**A WARNING TO POTENTIAL USED FIAT BUYERS** I would advise anybody looking to do a deal on a used Fiat to have nothing to do with Perrys Portsmouth. After verbally agreeing a P/X deal for a specific sum over the phone with a member of their sales staff on a used Fiat Panda & then being advised to visit the dealership the following day to sign the paperwork, when I arrived I was told that to complete the deal I would need to add a further £400 to do so. Furthermore, I was expected to take the P/X balance as finance purely to benefit the sales staff, who would receive a hefty commission, even though I wanted to pay the balance in cash. The part of this that is particularly unsavoury however, is the way they reneged on a deal after enticing me down to their premises to conclude it and subsequently tried to get me to pay a hefty extra sum of money to do so. It's fair to say that I was fuming at being treated like this & the advice I would give to others looking to buy a used Fiat is to take your business elsewhere & give Perrys Portsmouth a very wide berth. In my opinion they reflect badly on Fiat & are unworthy of having franchised dealer status...

:bang:

Hi Dinoboy,

Sorry to hear you had problems with them. I am aware of them but have never (& probably never would) needed to use them.

Hopefully you have found another Fiat dealer that was more willing to supply you with a Panda that you wanted?

Wol

Thanks Wol, I will keep my eyes peeled for the right car which will I dare say will turn up somewhere sooner or later. All I know for certain is that it won't be coming from Perrys Portsmouth as I refuse to deal with anyone who conducts their business based on lying to customers...

That's a shame, all 3 of our 500's were from there and we never had a problem!

Guess it happens anywhere!

Noxide, yes I guess it can as it's down to the individual salesman & his scruples at the end of the day. I just didn't like the fact that they went back on a deal that was only agreed the day before & assumed that I would just pay extra rather than walk away on principle. Looking at their poor customer feedback rating on Trustpilot etc it seems a lot of other people have had issues with them too...

An update on this thread: After raising this as an issue with Fiat UK, the dealership came good & honoured the original deal. So credit given where it's due as they put right their earlier wrong.

Well I have a personal view of Perry's of Portsmouth (dating back a few years so things may have changed).

1) on purchasing a new vehicle I stipulated exactly what I wanted, how I was paying, and other what I would call agreed T&Cs. Come the day about all that was correct was it was a Fiat. Not impressed. The issues were resolved but it is not what one should have to do

2) On a service of our then Punto HGT I found issues. Also the soft toys in the topside dash tray that had survived many 100's of miles of performance driving on track days were legs up! The technician who serviced the car (and failed to meet my criteria had also taken the car on an uncontrolled joy ride.

I stress that this a long past experience and I have had nothing to do with them since then so can not fairly comment any further.

If people are experiencing any issues with a Fiat dealer then bypass the dealer ONCE you have given them fair chance to respond etc.

Any Fiat dealer which falls below your expectations you should do the following:

1) initially pursue issue with dealer as high as you can go. They have rights as well as you so you need to balance these sensibly and respectively

2) if 1) fails then Fiat UK is your next port of call

3) legal action

None of us can get it right 100% of the time. The key is to understand this and be able to critically look at and review our positions. This due process is where hopefully 90% plus of issues get resolved.