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I remember reading a survey that Mercedes had conducted in the late 90’s or early naughties, the results showed that an A Class customer had higher expectations than an S Class customer. Have had some corkers over the years a few spring to mind: - customer would simply drive into the workshop and grab the 1st mechanic and demand he attended to her car. We banned her eventually under the pretense she was breaking H&S guidelines. - Guy who had his airbag deploy in the motorway, we had it towed in and he wouldn’t let us work on it and wanted someone from the manufacturer present when the vehicle was inspected, along with the BBC watchdog etc. Despite my best efforts to tell him for us to inspect the car would not change his legal perspective etc, he was having none of it. So the day finally arrived and we had a throng of people, cameras, manufactures representatives etc, so we put the car on the ramp and once high enough in the air there was a large tear in the chassis where he had hit something. With the noise from the impact and airbag being almost simultaneous, he didn’t realize he had hit something. His face was a picture, never has “told you so” felt so good. - Then we had some woman who had nothing wrong with her car, but clearly decided if she kicked up enough fuss, she would get a new car. So eventually she wants a meeting with me, around 6pm one night, no problem with that, she pitches up with her lawyer in toe. Then says we are not having the loan car back until she gets a new car, I told her under these circumstances I was not having a meeting. Eventually with money changing hands she did get a new car. - Another corker was a Guy who had his car in for service and as usual we plug the car concerned into the diagnostics and the factory will download the new software with products enhancements. A few days later he’s back and kicking up an almighty fuss as he likes his radio on a very low volume and with the new software when you turn the car back on, it has a default volume higher than when he turned it off. His meeting with the service manager doesn’t go well and the customer hits him. So he ends up in my office, he apologies for hitting the service manager, he didn’t realize he has saved me a job, lol and explains his issue. Cut a long story short I sympathize with him and promise I will speak to the manufacturer who I know will do nothing and in a round about way tell him. This guy has the cleanest car I have ever seen and has read the instruction manual back to front. He leaves very unsatisfied, but shook my hand and I thought we had a bit of empathy between us. Anyway an hour or so later he’s back outside my office and waves to be let in, which I do and he asks me if he could buy me lunch at a very nice restaurant. The radio was never mentioned and as he ran a pretty large company we ended up supplying all his cars and trucks. There have been 100’s so I will bore you with just a few.

Every time i've refunded a customer and re sold the car I have never had the car come back again. Every now and again we get unreasonable customers. Try my best to filter it out before it gets to that stage but on occasion we make a mistake and one slips the net.

That one has made my tea break Loved to have seen his face

Another thing is a customer in a 5k car always seem to be more understanding if a fault develops that we are doing or upmost to repair and get to the bottom off of the fault as opposed to the customer on a £995 part exchange who will come in all guns blazing demanded that there whole car is stripped and rebuild for something like a squeaky glovebox or creaky door .. I once offered a full refund inc tax before the changes to a customer on a £1495 car id been using myself for a few weeks as a park anywhere take home at night use to get to work in the morning car had 150k miles but was basically a sound one owner car all matching Pirelli tyres etc fully stamped history all old mots tax discs and service and repair receipts in nice wallet but the customer would return daily on the first two occasions we put it through the work shop found no fault but fitted new parts to keep the customer happy then when he thought we were a push over the car was back every day for two weeks the final straw was when the customer came in said his son didn't like the aftermarket jvc cd player as he couldn't charge his phone from it that same one that was in there at purchase

Interesting topic, in more than 30 years in the business I have seen 100's of cars exchanged and all bar a couple (which we didn't retail) have found new homes without further complaint. I have often tried to find, without success, a logical answer for this.

As a purveyor of £1-6K cars I see allsorts via FB (I do not do any of the social media shite - no friends, no comments, not even a single photo, I just use it for free advertising uploaded from CD5). I’ve found the dreamers on FB are no worse than any other advertising site & as with any arsehole email you are not obliged to answer. As is the norm what soon happens is customers call, messers email. THERE ARE PLENTY OF NORMAL PUNTERS ON THERE WHO ARE PREPARED TO PAY THE ADVERTISED PRICE. I’ve found there really is no particular pattern, I sell a few at both my lower & upper ends courtesy of FB. If you get any mega mileage p/x German shite you’ll be inundated with Eastern European tossers, but I choose to just ignore many of them. I hate social media but anyone who says they can’t sell a car via one of the biggest sites in the world is clearly doing something wrong. Exactly, I know a few lads who ‘specialise’ in such deathtraps & they move plenty of metal for peanut wages - uncleaned, uninspected, Coronavirus MOT extensions etc. My take on this is because FB is full of this sort of shite anything even halfway decent with an advertisement written by someone who can string together a sentence stands out a mile.

Ebay pre-cut 3M stuff. Drop of baby shampoo into a squirty water bottle and an evening patience

Don’t think I will be stealing the reps suggestion to tell the customer your better of with finance over a bank loan in case something goes wrong then the finance company can help where as if you take a bank loan your own your own !