Review It’s a long one so please read and BE AWARE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!! Our experience with junction17 is nothing short of shocking! Initial contact to pay a £99 deposit was slightly alarming but gave them the benefit of the doubt. Wanted to purchase an Audi Q5 in white that they had for sale. After looking over the info they had on their website it stated that the car was Grey in colour. I called to query this and was told that no it was definitely white so I asked for more pictures and a video to confirm. After much hesitation they did this. I queried why the colour was different to be told that they carry out all due diligence checks etc and that there was no issue with colour. As I was travelling 4.5hrs each way to purchase the car I obviously wanted to be sure. The man on the phone was very dismissive and said ‘we’re a multi million pound business and the colour is not an issue. I’ll email over our bank details for you to send us the full deposit funds ready for collection on Sunday’. I was a little taken aback at this reply as I’d not seen the car in person for myself yet and I would only be sending funds once I was happy with what I had purchased. I was paying £9000 towards the car and the balance was being paid on finance. I thought maybe he was having a bad day and always like to be kind so still went ahead to book the viewing with the potential for collection a few days later. We arranged the journey to them on a Sunday knowing we had 9hrs of driving ahead of us. On arrival we were greeted and off the salesman went to get the car. This took about 10mins as they couldn’t locate it. During this time other salesman in the showroom were trying to start a vehicle, that they had just driven in to the showroom, but couldn’t get started again. 2 of them proceeded to try and jump start it off a battery charger pack. Now I don’t profess to being a mechanic but I know that you need a jump starter pack and not just a battery charger to do this. After many failed attempts, another salesman came over to them and said you can’t do that 🙈 again slightly alarming but for all I knew these young men were training and just weren’t aware of what they were doing. Our car now finally appears and we’re taken to view it. On initial inspection all was fine, car looked ok and started off the button. We were put off taking it for a test drive and in hindsight should have pushed for this, our bad! So after deciding to go ahead with the purchase we were asked to sign 2 forms. These forms were photos that had been taken on someone’s phone and then printed onto A4 paper, strange for a multi million pound company. One was a vehicle order form and the other a vehicle inspection form. I asked why I was signing the vehicle inspection form as I hadn’t carried out all the things listed and was told it’s just to confirm I’d been given the inspection sheet. Was then told that the V5 would be sent to me in due course but that they’d lost the new keeper slip but had updated our details for it online. I asked if the car was taxed and he assured me it was under them and was legal. I did a quick search with dvla and that confirmed that the car was taxed, so all good to go. The salesman then asked me to put on a Google review whilst we were still there as they like to receive good feedback. I didn’t do this as I had been there all of an hour and I believe that you need the full picture of dealing with a company before writing a review and I still had to receive the V5. I sent over £9000 deposit they handed us the keys and we were ready to leave. We left the dealership and within a mile of that the engine management light came on, car went into limp mode and was restricted to 15 miles an hour. I immediately turned round, took the car back and said I wasn’t happy and would not be going ahead with the purchase. I was well aware of my consumer rights and that I was returning the vehicle. The salesman went to get his superior who came over to talk to us. He said that he couldn’t understand why that had happened but did we want to take it anyway and sort it once we got home. I again explained what the car had done and that I had a drive of approx 260miles to do and that was unacceptable. He said that it might just be that the car needed fuel, I replied with “I’m pretty sure that a low fuel light would come on and not the engine management light and limp mode and the fuel gauge isn’t even in the red it’s just above it’ he had no reply just a blank look on his face. I said I wanted my £9000 returned to which he said he couldn’t do that as it was a Sunday and no one was in to return the money. He said he could get that sorted the next day when everyone was back in. He told me to send an email explaining what had happened and how I wanted a refund. I was hesitant to leave without my money so asked that he called a manager etc he said that he would but he knew they wouldn’t answer as it was a Sunday. I asked him to try, which he did, but as he said no one answered. He assured me that my refund would be sorted the next day and not to worry. So we left and made our 260 mile journey back home. I emailed the next day as I was told to but initially got no reply. I then sent the same message via their WhatsApp number and was told that the refund was being dealt with and would be sorted by the end of the day. Mid afternoon now and still nothing. So I messaged again. In the meantime hubby had rang them direct and was told that there was nothing wrong with the car and as a gesture of goodwill they would deliver it to us on a day of our choosing. We did not want the car, had returned it and assured we would be getting a refund. We were well within our consumer rights to do this. On top of that, all the other red flags that had come up before we picked it up started playing on my mind and we just knew something wasn’t right. The car failing less than a mile down the road had just put a top hat on it all. The car was clearly not of satisfactory quality. I then received an email from them stating that they were rejecting our return of the vehicle. I immediately rang to ask why I’d been assured the day before and by message that morning that my refund would be processed immediately, to now being told that they would not be refunding us and we had to take the car. I explained again the issue we had with the car and that under our consumer rights we had returned the vehicle. We had also contacted the finance company on the day we returned it and explained why we had and they had stopped the finance payment being sent to them as they accepted why we had returned it. So therefore the car wouldn’t be funded by the finance company either. The man said he didn’t care about the finance company not paying, that we had bought the car and that if we didn’t pay the full amount then they could take us to court for the balance. