Anyone had dealings with Goodwood Sports Cars?

Generally a dealer when asked what a car is worth will give you the value they would be prepared to pay for it.

Comparing prices of a car already in the UK to his fresh import prices isn’t really all that fair.

 

It’s always nice to hear the other side of any story. But I don’t see an explanation as to why the car didn’t have the service you told him it had. New plugs, air filter, oil change? Surely this is least that should be expected. You don’t deny none of this was done. If I found myself in a similar situation to Craig, I’d be posting all over the internet about ‘cowboy dealers’ too. If your reputation has been damaged, you only have yourself to blame.

 

Agreed. This is the bit that would concern me the most as it reflects on the ethos and integrity of the garage. It would be very helpful for Goodwood to respond to this particular point. If not adequately refuted it would IMO have significant implications for their reputation.

 

 

 

What is worse than not doing it is telling a customer you’ve done it knowing full well you haven’t.
To me that is unforgiveable.
As above if that’s not the case the garage would be well advised to defend itself on this point.
For all we know the OP may have just said a service or this and that wasn’t done.

Just wanted to add another point or two and then I’ll go away and leave you alone…

We did service the car, oil, filters etc. What we didn’t do was replace the spark plugs as they were removed, inspected and were clearly OK. The replacement interval is 60,000 miles for these - not at every service. The car had covered around 100,000 miles and Mazda’s digital service records showed that the plugs had been changed by a Mazda main dealer at 62,000 miles, so still another 20,000 to go before replacement needed. The car was prepared and inspected by my partners at AK Automotive and there’s no-one better at sorting out a MK3 (they won the 2015 Mk3 Supercup Championship and won this year’s Mk3 Supercup Masters championship too and while motor racing is a different world, they are pretty good at MK3 issues).

The point is that we were not allowed anywhere near the car. The owner chose the garage to be used and they misdiagnosed the misfire problem. We tried everything we could to be helpful, even sourcing a particular make of clutch as requested by the customer.

The issue is with a customer saying ‘I have a problem with the car I bought off you. I don’t want you to inspect the car and I don’t want to take it to your choice of garage but can you just send me a load of money please?’. Then to make matters worse, the garage they choose misdiagnoses the problem and they ask for even more money.

 

Regarding the S-Ltd valuation, I have no recollection of this but then I get numerous phone calls every day asking me to value cars, name paint codes, identify special editions etc - it becomes an MX5-shaped blur.  I do know that you’ll never get an accurate valuation from me over the phone - I’m always on a hiding to nothing in that regard.

 

Steve

 

 

Some customers are just awkward, possibly buyer remorse.
Garages really are on a hiding to nothing.
Personally I think it unfair that a business’ good name can be called into question just because someone has an axe to grind.
On the other hand, there are bad garages out there.
I have always preferred to buy privately and look the seller in the eye with questions, always served me well and never bought a dog yet.
Oh dear…

For the record, the suggestion to have the work done at my local garage was made by Steve as the car was undriveable at the time (I’d been advised that driving with the misfire could damage the catalytic converter). Steve suggested this option as it would be cheaper than recovering the car from one side of the Country to the other. At no point did I refuse to have the car returned to him. Steve agreed for me to take the car to the local garage who confirmed the faulty clutch and the faulty coil pack harness. I’m confused as to why he’s questioning the ability of the local garage as both problems were satisfactorily resolved by them. It was not them who suggested the misfire was due to the spark plugs, that was from an online search of the symptoms, which concluded that if it was not the spark plugs it would likely be faulty coil pack wiring. I inspected the spark plugs and found them to be in the very poor condition.

With regards to the servicing items there is no evidence that any servicing was carried out. I can’t believe that the plugs were removed, inspected and found to be OK. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions from the photos attached.

As I mentioned in my first post - it’s all about honesty.

https://ibb.co/cph6YG  Cowl grommet
https://ibb.co/ercvSb  Air Filter
https://ibb.co/etwpnb Spark plug
https://ibb.co/dbXUnb Spark plug

Cowl Grommet

Air Filter

spark plug 1

spark plug 2

Thanks for your response Steve.

personally that’s good enough for me.

i also would not want your reputation to be tarnished on the basis of one bad review.

My job has nothing to do with retail or automotive but I have to admit feeling some sympathy for garages who come in for some stick from various quarters and have to deal with us the general public. Old cars can be unreliable and unpredictable and go suddenly wrong without warning despite being thoroughly checked. Garage workers are sometimes represented as a different species but they simply reflect the cross section of society and in my view are no more or less honest than the rest of society.

Perhaps the OP should also justify his comments and actions.

 

Apologies Scot Mx5

your reply crossed mine and you have already made your response.

Always 2 sides to every story and each member will be left to draw their own conclusions.

Reputation is extremely important to a business so it is only fair that we are objective and evidence based in any criticism.

 

 

Having recently changed my own mk3 spark plugs, I thought I’d have a look at the pics but cannot open the links provided? Imgbb says page doesn’t exist? 

Barrie

Links worked for me when I copied and pasted them.  Try these:

 

  Cowl grommet
  Air Filter
 Spark plug
 Spark plug

Barrie - you probably did the same thing as me - copied the comment along with the page link?

Both the iridium plugs appear to have a part of the electrode broken off?

Not sure what to make of the air filter - how much use is required to change it from the new white one shown to the colour of the one I assume came of the car.   

 

Thanks guys!  Being a bit of a dinosaur with all things techy, I need all the help I can get  plugs do seem worn? Certainly compared to the ones I changed out on mine at 60k? 

Barrie

So who is this “unreliable business partner” mentioned?

