Van Mossel Esplanade Reviews 

I was offered a trade-in value for my car when buying another one from Esplanade. It was low so I took the car to another dealer who offered £1,000 more. Esplanade matched the offer.
My new car took 10 weeks to deliver. Esplanade said that they would have to revalue my car after 10 weeks to reflect "depreciation".
On the delivery day 10 weeks later, Esplanade depreciated my car by £1,000. They did not inspect my car. Depreciation had nothing to do with the physical state of the car, but the fact that the market had worsened. I had to pick up the alleged shift in the market.
Funny that the value of the car depreciated to exactly the number they first gave me!

Poor after sales service.
Bought a second hand car from what I thought would be a trust worthy dealership and found any aftersales help very poor indeed.
Advice if you do by a car from this garage ( who tell you that everything is fully checked ) is to get an MOT done on it by another garage straight away ( even if it has come with one ) so that you have a fully independent check that will ensure condition is as it should be.

Charged £288 for a hose that cost about £25 and labour.
First time looking for the leak of water coming into the car. Supposedly fixed-£200 approx.
Returned as it wasn’t fixed. Charged me another £288 to fix what should have been repaired the first time.
TOTAL OF £488

We have been made to feel so welcome purchasing our new Polo GTI. All our questions were answered by Phoenix and Will and the process was smooth. The after sales service is excellent with little questions being answered without feeling like it's too much trouble. Another happy purchase from Esplanade. I think that may be 10 cars now and the service remains excellent 👌

I purchased a 2015 VW Polo GTI from Esplanade (Brendan Cole) and they were incredible from start to finish. Will definitely use again in the future.

Recently brought a new car from Esplande in Cowes.
The salesperson was Dan, he was excellent and nothing was too much trouble for him, I did not feel rushed and he was very knowledgeable.
He was very caring and apologetic about my previous experience with my constant leaking roof, which he did not need to recognise. Loving the car and it’s lovely to drive.
Thanks Dan
Theresa

Popped in whilst on holiday when my Volvo XC90 developed a fault. The Volvo esplanade team looked at the issue without an appointment and proceeded to carry out the required repair free of charge and while I waited. Can’t recommend enough thank you to the team!

Extremely poor after-sales service. I have been complaining of a fault with one of the tyres that is frequently losing pressure from the very first month, but I have been turned away with no satisfactory answer for over a year now. Such a shame! Check twice before purchasing a vehicle.

I recently paid for my exorbitant annual car service with them. Such a disappointment! The tyre rims are still greasy and unclean. Windshields are spot ridden. A basic air conditioning cleaning has been skipped because it needs to be paid for extra. How has this place stooped down to this. It has been a thoroughly tiring and wasteful experience!

Initial experience was November 2022. I finally gave up in Jan 2023. Then received an email to service my car again this year, calling me a valued customer and that Esplanade were looking forward to looking after me….my response below sums up my experience of this company. Thus far they have not replied the below email either.

Dear Mr [name removed],
It is interesting that I now receive an email from you telling me you are looking forward to looking after me and my car and that I'm a valued customer.
Last year, December, I had several communications with you regarding a complaint I made after the last service we had with Esplanade, ranging from rudeness of staff to a failure to address a 4 year old fault that we also asked to be fixed during the service. My last communication was to your office in January when I was told you were on holiday and would reconnect as soon as you returned. Suffice to say that never happened.

My car is 10 years old this year and we were going to purchase a new MOKKA. The experience we had with Esplanade last year and the poor customer service we received has altered that.

From a long term (10 years) customer perspective it very much appears that when the customer has an issue that generates no revenue for your garage you are not interested, but when a financial gain is involved you are. You will note that in 10 years I have never felt the need to complain about Esplanade but this experience and your handling of it was extremely poor. If handled correctly you would still have a loyal customer, who, this year, you would have sold a new car to.

So I thank you for your offer to look after me and my car this year, its a pity that didn't happen last service.
For your awareness I will be also uploading a revue of my experience onto trust pilot.

