it in showroom condition.
It’s amazing what’s out there, those cars go to the big auction sites, then on to dealers, I do both.
The beautiful Mercedes SL350 I drove this morning will be a terrific buy for someone, £65k new, with 23421 on the clock.

I reckon as long as you don’t have to run the gauntlet of sales guys before you can see the cars and as long as the cars have all the relevant details on display they’re OK. Car craft used to display minimal info so you had to ask someone before you could decide if it was a decent price or not. Then they’d come in with the hard sell. Went once. Wouldn’t go again even if they were still in business.

Brother in law got one from motor point in newport. Ok price. Not too much knobiness. Nice clean car.

Bought a qashqai from Newport Motor point. Had a good look around it first nice clean car. Nice to deal with and open and honest. No hard sell. Will buy off them again.

Went to Car Giant in Wembley (or somewhere like that) once, couldn’t believe how overpriced the stock was.

Seemed to be all about getting finance deals and monthly repayments.

Awful customer service experience too.

Buy privately or go to a recommended local dealer.