I would strongly advise anyone…
I would strongly advise anyone considering buying a car from Alexander Paul to think very carefully before doing so.
We bought a car from them in December. Within THREE DAYS, warning lights appeared on the dashboard.
We contacted Alexander Paul immediately and were initially told to buy DPF cleaner and put it through the car. We did exactly as instructed. Unsurprisingly, the warning light came back on.
Because this happened over the Christmas shutdown period, getting the vehicle into a garage immediately was extremely difficult. In January, Alexander Paul told us to take it to a local garage to have the problem investigated. Several garages would not touch it, so eventually we managed to get it booked into a Land Rover specialist for February.
The specialist carried out diagnostics and found a number of issues with the vehicle. Alexander Paul then verbally agreed that they would pay for the work identified on that diagnostic check. On the strength of that agreement, we authorised the repairs.
Three weeks later, the vehicle went in and the agreed work was completed. At that point, Alexander Paul refused to cover the full cost, leaving us approximately £800 out of pocket.
Worse still, the problem then returned.
Rather than accepting that there was an underlying fault with a vehicle that had started displaying warning lights just THREE DAYS after we purchased it, Alexander Paul tried to blame the specialist garage that had carried out the repairs.
We eventually had to involve our finance company. What followed was around three months of back and forth over whether the vehicle was faulty. Ultimately, the vehicle was accepted back, but only after an exhausting process that should never have been necessary in the first place.
Even then, Alexander Paul refused to return our full initial deposit and communication with us became appalling. At points, they would not even deal with us directly.
What I find particularly concerning is that after everything we had experienced with this vehicle, it appeared to be put straight back up for sale.
We bought a vehicle in good faith. Within three days it was showing faults. We followed the dealer's instructions, paid money out of our own pocket, relied on their agreement to cover repairs, spent months dealing with the finance company and were ultimately left financially out of pocket.
The whole experience was stressful, time-consuming and completely unacceptable.
Based on our experience, I would not buy another vehicle from Alexander Paul, and I certainly would not recommend them to anyone else.
Potential buyers: do your homework, get an independent inspection and be extremely cautious. Our experience of the after-sales service when something went wrong was dreadful.