Everything you hate about car dealerships, all in one convenient location. Initial exchanges about the car were positive and prompt. However, to have the privilege of even walking through the door, you need to pay a £99 refundable deposit. Once you've done that you're greeted with a beautifully kept showroom with some stunning cars. I was able to admire its stunningness for a full 20 minutes after my 11am appointment before someone came over to see me. My salesman eventually found the keys to the car I was interested in and led me to where it was parked - in the back of a car park, fifth row behind several other cars and boxed in from every angle. Then began a game of car candy crush as he and a couple of other people spent 20 minutes attempting to free it from its prison, leaving me standing in the rain. Good to see that the appointment booking system is effective. My salesman then proceeded to reverse the car at 0.5mph into a pile of bricks (luckily without any damage) before navigating it around the front so I could have a look at it. Whilst looking around it and liking what I was seeing, I noticed there was hardly any petrol in it and asked if there was enough to take it for a test drive. The salesman then asked me whether it took petrol or diesel. It was at this point I realised that he knew absolutely nothing about cars. For reference, the car I was interested in was a Mercedes E63 AMG. You don't need to be Jeremy Clarkson to know that it guzzles petrol like there's no tomorrow. Turns out it was irrelevant anyway, because you're not allowed to test drive the car until you're marched back into the office to discuss the price. So off we went. As I sipped my coffee I thought this would be a good time to talk about my requirements, what I like and don't like, and maybe just a chat about cars in general. There was no opportunity for this though as this was when the selling started in ernest. It was like when you're watching The Apprentice and a sales pitch is about to start, and there's always that one plonker who goes straight in to talk about price. I had no less than four leaflets thrust in front of me and was painfully taken through each one discussing warranty, service plan, paint protection and carbon cleaning along with some interesting 'facts', for example, that you're losing 15bhp by not having your engine carbon cleaned. Anyone with the faintest idea about cars knows that sticking a hose into a car's engine to 'carbon clean' it does precisely sod all, the only type of carbon clean that is effective is the type where the intake manifold is removed and the ports and valves walnut blasted, like on the VAG FSI engines. When I was asked which of these addons I would like, I replied, none of them. My salesman then gave me a concerned look similar to that of someone who has just realised that his piece of commission he had earmarked for a new 70" television had just flown out of the window. If you find the car listed on Autotrader or Pistonheads, the price there is not the price that you pay. For example, this car was on for just under £28000, but with the above addons it was just over £32000. They also add another £280ish on (which is not disclosed nor discussed until you're sitting at the desk) for something called a 'preparation package', which they say is for HPI checks, MOTs and to have the car clean for when you pick it up. This is my fourth - I don't want to say 'prestige' because it's a pretentious word, but, you know, 'nice' - car that I've bought in ten years and the previous ones have always come with an HPI check, 12 months MOT and a clean which came at no extra cost. So factor that in. Eventually I was given the paperwork for the car and was pleased to see it had been well maintained and well serviced. My salesman had disappeared a while ago and then returned with the general manager, who introduced himself and said that he'd heard that I wasn't interested in the warranty package and that he thought I was 'mad' (verbatim) as the car will definitely go electrically wrong in the first year. Thought that was a nice touch. Anyway, the car only had 3 months MOT left and the front brakes needed changing and it was at this point I was expecting a bit of an argument but thankfully my salesman agreed to put on a fresh MOT and change the brakes, with an agreed pickup time of a couple of days away. I loved the car so I left a deposit. After radio silence over the next day or so, I decided to check the car's MOT history on the GOV website to see if it had had one done. Turned out it had, and I was expecting to see an advisory or a failure on the front brakes (which did appear) but it had also failed on the emissions test and the fact that it had had both front catalytic converters removed. This was after I explained to the salesman that I did not want a car that had been messed around with (this was before I realised he had no idea what he was selling). I received an apologetic voice note saying that the person they were selling the car for didn't tell them he had removed the catalytic converters and that it would be resolved but would take an extra few days. Whilst I can believe this, it is not an excuse. As a dealer, it is THEIR responsibility before accepting a car to stock it for sale, that it's not only road worthy, but road legal. Did you also know that it's also not legal to sell a car with an outstanding recall, like this one had? (Yes, I did my own HPI check on it). It seems that both of these details had slipped through their 'preparation package' as they had not inspected the car before listing it, nor done an HPI check on it, nor an MOT. Had they done this, they would have realised it was unfit for the road and unfit to sell. If you want an update, you have to ask for one. They'll never contact you to explain what's happening despite having £3100 of your money. Eventually I'd run out of patience and gave a deadline for when I wanted the car ready by or I was backing out. Got a note from the general manager who said it would be ready by then and he was now my point of contact and would keep me updated (I never heard from him again). That deadline came and went. 20 days after I saw the car. It spent the first week of those 20 days sitting in their car park doing nothing. I'd well and truly had enough and ended the deal on account of the car not being fit for purpose and their failure to make it fit for purpose in a very reasonable amount of time. I gave them a deadline to give me my deposit back before I take it to court to recover my money and get the DVSA and motoring ombudsman to look into their trading habits. This place embodies everything that is wrong with a car dealership and why they have a such a bad reputation. There's no knowledge or passion about what they're selling. It's purely transactional. Nothing against my salesman, he was polite and well mannered, but he didn't have a clue what he was selling. And worse, he didn't care. None of them do. You get the distinct feeling that unless you're one of the lucky few who can walk in there and buy a McLaren with cash, neither you, or the car you're interested in, are high on their list of priorities. The only good thing about this place is a woman called Leonie who I managed to reach on WhatsApp. She was apologetic and responded to my messages promptly. She's far too good to be working in a shambles like this. Clumsy, cumbersome, slow, careless, impersonal, uncommunicative - and if I don't get my deposit back and go to court, we can also add thieving to that list.