Hartwell plc Omdömen 371

We are extremely disappointed by the handling of my husbands van and feel it is important to share our experience.

Over the course of multiple visits, the vehicle has been repeatedly misdiagnosed, resulting in us paying approximately £6,000 for repairs and replacement parts that have failed to resolve the original issue. On each occasion, we trusted the garage’s professional judgement and agreed to the recommended work, only for the same problem to persist.

After the matter was escalated, Nick, the manager, acknowledged the ongoing issues and agreed that the problem would be resolved without any further cost to us, which we appreciated. However, despite this assurance, we have now been informed that the van requires a new engine at an additional cost of £9,000—a completely unacceptable position given the substantial amount we have already paid and the repeated failure to correctly diagnose and repair the fault.

As customers, we placed our trust in the expertise of this garage and expected repairs to be carried out with reasonable care, skill, and professional competence. Instead, we have experienced repeated misdiagnosis, significant financial expense, and considerable stress and inconvenience, all without a satisfactory resolution.

We believe this situation raises serious concerns about the quality of diagnosis, the necessity of the previous repairs, and the overall standard of customer care. We are now seeking formal advice regarding our consumer rights and whether further action is necessary.

We would strongly advise others to seek detailed explanations, request written diagnostics, and consider obtaining an independent second opinion before authorising costly repair work.

Large selection of vehicles to look at with extensive photography online. I liked the route for test drives as it has a good variety of road types. The salesman (Chris Clarke) was personable and answered all my questions. I appreciate that the few missing items (parcel shelf, tyre inflation kit) were replaced promptly at not extra cost post sale.

Based on my experience, I would do business with Hartwell (Kidlington) again.

Whilst this review is for the sales purchase, I note i am enjoying my new car. Adaptive cruise control is very good for the A34 circus.

So I sold my Ford Ecosport ST to Ford Hartwell Hereford on Monday April 27th, the only reason I did this was I was moving to the US the following weekend and wanted a quick sale, obviously it was a lower price than it was worth but it was about convenience as I then obtained a hire car from a nearby Enterprise to then leave at LHR.

So why the low score, because nearly 3 weeks later I am still waiting for payment. The UK/US currency is slipping because of govn.
I was advised my payment transfer had been rejected, I’ve had my account 25+ years no explanation as to why it was rejected but I guess anything can happen.
So Monday May 11th I was advised the manager had expedited payment and I would have the payment by the end of the week, so now it’s Friday past 1pm and STILL no payment.

Why is it when I can pay a window cleaner on my banking app in seconds does it take this unacceptable amount of time to simply get payment for a car they have probably all ready sold since I’ve been waiting.

I even made an online complaint through their website on May 11th, still no reply received

I’m now living in the US and the best contact I have is the original agent on What’s App?

Very helpful & friendly team, also very knowledgeable.
A very big thank you to Oskar who made our experience great and easy in purchasing our Kuga, which we are really pleased with.
Also we would like to thank Jason and Finn for doing an excellent job.
We would certainly recommend you.

Well done Hartwell Reading an excellent team.

Dan and Colin made the new car purchase and handover experience fantastic. Thank you

I have put this as a 1 star as theres no zero stars. This is no longer a Ford dealership and is now BYD. Sadly the service and sales team havent improved over the years.

I had a very disappointing experience with a salesman. He initially misrepresented the price of the car, which already raised concerns about transparency.

Afterward, I emailed him requesting the registration number so I could carry out basic checks on the vehicle. He never responded. When I later visited the dealership and asked why my email was ignored, he claimed he was dealing with a bereavement and hadn’t been responding to any clients.

That explanation doesn’t match the earlier behaviour, and overall the experience felt dishonest and unprofessional. Whether it’s poor communication or something more deliberate, it completely undermined my trust.

As a result, I’ve lost confidence not just in this salesperson, but in the brand he represents. I would strongly advise others to double-check everything and proceed with caution.

Great service, done on time, updated through the day. Value for money

I strongly advise avoiding BYD Reading (Hartwell). My experience from placing a deposit to trying to get it back was an absolute masterclass in poor communication and sheer incompetence.

The False Promises & Shifting Dates:
On March 30th, I test-drove a BYD Seal Excellence with Xander Nowlan. I paid a £250 refundable deposit via Apple Pay but wasn’t given a single piece of paperwork to take home (my first red flag). When discussing a collection date, I suggested Saturday. Xander pushed for me to collect it the very next day (Tuesday), confidently claiming the dent repair, alloys, and service would all be finished by Tuesday morning. Since Tuesday didn't work for me, we agreed on Saturday.

