We've just bought a van from the unfortunate vendors who originally purchased it from Lowdhams last November. This brief experience means that we
wouldn't touch Lowdham's with a barge pole. Here's why:
- They mislead our sellers by telling them they were the 2nd owners from new (they were the fourth);
- They assured them that the just over 2-year old van they bought had the full warranty/hab checks etc. done in the PDI (pre-delivery inspection) even though we found out, while buying the van, that Lowdham's had given them an old PDI check (from a previous owner) which said habitation/damp check on it but this was not the formal Chausson-required habitation check (even though Lowdhams are recognised Chausson dealers), so the 7-year Chausson warranty was actually void. When we asked Lowdham's about the hab check and the warranty they insisted it had been done but that it couldn't be transferred to us as we were the THIRD owners and it only goes as far as the second (see point 1 and point 5 below);
- After we came back with "the water ingress warranty, like the Ford warranty belongs to the van not the owner" they changed tactic, and now blamed the first owner (who owned it for 2 years) for not having done it in time so missing the deadline - effectively "not our fault guv!". This is despite our then finding out that owing to Covid, Chausson like many other manufacturers gave a 6-month grace period to do the check and maintain the warranty. The van was due it's hab check in May 2021. Lowdhams actually sold this van THREE times in that 6-month period, so it was in their care during all that time and they still had the chance to do it before selling it to our vendors (in November 2021) so they lied to our face and, sadly to our vendors;
- We are the ones who flagged up all these discrepancies as the vendors hadn't noticed that the 3 sheets of paperwork that Lowdhams had given them (that's all they got apart from the usual manuals etc. that every van had) did not actually prove that Lowdhams had done the work, and it definitely wasn't the paperwork for the PDI they claimed to have done in November (when our vendors bought the van from them, but from JUNE (so 2 owners ago!). This was obvious to us because the name and address of the owner was blacked out, the date said June 2021 and the mileage did not correspond with the vendors' V5.
- It wasn't until we paid for a pre-sale online vehicle check, that we discovered that there had been 3 owners before our vendors (so they were the fourth owners of the vehicle) - the two previous owners had owned the van for less than 2 months each respectively. The vendors had been told that they were the second owners, so the assumption was that perhaps the extra owners were the dealership, between sales, but when pressed, Lowdhams admitted that the vehicle had never been registered with the dealership, so these were individual private owners. However, the van had gone back and forth to Lowdhams betweeen all these sales and they would easily have had time to do the habitation check properly (as above) if they had been honest
- when the van went in for its MOT a couple of weeks ago - Lowdham's finally repaired the two blinds that were broken when our sellers had purchased the van in November - I am convinced that they only did this because they wanted the sellers to be able to sell this van quickly in order for them to purchase the new one which was on order from Lowdhams, otherwise I honestly think our sellers would still be waiting for those two blinds to be repaired.
That's just what we've encountered over a 2-week period. The only reason we finally agreed to purchase this van was because it looked very sound, it was exactly what we wanted, it had the remains of its 1-year seller's warranty (until next November) and the sellers dropped the price enough that we felt we could take the risk. Our plan is to now examine every inch of the van, inside and out, and get a proper habitation check done by a reputable dealer - RIVER MOTORHOMES whose customer service and reputation puts Lowdhams to shame - in fact we have already booked her in for this. That way, should any nasties appear we are still covered by the warranty and can get everything fixed by River Motorhomes before the warranty runs out.
I feel very sorry for our vendors as they were decent, honest people who were hoodwinked and didn't deserve to be treated the way Lowdhams treated them and I just hope that, armed with this information, they have managed to get their deposit back and can go elsewhere because Lowdham's don't deserve their (or anyone else's) custom. Shocking dealership.
