Simon's Story

I would like to thank Simon for emailing me his story about The Hatchback Car Centre that was at 53 High Street, Peterborough until they closed it and opened Conquest Car Sales at 40a Bedford Road, Houghton Conquest.

Here is Simon's story:

I purchased a 2005 Silver Corsa 1.0 in September 2014 from The Hatchback Centre at Eye, Peterborough. Rachel Roberts was the proprietor and lone salesperson.

I bought the car a couple of weeks before my daughters 17th birthday so it would be ready for her to start learning to drive. I inspected the car thoroughly and also test drove it, finding no mechanical faults and we moved on to the negotiation stage. There was a scratch on the drivers door trim and also the MOT was not very fresh. I offered Rachel £200 less than the asking price but she countered with "I`ll get the drivers door painted and all the scratches on the rear bumper, supply the car with 12 months MOT, an engine oil change, a valet and a 3 month warranty with a proper warranty company for the full asking price". On this we agreed. I collected the car the following Saturday and on inspection the drivers door hadn`t been painted. I mentioned this and Rachel said she`ll get a mobile company to come out to my house the following week.  On arriving home 45 miles away I had a quick scout round the car and found a complete number plate light unit in the glove box,  had a look above the number plate and sure enough it was ours. This made me suspicious as obviously this is a check of the new MOT certificate that had been supplied. I then checked the other lights and found a sidelight bulb had gone as well. I fitted a new bulb to the number plate light unit and refitted it to the car also changed the sidelight bulb all was well. I then waited 2 weeks nobody had come to paint the drivers door, contacted Rachel after then chasing Rachel for several weeks she eventually picked the car up. I had also pointed out when she collected the car that after the interior valet the windows were still steaming up inside even after I had had an electric heater inside the car for several days, she said she would check this out and returned it with the door painted. After this the car continued to steam up the inside of the windows daily, when I went to use the car two weeks later I opened the door to find mould all over the seats and most of the interior and puddles of water in the drivers side footwell and rear passenger footwell. I again rang Rachel and she collected the car 2 weeks later after chasing her constantly as we now wanted to use the car for my daughters lessons.  I explained to Rachel my daughter has a mild case of Asthma and there is no way she could use the car in it`s present state making it unfit for purpose. Please return the car clean with the leak cured and all carpets dried out,  "no problem was her response." In the meantime I discovered online that 2005 corsa`s had problems with a drivers side bulkhead seal around the pedal box I pointed this out to Rachel and she said oh yes I know all about that we`ll get it sorted.  Rachel returned the car to me late one night, leaving it out the front of the house, came to the door with the key and said all done and said she was in a hurry and left.  I went out to move the car onto our driveway and found the carpets were still wet and now the brake lights were on permanently. I used the wipers to clear the screen and there was an almighty clonking coming from the bulkhead. The following day I pulled the carpets back poured some water onto the screen and sure enough the water was still pouring in around the pedal box. It was possible to see someone had made an unsuccessful attempt at smearing some sealer round the joint and to gain access they had dismantled the wiper mechanism and badly reassembled it, also they had broke the brake light switch causing the brake lights to stay on permanently making the car both illegal and dangerous to drive. Rang Rachel she said she would pick the car up again and take it to a reputable garage to get it fixed ????  This never happened after chasing Rachel constantly for the next 2 months it was obvious she wasn`t going to fix the car properly. We suggested alternatives to her but no she just kept saying she would sort it over and over. We eventually sent her a letter saying we`d have to start court proceedings as we now have a car that is unroadworthy ( brake lights ) and not fit for purpose ( Brake lights and constant mould problem ) we sent this recorded delivery and it was returned saying she had refused to sign for it. This alerted me to the fact there might be more than just me having problems with their incompetent service and sure enough I have now discovered lots of other people. To sum up;  I bought a mechanically sound little car to which they applied a dodgy MOT. On trying to repair a water leak they then made the car completely unuseable. I also never received any paperwork from the warranty company Rachel had supposedly registered our car with. So my advice to anyone considering buying a car from the Hatchback Car Centre or Conquest Car sales or whatever Rachel Roberts changes her trading name to next is DON`T.