Because Xander had assured me the car would be fully prepped by Tuesday morning, I called on Wednesday hoping to bring my collection forward. Suddenly, the story changed. Xander told me that because we had officially agreed on Saturday, they "weren't in a rush" to get the car ready. He then told me it was in for a service and I could collect on Friday instead, promising a callback with a time.

The Ghosting:
By Thursday, with no callback, I spoke to another salesman, Finn. Finn openly admitted the situation had been handled "totally unprofessionally”, the service and repairs hadn’t even been booked in. He claimed he did in 5 minutes what the showroom couldn't do, booked an urgent service, and confirmed a Saturday collection was now impossible. He promised to call me back the next day to confirm details. He never did.

Over the next few days, I tried calling repeatedly. If my caller ID was visible, it went straight to voicemail. If I hid my caller ID, they picked up immediately, only to tell me "Finn is with a customer, he'll call back." The callbacks never happened. I finally sent an email on Saturday to cancel the sale, which was completely ignored.

The Manager's Incompetence:
After a week of being ignored, I used their AI chatbot to finally get through to the Sales Manager, Jason Rowlands. Despite knowing about the situation, he had made no effort to contact me. When I demanded my refund, Jason insisted I had to physically drive to the dealership to process it because I had used Apple Pay.

I drove all the way there, only for the staff to process the refund immediately using just my card details. They openly admitted that Jason simply didn't understand the process and that my trip was entirely unnecessary.

To top it all off, after stringing me along, dodging my calls, and wasting my time making me drive in for no reason, the staff still had the audacity to try and "recover the sale"!

An incredibly unprofessional outfit from start to finish. Take your business elsewhere.

Having bought a BYD seal from this company at hereford branch, I experienced my first problem after mice/rats ate the fluid lines under the bonnet. Service was exceptional, and the matter was dealt with expeditiously and pleasantly. Well done, Hereford branch, great service.,

We had been on the waiting list for an Omoda 7 since December and received zero communication — not a single update. We only discovered they’d actually received one in stock through an online chat, which says it all.

We then requested a test drive… again, no contact. It was only after I sent a fairly abrupt message that I finally got a call from Bradley, who bizarrely said his manager told him to “call me and start the process again” — despite us already being on the list for months.

We booked a test drive for the following Saturday and turned up on time, only to be completely ignored by the nearest lad who wasn't with a customer, who was more interested in folding up a micro-fibre cloth neatly than us walking in!. When we were finally acknowledged by him, he went off to find Bradley, came back, ignored us again, and then walked off with another customer. We were left standing there with no explanation.

After going to reception myself, a manager eventually stepped in and sat us down — this was around 20 minutes after we had arrived.

The test drive itself was fine, and we discussed figures (including some conveniently included “extras”), then went away to think.

I emailed the following Tuesday with a query — no response. I called later that day, spoke to Bradley, who said he’d check and call me back if needed. Nothing. No call, no email.

At that point, I contacted another dealership who were professional, responsive, and actually seemed interested in our business — and we are now progressing with them instead.

To top it off, I finally received a reply two days later asking me to resend all the details we had already discussed because he “needed reminding”.

Genuinely unbelievable.

Overall, the experience felt disorganised and unprofessional, with a clear lack of basic customer service and communication standards. The team would benefit from proper training and a more customer-focused approach.

This dealership completely lost a sale due to poor communication, lack of organisation, and a total disregard for customers’ time. Would not recommend to anyone. I should also add that I had been warned about their poor service beforehand by a friend — unfortunately that turned out to be completely accurate.

I had a test drive booked at Dunstable dealership (Hartwell). I left without a test drive, without seeing a car properly, and frankly a bit stunned by what happened.

I'd done my homework before coming in. I knew I wanted a BYD, I knew I was looking at your zero percent APR conditional PCP deal with 50 percent deposit.

The salesperson I dealt with, Jude, didn't start with "let me show you the car" or even a basic welcome. The very first question was about financing. What followed was genuinely odd. When I mentioned I was also looking at the Jaecoo and the Kia Sportage, Jude spent most of our time together trying to convince me that the BYD PCP wasn't financially right for me and that the Jaecoo zero percent apr deal was better. He kept coming back to whether I could afford the deposit — even after I'd told him several times that money wasn't the constraint here.

I had to spell it out: I'm not just looking for the cheapest monthly payment. I'm here because I actually want to feel the car and drive this car to help me take buying decision. That didn't land well. The conversation became quite tense and at points felt outright confrontational.

