Great Western Motor Company

I’ve never been to the Great Western Motor Company. I’ve never set foot on the premises, never looked at any of the vehicles they have for sale. I have, however, spoken to one of their representatives on the phone and it was more than enough to form a solid opinion.
I was toying with the idea of upgrading my car and so spent a day calling around various dealerships in Glasgow trying to find out how much they would offer on a trade in or part exchange. I needed to know how much money I had to play with. Before calling this company I had received a variety of offers, the lowest £570, the highest £1,150. When I called this dealership, however, I was told they could offer «a couple of hundred».
I don’t believe in wasting time, not mine, not other people’s, and so I quickly thanked them and ended the call. I will admit I said the offer was «ridiculously low compared to others I’d received», but considering their offer was less than half of the lowest I’d been given up to that point I feel it was a fair comment.
Less than a minute after I ended the call I received a call… from the same individual I’d been speaking to at the Great Western Motor Company. He immediately launched into a tirade demanding to know why I’d called his offer «ridiculous». I explained that I’d been offered much more elsewhere, thanked him for his time and told him there was no point continuing the conversation. I ended the call.
Thirty seconds later the phone rang again. It was that same individual, this time telling me that he would have been willing to offer as much as £800 if I’d been willing to hear him out. I told him that I wasn’t interested, insisted that we weren’t going to be doing business and ended the call again.
The phone rang again. Sure enough it was the Great Western Motor Company, the same individual, demanding that I not end the call until he had said his piece. I figured the only way to get rid of him was to let him speak, so sat there while he ranted about how the car market works, why his initial offer had been low, and how it was very «ill-​mannered» of me not to let him finish (I hadn’t realised there was anything left to say after the insulting offer in the first call).
Finally he said his piece and I ended the call, but as a result a simple five minute inquiry ended up consuming a good 30 minutes of my day. I feel that behaviour verged on harassment and I’m certain that some would have been quite intimidated by tactics I can only describe as bullying.
Buying and selling cars can be stressful. Finding the right car can take a lot of time and effort. Negotiating a good deal takes patience and diplomacy. When a deal cannot be reached, both sides need to be able to take «no» for an answer. Clearly the Great Western Motor Company don’t like to hear the word «no», but prefer to bully customers into submission. I would never deal with, or recommend anyone else deal with, such a company.

I am posting this review in the hope that someone else does not have the same experience with this business that I did.
I purchased a car from Great Western Motor Company at the end of November 2013. A condition of purchase was that I asked them to freshly MOT the car for me so I knew it was safe for me and my partner to drive. I do a lot of driving for work and frequently have colleagues and family members in the car, so a safe reliable car is a must for me. On purchasing the car I was assured it had passed its MOT with no advisories. I asked to see the paperwork but I was told it was in the post to the DVLA. They told me it was MOT’d by a local garage in Anniesland but didn’t give me the name of the garage. I drive with my sales receipt and no V5 as this, I was told, was with the DVLA so the private plates from the previous owner could get swapped over. I accepted this as a reasonable explanation.
I noticed after having the car for a week that it was a bit sluggish, and did not coast like my previous cars and decelerated very quickly when in gear and not using the brakes. When I had the time available a week or so later I took the car to a trusted mechanic in Prestonpans near where I live in East Lothian and he informed me that the front brakes were around 50% seized and had clearly been like that for a lot longer than a few weeks, as the pads were worn down to practically nothing. He said the car would never have passed an MOT at the end of November, and went so far to say that he would stand in a court of law and stake his reputation on it. He is a registered MOT station and a car dealer, as well as an expert on the type of car I purchased (I took it to him as he has owned several of these cars himself and the owners club recommended him).
As Christmas was looming I needed the car repaired quickly so I called Great Western Motors to complain and their attitude was astonishing. They refused to tell me who had MOT’d the car, told me they were refunding my money and taking the car back, and told me I was «at it» and accused the mechanic of colluding with me. I told them I did not want a refund — I had bought the car because I liked it, I still liked it and all I wanted to know was who MOT’d the car so I could inform VOSA.
At this point I started receiving an increasingly bizarre and offensive stream of text messages from the salesman, details of which I will leave out of this review as they are so odd it may stretch the comprehension of even the most open minded individual. I had been driving children, colleagues and my partner around in a dangerous car because of either the MOT station or Great Western Motor Company and I wanted answers. I had not received the paperwork for the car and asked them to put this in the mail immediately as they had it sitting in the office and hadn’t sent it on to me.
When all was said and done the salesman called me and promised me (I emphasise the work promise at this point) that he would pay part of the £486 it was going to cost me to replace the brake calipers and discs. He asked me to give him the weekend to put this right. He never contacted me again. This was just before Christmas.
I received the paperwork a couple of days later. Lo and behold, they had lied to me and the car wasn’t even MOT’d in November — it was MOT’d in September and they had taken me for a ride and sold me an unsafe, un-MOT’d car when they said they had freshly MOT’d it with no advisories. These people took £2995 from me and lied to my face.
Three weeks passed and it was the middle of January when I contacted them again, on the off chance they had a busy festive period and asked if I could have something towards the cost of the brake calipers and discs — at this point anything was better than nothing, and I thought they could at least redeem themselves in some small way.
I then got a laughable offer to buy the car back as they think they had «undersold» it to me (bear in mind this is a used car dealership, so underselling something is a completely ridiculous assertion). I have spent money rust proofing the car and putting the brakes right by this point and bought accessories for it so I simply refused to deal with them a second longer.
I am now seeking redress through Trading Standards and the small claims court. Avoid these people at all costs. I just hope they do not do the same to someone else and they end up taking their family out in a death trap.