CarGiant.co.uk experiences anyone?

sronoc

Hi,

Thinking of a visit to car giants warehouse outside london next week with intention of buying a car. See ( www.cargiant.co.uk ). I am flexible enough on what I buy and have a couple in mind so pretty sure they would have something for me there on the day. They have huge stock which would save me from driving around different garages to view, very convenient for me. Accessible via tube from Heathrow too.

Seems prices are fixed so no negotiation, and therefore very competitive within uk market.

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of dealing with them.

Cheers,
Sronoc

Stevie Dakota

Do a search, lots of posts on this.

razorblunt

Lots of threads on it already, good luck with it, thinking of doing the same during the summer so drop me a PM or something when you're back.

conor_mc

I was over there Sunday to pick up my new motor.

The one thing I would warn about is not to expect it to operate like a smaller garage - ie. show up, test drive car, haggle a bit, sort out the paperwork and hit the road for the ferry within an hour.

I arrived when they opened at 10am and had arranged an appointment in advance. Their website says they don't hold cars nor take deposits over the phone, but if you say you're travelling over from Ireland, they'll reserve the car the day before, hence a nervous wait on Thurs/Fri before I could call and reserve my car first thing Saturday morning!

Anyway, test drive and sorting out sales docket took about an hour - I had a draft for the full amount but they actually only wanted a £300 deposit at this stage, and taking the full amount as a deposit was a bit out of the ordinary for them. After that, the kicker was the 2 hour wait while they did a pre-delivery check. Went to collections and was seen at 1pm. Sorted out paperwork and was moved on to cashiers, where they had to find my draft back over with sales to get the details from it - no big deal, but did take an extra 15 mins. Once that was sorted, through to key-collection and picked up the car, before being cleared out of the place by security. All in all, it's one heck of an operation and you won't have your hand held from start to finish, that's for sure.

The main problem now was I was leaving at 13:30, had decided against the 5.5hr journey to holyhead for the 17:15 ferry and went for 18:30 HSS from Fishguard. AA route planner had this journey time as 4hrs 50mins, estimated arrival 18:20!! Made it there by 18:00, the M4 is a cracking road for making headway when you need to, but beware the single carriageway for the last 30-40 miles - if you get caught behind a 40mph-er (I did!!!) you'll get very little opportunity to overtake against the traffic streaming off the ferry in the opposite direction.

All in all, it was a bloody tough day with a 5:30am start, no break on the drive from London to Fishguard, followed by another couple of hours from Rosslare to Dublin - would've preferred the holyhead-dublin ferry but hey, what can you do!

Still, it's worth it for the savings and the extra spec available.

PS - have £5.30 cash for Severn bridge, I got lucky and they accepted my last €10 note, but they don't take cards and you get bugger all notice in signage to stop off at a rest-stop for an ATM!!!!

OCD

slightly off-topic i know but am thinking of importing from the UK this year sowhere would i be able to find out the differences between the Irish and UK spec of the same car?

thanks.

conor_mc

OCD wrote: »

slightly off-topic i know but am thinking of importing from the UK this year sowhere would i be able to find out the differences between the Irish and UK spec of the same car?

thanks.

Surprise surprise, but Ireland is sh!te as usual when it comes to getting any info like this - I worked off carzone to see what the Irish cars had, along with searches on this board.

http://www.parkers.co.uk is great for UK spec info though.

mikemac

conor_mc wrote: »

PS - have £5.30 cash for Severn bridge, I got lucky and they accepted my last €10 note, but they don't take cards and you get bugger all notice in signage to stop off at a rest-stop for an ATM!!!!

£5.30 :eek:
Kinda puts the daily rants about the M50 toll in perspective.
To be fair it's an engineering marvel but it'd be tough to pay that every day.

Sorry offtopic, great post Conor and loads of info

conor_mc

micmclo wrote: »

£5.30 :eek:
Kinda puts the daily rants about the M50 toll in perspective.
To be fair it's an engineering marvel but it'd be tough to pay that every day.

Sorry offtopic, great post Conor and loads of info

Yeah, but you wouldn't begrudge it after driving 200+ motorway miles - whereas we charge a couple of euro for the rather underwhelming 17 mile stretch of the M4!

tw0nk

Great post conor, I wonder if you could tell me what documentation cargiant give you on completion of sale and do they give you anything to get you through any police stops for lack of tax etc? thanks. BTW, what ya buy ? any pics?

PCwiggum

Thanks again for the info Conor, planning a trip here in August meself.

Would you recommend having the exact amount of the car you intend buying in a bank draft, or to bring plenty of cash aswell? I heard they don't accecpt credit cards...

sronoc

I heard they charge for counting the cash, something like £25 per £1000. I'd bring 80% of the amount in draft and the rest in cash, that way you are not bound to spending it all and have flexibility if you see something nicer on the day.

Might be worth a call to find out for sure.

conor_mc

tw0nk - you sign the export section of the V5 and they give you the rest, they have Irish guys over there all the time so they know the score themselves. Tax - you take your chance I think. I think the fine is £60 so not worth the effort of taxing it for one day imho. You might even catch a break if you're a nice mannerly chap to the copper and explain how you're on your way to the ferry to export the car. I dunno, I got away with it anyway I think - although the guy loading the ferry did stop me to warn me to get off the phone (I was stopped in the queue when I was on it) because there were cameras at the ramp to the ferry - maybe they caught me there???