Just to expand on my own experience,

Extract from Dealer description

Bodywork is very good all round with no rust anywhere and it has good, clean wheel arches, sills, floorpans etc. The underside is also equally good with clean and solid lower sills,floors, subframes etc. A check over of the suspension shows that everything is in good order with all bushes, springs etc in nice condition.

The reality

Suspension within 2 months of purchase, rear arch showed signs within 3 months and both sides needed repairing.  I have many more photos of the subframes, rear suspension, broken spring and shock absorbers whose bushes literally fell out on removal.

Replacement of worn out pads and corroded discs.

Rear sill and wheel arch repairs

Fibre glass rear sill.

 

No axe to grind nor wish to destroy reputations, just my own experience!

 

Thanks Dave,

Out of interest what was the state of the bodywork and suspension when you brought it. I have a recently imported Eunos which is ostensibly rust free and although I had it "dinitroled "shortly after purchase from what I am reading I am coming to conclusion that eventually sill replacement is inevitable. I would like to know how quickly in our UK winter environment rust can set in. Also are you saying that sill repairs had previously been done on the car prior to purchase- including the fibre glass replacement- implying you had been misled?

I am not knowledgeable enough to comment on the spark plug photos but one disappointing factor is that these were not replaced automatically regardless of their condition. If you are going to the trouble of inspecting each plug there is no labour cost in replacing them and the relative cost of the plugs is minimal if you are paying premium price for the car.

My own experience of buying an imported mk1 last year from an MX5 specialist in Neston is that the Eunos was sound overall and rust free but could have been better prepared and I had to have work done locally and then later trailered the car back to the dealer to have various problems ironed. It has taken a lot of time and effort on my part since getting it to the condition I wanted and I am now really happy with it. Having said that I have really enjoyed the tinkering and help from the forum has been invaluable.

 

Any business may go through difficult periods for various reasons and if their were extenuating circumstances it would be helpful to know

Cheers

Matt

 

Hi Matt,

My car was imported in 1998 so has suffered our winters for almost 20 years, so I can’t help with any timescale re corrosion.

Yes someone had repaired the driver’s side and to be fair the original advert stated this, what it didn’t say was that it was a fibreglass and filler bodge, but this is difficult to know until you start digging.

I bought my car on reputation, feedback and detailed photographic description and travelled many miles to collect it sight unseen in late November. The bodywork was well polished but looked sound and on the return journey it drove ok.

There were plenty of minor niggles, panel lights out which made the drive home in the dark interesting, radio hanging out of the dash, radio antenna broken, but then the car was not in its first flush of youth. The deep scratches in the windscreen and the leaking soft top did not marry with the initial description, then after a couple of weeks the engine started pumping out white smoke.

The niggles I sorted and have continued to sort ever since, the major faults as already stated were sorted when it returned to the dealer. I replaced the shocks, new discs and pads and had to buy a new front o/s caliper as it was so badly corroded. A new flexible pipe and replacement pipe to the master cylinder were also needed. Not quite what I expected!

This is my first 5 and at my age will probably be my only 5, I am on top of the rust, have fitted new 10A seats which look much better than the original ones, replaced the wheels with the correct pattern, a s/s exhaust and new cat, a complete re-spray and I now have a car that I am pleased to take to any show.

It is almost 4 years ago now and it is interesting to hear that I am not the only one not 100% satisfied with the buying experience.

As I stated no axe to grind nor reputation to destroy, I have moved on and enjoy my car, just part of my personal experience of buying from a ‘specialist dealer’.

Dave

I have removed my comments.

I don’t like the aggressive tone of some replies.

I was under the impression this club was to help people, be informative and share experiences.

All too often the conversation turns a bit aggresive which is not to my liking.

 

This is my last post.

Thanks Dave,

Really interesting  to hear your experiences. The best improvement I have made is swapping the original seats for some really good quality heated seats from a mk 2.5 which was being broken due to rotted front chassis rails. Only cost £150 and are extremely comfortable. The other was removing the spare wheel somI could fit stuff in the boot.

Out of interest what was your experience and outcome of your respRay and how expensive was that?

Cheers

Matt

 

 

Hi Matt,

Heated seats sound good, always had them in the ‘big’ car and bought a kit to fit them in the 5 last year, just can’t get around to fitting them! I liked the AE 10 seats being black and blue they match the car quite well, in my opinion anyway, however there are some all leather black and dark blue ones around they may also be heated, just need to keep an eye open for them.

The spare wheel is a pain, so do you just manage without it? I have seen a post where someone slung it under the rear floor but had to modify the exhaust system to make space. The easier alternative would appear to be putting it behind the seat, I have tried this and it just fits!

I recently replaced the tyre on mine, they are difficult to find around here and had to get it from Cumbria, the date on the tyre was 1994 so I think it was somewhat overdue!

The repair and re-spray was done by a local bodyshop, not 5 specialists as most of their work is BMWs & Mercs. The boss races a 5 and the two guys who did the work took it to heart doing I suspect more than I paid for, I expected a blow over but as you can see it got a bit more than that. The area under the top seal on the windscreen still had the original paint colour and they matched to that. I was told that when it was almost finished, the other guys in the shop would regularly stop by to see the progress on it.

Cost, yes it cost a lot I thought at the time, just under 3k for the repair & paint as well as replacing the door top seals, but this is a keeper and 2 years on it still looks beautiful when it’s clean and the sun shines on it (Satellite Blue is a mica paint I am told] and there is no sign of the dreaded tin worm returning, at least not there!

Is that Neston on the Wirral, looked at a car there before I got mine but can’t remember the name of the garage?

Dave

 

Just a quick blow over I thought!

 

Now that’s what I call Blue

 

First trip out after the work!