SouthgateWheels Ridgeway nightmare purchase

Last month, on Tuesday the 19th of November 2019 around 4:30pm, my sister and her son who are from KZN, bought a VW Kombi at Southgate Wheels Ridgeway branch (JHB) for business purposes.

My nephew told the salesman that that Kombi had been in a car accident and the salesman point blank denied it. So they eventually bought the car at the cash price of R190k. After they made the payment for the car and went back to the dealership to collect the car, they were told they needed to pay R4800 for the administration, a cost that was never mentioned prior to the sale, try as they might to dispute that cost as the dealership was not transparent about it prior to the sale, the dealership enforced that fee upon them.

When my nephew asked for the car documentation, they refused to give them and told them that they would mail it to them.

The following day on Wednesday the 20th of Nov. they left JHB to go back to KZN. 1 hour and 30minutes into their trip (approximately 22hrs after they bought the car), the car started making an odd noise which led to a break down around 15:30pm. Late into the rainy night some guys stopped to try and help them and after many attempts to get the car going, the car eventually started to move but the motion was short-lived, 30min later they came to another halt at about 23:00, so they had to spend the night in the car on the side of the road.

Morning came and some good samaritan's stopped and helped tow them to a garage in Bethal, 2hrs from JHB. As they were closer to JHB then KZN, they were forced to hitchhike back to JHB and come back to my place.

On Monday morning the 25th of November, my sisters youngest son came to fetch them to drive them back to the garage to fetch the car so they could drive back with him should the car not be ready by day-end. It turned out the car had a bigger problem and more time and parts would be required, so my sister and nephews were forced to go back to KZN and leave the car in Bethal.

In the interim when my nephew followed up on the car docs as the license disc had expired on the 2nd of Dec and needed to be renewed, the guys at Southgate wheels said they would not send the car docs until the R4800 admin fee was paid. When my nephew told them that the car they sold to them was faulty and was sitting at a garage to be fixed, they said he was making it up. In the first week of December my nephew sent the salesman the R13 000 quote to fix the car and he said he would speak to his bosses/managers. Later on the salesman said he spoke to his bosses and told my nephew that that they would send the car docs and they no longer had to pay the R4800 and apologized for how badly they had been treated.

A week passed, still no paper docs, as they were expected to arrive within 3days, my nephew decided to do a follow up, to his dismay, the dealership owner/manager said he is releasing no car docs without the R4800.

As desperation got the better of my sister and nephew, they paid the R4800 around the 10th of Dec and mid Dec. they got the car docs.

It was only shortly after this incident that I went onto HelloPeter to see what reviews this dealership had, only to learn that we weren't the only ones who fell prey to these ******.

It appalls me how such businesses that lack transparency, sell defected goods, ***** customers, treat customers badly are still operational.

A whole month wasted, an additional 20 000 down the drain, a business loss of one month, the stress of not knowing if the car would ever be fixed and, and, and is what SouthGate Wheels Ridgeway cost my family.

#*******Dealership #Boycott #DontsellorbuyatSouthGateWheels