Eventually, despite having a confirmed appointment, he refused to take me on a test drive. No apology, no attempt to reset the conversation. I told him that I was having a bad experience. Nothing changed.I was told I should go ahead and complaint and they did not want to waste time on me. That's outright rude.

I had a Puma serviced today. Thank you to Aleena and the team-very professional.

We bought a Ford Explorer on 30th January 2026 from Hartwell Kidlington. Whilst the sales staff were very friendly and attentive, aspects of their service and especially the after sales service leave a lot of room for improvement.

The things that went wrong:

- The Gap insurance was calculated incorrectly (not in our favour). A 3 pin plug charging lead was thrown in as an apology.
- The sales process took over 3 hours. In the end I was signing anything to get out. My brain was fried!
- The finance was approved on the Thursday, the following morning, I received a call to say that the finance company had questions. I waited around all day to see whether we had bought the car or not. Finally, at 4.30pm , we had a call to say that alternative finance had be arranged. Why say that finance had originally been approved, when clearly it had not.
- Within 2 days of purchase, an error warning appeared in respect of the air conditioning. We were told that this was a common fault and that an engineer was visiting the garage on the 17th Feb to fix a number of cars. We live in Swindon (a 50 min drive away), and took the car up the previous afternoon. The next day we were told the car was fixed and ready to collect. We drove to Kidlington again, got into the car and the error message was still there. We very much doubt that the engineer even looked at the car. As at the 16th March, we still havent got any resolution. The issue remains.
- We asked that the car be charged when they had it on the 17th. They used our charging cable and it wasnt until the next day that we noticed the cable had not been returned to us. We had no way of charging the car. The salesman then had to drive a cable to us the following day.

This is a very expensive purchase for us and one, at our time of lives, was not taken lightly. Too many mistakes have been made. There has been a lack of care and a lack of professionalism.

Great dealing with Joe Rogers @ Hartwell Ford Kidlington, would recommend to friends and family

Everything was great I would of given 5 star's if there was some fuel put in the car, I only just made it home. It was peak time so traffic was horrendous then I had to use a jerry can to get more fuel later that evening

Extremely rude salesman at Watford Would not let me test drive 2 cars even though I said I wanted to drive 2 models at my appointment. I was kept waiting 30 mins as salesman was busy with previous customer. However I was told I had to finish by the top of the hour as another customer was booked in. The salesman actually shouted at me. No skills in customer care at all.
UPDATE
I had an email from head office asking me to contact them regarding my review. I emailed 6 weeks ago and have heard nothing back from them. I leave you to make your own judgement on this company.

Extremely poor service from Hartwell plc (Watford and Hemel Hempstead)in fact the worst experience of buying a new car in 30 years. I ordered a new Ford Puma Gen E in September 2025. I received numerous emails and text messages updating me on the progress of the build. I have now been advised that they have cancelled my order as one of their staff forgot to process my finance proposal. They stated the deal has now gone and there is nothing they can do!

I’m extremely disappointed with my experience at Hartwell PLC.
I have an extended warranty with them and took my vehicle in for a fault diagnosis. I was charged £150 for a diagnostic check, only to be given a report that essentially said: “We can confirm it’s not working - please contact the main dealer.”
That was the full outcome. No diagnosis. No root cause. No repair recommendation. Just confirmation of the problem I already knew about.
This raises two very simple questions:

What exactly did I pay £150 for?
What is the point of an extended warranty if the garage cannot diagnose the fault and simply tells you to go elsewhere?

I expected professional troubleshooting and meaningful advice, not a costly acknowledgment that something doesn’t work. The service provided added no value and left me feeling that both the diagnostic fee and the warranty were a waste of money.
I would not recommend Hartwell PLC based on this experience

I made an appointment to test drive a brand new Omoda 5 petrol all booked and confirmed. Called just to make sure the appointment was still ok only to be told the 1 and only car they had was out on loan. The sales advisor didn't seem to care that I had taken the day off especially for the test drive. I won't be using Hartwell's Abingdon even though it's closer to me than other branches.

I had a fantastic experience buying a used car from Hartwell Abingdon! Krzysztof was friendly, honest, and incredibly helpful throughout the whole process. He gave me plenty of time to inspect the car, explained everything clearly, and never made me feel pressured.
The car was exactly as advertised—clean, well‑maintained, and in excellent condition. The test drive went smoothly, and I appreciated the full service history Krzysztof provided so I knew exactly what I was getting. I feel I got great value for money and genuine peace of mind.
Overall, a smooth, stress‑free experience. I’d highly recommend Hartwell Abingdon and a big thank you to Krzysztof for making the whole process so easy!