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing! After many phone calls backwards and forwards to the garage and the finance company. It only ended with junction17 saying tough luck, you signed a vehicle order form, the car is fine after “their own testing” and they will deliver it to us. I point blank refused to accept this as I had returned the vehicle the day before after driving less than a mile in it and it failing to be of satisfactory quality. Again they just kept saying tough. The finance company were great in trying to help us and asked us to stop contact with the garage and they would deal with it and get our £9000 returned. After 2 weeks of them trying, junction17 still refused to return our money and the finance company couldn’t help us any further. In the meantime junction17 had the car in question back up for sale on their website. So they get to keep our £9000 plus resell the car again, I don’t think so! I contacted a solicitor with the aim of going to small claims court to recover our £9000. The solicitor agreed we had a case and drafted a letter to be sent to junction17 stating our case and this was a final warning before court action. Junction17 replied within 48hrs of receiving this letter with the most surprising and frustrating reply, I’ll copy and paste it below: I am writing this email to request your bank details please so we can transfer the £9000 sum back to you for the deposit paid for the sale of the Audi Q5 LL16LSJ in which you returned and wished to reject the vehicle.   Sorry for the delay in processing this. Any rejection must be run past two Directors and signed off accordingly, and when a Finance Company is also involved it can be a slightly more timely matter.   I can confirm that we have now accepted this rejection and once you can give us your bank details we will be able to process this payment within 7 working days.   Now that this is resolved would you please also remove any reviews you have on Google, Trust Pilot or any other domain. I had not heard a word from them since they said they would not refund. The finance company had tried and also failed in their attempts to recover our money. The response from the complaint I made with the finance company is copy and pasted below: I am writing with reference to your complaint raised on 11 March 2024. I am sorry you have had cause to complain, however thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding your concerns. Please be assured, we aim to resolve all complaints quickly and efficiently, whilst remaining impartial.   I can see you purchased your vehicle, Audi AUDI Q5 (LL16LSJ) from Junction 17 Motors Limited on 07 March 2024.   Your complaint   My understanding of your complaint is you were unhappy as:   *  You had returned the vehicle due to the EML illuminating 2 miles down the road, a cancellation was processed on our end and the dealership haven't paid back your deposit.   Investigation Upon investigating your concerns, I spoke to the selling dealership and advised him that due to the EML light illuminating and you (the consumer) provided your evidence as soon as you noticed it, that you subsequently returned the vehicle and we had processed the cancellation on our end. It meant that no funds on our end had ever reached the dealership and no agreement was set up with the lender. The dealership however advised that because you had signed an agreement to purchase the vehicle at full price, that all funds would need to be paid, and because you had paid a deposit of £9000, he would refuse to provide this back. He advised that it had to be paid in full or £9000 would have to be forfeited. He stated that the vehicle was going through a re-gen which has now cleared and therefore identifies the vehicle as fault free. I advised him that I disagreed with this and explained you had provided the evidence of the issue as soon as you had it, therefore raising a durability concern at the point of sale and rightly so within your consumer rights. Although I have addressed your concerns and fully stand by the process you have followed, as the finance had never been processed on our end, we had never entered into a tri-partite agreement, and it is with regret, we as a broker are unable to fight the collection of your deposit back for you and it may mean you would have to take your own legal route to obtain this sum of money back. I have however made senior management aware of your situation and in the light that there is any development, I will be the first person to be in touch with you.   Outcome   Following my investigation, I am unable to uphold your complaint. I appreciate this may not be the outcome desired, however I trust my response explains the reasons for my decision. Why junction17 decided to reply with such a ridiculous excuse about our refund is beyond words. But does go to show how they were trying to bully us into taking the car and only at the point of court action did they agree to return our £9000. I’m aware that £9000 isn’t a lot of money to some people but to us it is and how could this dealership treat customers so badly. The emotional and mental distress this has caused is unforgivable. This whole process from start to finish went on for 6 weeks. I chased the refund on the 6th day to be told that it might be today but might not and that they have 2 pay runs a day so not sure when mine will be included. I challenged this by stating that they had up to now 12 separate pay runs during that 7 days and they had still chosen not to include my refund. The refund wasn’t made within 7 days. It was made in the last hour on the 7th day. Read all the other reviews and you’ll find similar stories. The 5 star reviews they have are from people they ask to do the review before leaving their premises or fake reviews they are putting on themselves. Also important to note is their multi million pound business is actually a multi million pound debt of stock finance. Look up their businesses on companies house and you can clearly see this. Leonie who reply’s to all the Google reviews is a director and clearly just states that she doesn’t know this person etc etc. I was asked to remove any reviews we had left in return for our refund as you can see in their reply above. Clearly they want to hide all the bad and ask for good ones when people are excited to collect their new car. Their reviews are not a true picture of the business they run. They don’t have a review option on their Facebook page, I wonder why!! If you got to the end then thank you for reading and please be warned that this dealership is what gives all other genuine second hand car dealers a bad name!!