I've had my Ghia for 2 weeks now and I'm getting increasingly annoyed at the garage it came from. They messed me around for a week telling me each day I'd be able to pick it up, they tried to get me to pick it up with a chip in the windscreen, which took another 2 days to sort. They lied to me about the finance percentage - it's actually double what they told me. They've then given me the car with the cigarette lighter missing, no carpet in the boot - apparently the car comes like that - no manual and no service book...so I've no service history. They're ordering a new service book and manual..but that's no use to me, I need the service history.

I'm really annoyed and every time I ring up I get fed another load of rubbish, what can I do?

Get on to trading standards and make the garage aware they mis sold you goods and finance although Your finance may of been subjeto Change depending on credit checks. Name and shame is it a Ford Stealer or independant?

Jay

I would personally take the car back and get a full refund, they keep messing you around and telling you lies, get in contact with trading standards, thats what I did with my old car.

You'll find garages quote a flat percentage on finance. You need to double it to get the APR. E.g. they'll quote you 5% which is almost 10% APR.

Regarding the above problems:

Finance agreement. Dealers quote finance in many different ways to make a deal look better than it actually is. The only figure you should be concerned with is the APR. You'd have signed a finance agreement when buying the car. (my be a loan but most probably it's HP if you bought this from the dealer). This document should have had the APR rate stated on it. If this document doesn't have the APR rate mentioned then you have a case against the seller. If however you signed the document with the figure clearly visible there's nothing much you can do. Take a look at your agreement, does it state a cooling off period? If it does then it's normally either 7 or 14 days - citizens advice would be able to give you better advice.

" They've then given me the car with the cigarette lighter missing, no carpet in the boot - apparently the car comes like that": The cigarette lighter I can understand, most modern cars come with a 12v accessory socket (although this should be supplied with a small rubber cover). You need to specify a lighter if you want one - it's only a few quid off ebay if you want one. However I don't know of any car which doesn't come with a carpet mat in the boot! It's almost certain a Ghia model has one. Did you check the boot / spare wheel etc car when you collected it? If there wasn't a cover in the boot I wouldn't have accepted their car.

Service history: Did you ask if the car came with a full service history before purchasing it? If they said it did and they still haven't produced the service history then you have grounds for rejecting the car as it was mis-sold. If however you assumed the car came with service history then the dealer hasn't done anything wrong.

Do you have the V5 from the DVLA yet? Contact the previous owner of the car and ask about the car / boot carpet etc. In fact it's always a good idea to contact the previous owner of any car before you purchase it. I bought my 1st car with 60k miles on it, sold it with 80k miles to a main dealer. They put the car to auction, it was bought by a non-franchise dealer and sold with 30k miles on it!!! Luckily the new owner contacted me via information on the V5 and managed to get his money back. It's always worth checking out your car's history.

Hope that helps.

When I test drove the car I checked it fully - carpet was intacked (assuming this got taken out when the "checked/serviced" it and never went back in..) and was told on test drive that the cigarette lighter was always removed whilst they sit on the forecourt but that it would be back in when I picked the car up.

I've been on to Evans Halshaw today and spoken to the manager (I may have threatened trades description about the FSH) who was incredibly helpful and said they will pick my car up from work, give it a full service and replace the missing items, then return it to work before I finish. He also said he was going to track down the original service book so that I would have the FSH (only actually 1 stamp in there now anyway, 2 after their service, which obviously wasn't conducted properly before I picked it up or else this would have highlighted the missing service book!!!).

I'll be happier once it's all sorted, I love my new car so don't like all the negatives surrounding it.

iNath - you're right about the finance.

Dealer quote mainly give you the base rate not Apr as its easy to work out your finance with base rates and very very hard with Aprs