PCwiggum - they don't haggle so I knew to bring a draft for the cars sticker price + £91 admin fee. However, when I did the deal with the sales guy he only wanted £300 deposit until I picked the car up after its checkout. His manager took the bank draft I had for the full amount as the deposit which was fine, but it did mean about 15 mins wait when I had to go to the cashiers and they had to ask someone to bring the draft over. I guess if it had gone awol I'd have been fooked for the ferry, so I'd bring the £300 cash and a bank draft for the rest. They don't take cards alright.

tw0nk - got a 2004 Toledo Tdi 130 in blue, 44k miles and full service history. Reckon I'd have struggled to get the spec/mileage here, but from what I can see Irish dealers would be asking €14-15k, probably haggled down to about 13k though. It cost me €10.5k including VRT and travel costs, so a helluva saving if you find the right car with a favourable OMSP and the 25% rate for the 1.9, otherwise wait until most of the 2.0 diesels come down from 30% to 24%.

niceirishfella

Re; the dash for the ferry...........and Cargiant.

I recently aquired a car in Bristol, through autotrader.co.uk, private seller, got a 6.30am saturday ryanair flight over, vendor picked me up at the airport, viewed and tested the car, did the deal and financials, went for brekkie in ikea bristol, did a bit of shopping there too, drove on down to pembroke, over to rosslare - home for 8pmish........you dont have to go to the Southeast of the uk for a car folks..........there is tonnes for sale all over the western half of the uk and wales - and better deals too to be done privately.
However, Conor - congrats on your deal.......sounds sweet.

conor_mc

niceirishfella wrote: »

Re; the dash for the ferry...........and Cargiant.

I recently aquired a car in Bristol, through autotrader.co.uk, private seller, got a 6.30am saturday ryanair flight over, vendor picked me up at the airport, viewed and tested the car, did the deal and financials, went for brekkie in ikea bristol, did a bit of shopping there too, drove on down to pembroke, over to rosslare - home for 8pmish........you dont have to go to the Southeast of the uk for a car folks..........there is tonnes for sale all over the western half of the uk and wales - and better deals too to be done privately.
However, Conor - congrats on your deal.......sounds sweet.

All very true - I was actually looking at a car near there myself but turned out it was a 110 inadvertently advertised as a 130.

tw0nk

niceirishfella wrote: »

Re; the dash for the ferry...........and Cargiant.

I recently aquired a car in Bristol, through autotrader.co.uk, private seller, got a 6.30am saturday ryanair flight over, vendor picked me up at the airport, viewed and tested the car, did the deal and financials, went for brekkie in ikea bristol, did a bit of shopping there too, drove on down to pembroke, over to rosslare - home for 8pmish........you dont have to go to the Southeast of the uk for a car folks..........there is tonnes for sale all over the western half of the uk and wales - and better deals too to be done privately.
However, Conor - congrats on your deal.......sounds sweet.

NIF, did you get an AA type person to check the car out or just judge it yourself?

stesaurus

I'm actually going to take the plunge next week myself with Cargiant. I'm looking for an 06/07 RX-8 and they have a few in stock. Even with VRT there is a big saving compared to prices here.
My plans are to fly in and drive back. Ryanair have really cheap flights during the week and it shouldn't be too busy going mid week to the dealer.

niceirishfella

tw0nk wrote: »

NIF, did you get an AA type person to check the car out or just judge it yourself?

Hi Twonk,
Nope - i trust my eye, experience (over a decade off) and my gutt........I'm now on the lookout for a good 2005' BM520D high miler for vrt'ing post july. The bargains to be had in blighty kicks the lard out of the industry here!:p

Mutz

tw0nk wrote: »

NIF, did you get an AA type person to check the car out or just judge it yourself?

Is there a website that lists places for AA checks?

niceirishfella

AA.com ........Rac also do this service.......do a google search.

conor_mc

s.welstead wrote: »

I'm actually going to take the plunge next week myself with Cargiant. I'm looking for an 06/07 RX-8 and they have a few in stock. Even with VRT there is a big saving compared to prices here.
My plans are to fly in and drive back. Ryanair have really cheap flights during the week and it shouldn't be too busy going mid week to the dealer.

Try Aer Lingus into Heathrow if you can - CarGiant is in northwest London so Heathrow's by far the handiest airport to come into - 15 min into Paddington on the Express (running every 15 mins), then maybe 15/20 mins to Willesden Junction on the Bakerloo line.

Stansted would take 45 mins into Liverpool St (running every 30 mins I think), then probably an hour across to Willesden Junction, changing from the Circle line to the Bakerloo line along the way.

Don't rely on it not being too busy, they'll still take 2-3 hours to do the pre-delivery check. Ring the day before and reserve your favourite of the RX-8s, no point settling for luck of the draw, but you can always change your mind when you're over there if it's not up to scratch.

Bring a satnav if you can, saves time faffing about north london trying to get out to the motorway.

smokie78

Just wondering has anyone bought a used car from cargiant.co.uk and would you recommend dealing with them, thinking of heading over to buy a car??? any feedback would be really appreciated?

Scottie99

seem expensive. Try http://www.autoquake.com/?gclid=CJXtiIvfjZQCFRqH1QodEBPYVQ most of there cars have full service history's and the website is very good

peasant

threads merged

@ smokie 78 ...read the older posts, they contain everything you should need to know

stretchaq

check out carcraft in newport its only 2 1/2 hours from the ferry in fishguard!!!!!!!!