Whilst I thank you for your reply below. Your after sales manager has had my email and phone number since last November. The above email was also addressed to him, last week, so he has my details. Surely he should be reaching out to me, not me to him, so not that eager to connect with me. After being ignored earlier this year excuse me if I have reservations around initiating another contact.

Recent circumstances didn’t require me to drive my A-Class from A to B on the island as another mode of transport was available for my work commute, (Train). Which left me in a predicament of having a financed car, with remaining balance, and not knowing what to do.

Dan, (Sales) was really accommodating with showing me 3 to 4 possible avenues I could do with, either reducing my monthly costs/trading my current car for something more efficient or buying my used car and settling the remaining finance.

Dan quickly responded to my decision to sale my car with a set date for exchange and with a reasonable fair valuation. This gave me a cleared settlement and little extra pocket money on the remaining equity.

The amount was transferred into my account within 5 days and all documentation was sorted.

The experience I had was really professional and rewarding, (even when I was losing my car).

I definitely will be returning when my circumstances change and require an upgraded family car.

Thank you Dan, you’re a real credit to your trade and company.

Regards,

James

Hotel was clean, warm and food was lovely. Staff were very courteous. Couldn’t fault it it would definitely recommend this hotel , very good value

I have just driven away a new T roc r series, I couldn’t be happier with the service and communication received with Simon from entering the garage to finishing the deal. The service received was fantastic and I 100% recommend Esplanade Garage

Ongoing into the showroom to find out how much my service would be I was approached by a gentleman that wanted to see if he could get me a better deal on my car finance.
On chatting for nearly 3 hours with myself and my partner we have been able to get a new finance and a brand new car!! couldn't have been happier with the service we have received from TOM! he has been fantastic every step of the way!!

TOM, me and my partner just want to say thank you so much for all you have done with us and for helping us with the best deal possible! We would recommend yourself and the company to anyone who asks!!

They don’t reply to emails, poor communication.

I had a serving quote from esplanade and unbelievably it is actually cheaper to pay for the car ferry and have your car serviced on the mainland at a main dealer and have money to spare than pay their inflated prices, obviously holding people of the island to ransom.

Communication is poor at best, you email them asking three things and they barely answer one, obviously too busy to deal with customer queries.

Parts department is also very poor, ordered an item, went back when the car was in and they knew nothing of it blaming another member of the parts team, apologised and said they would send it to me and guess what, nothing.

The overall dealership manager needs to go back to basics with the team, customer service, actually doing what the customer asks and communication, not hard is it esplanade?.

I had to go over the head of the top site manager of Esplanade Isle of Wight, to a senior Group Director of their holding company with my case. Here is my last e-mail to him, which speaks for itself.....

Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2019 4:42 PM
Subject: re: Mercedes-Benz (Reg No deleted)

Dear Mr (Name deleted)
Thank you for your patience.
I have decided to take up your offer of a full refund.
Firstly, I feel that the alternative you have offered does not fairly equate. Had the OCP not been replaced in error (as I and others of more expert knowledge and experience contend), I doubt that the cost of the remedy to the problems manifested at the time, would have been at such a high cost. I would also doubt that the cost now of remedy to the new OCP would equate to the same as I have paid, so the alternative option you have offered is inequitable.
Secondly, I have lost confidence in the competence of your Service/Repair team at Esplanade. As I have intimated to you before, this is not the first time that I have had cause to complain and had to have work redone.My experience of Esplanade's Service/Repair team shows that there is a two way failure of communication interface between Service Reception and Workshop and (my) complaints are treated with indifference, not just at junior level. That said, I suspect that if I did take the car back there under your personal watch, I would receive a somewhat more diligent service.
Please have no regrets about my declining the opportunity of meeting Esplanade's GM and his team. As you would have read from reviewing the exchange of e-mails, the GM had already stated his intransigent "satisfied" position before suggesting a meeting, so there would have been little point in me listening to "what was done and why" again and again. What I wanted was a simple statement from Esplanade, endorsed unequivically by Mercedes themselves, that it was safe to rely on electrical diagnostics in the presence of a flagged up dying battery. Such a statement could not / would not be supplied and I knew why, yet I kept being smoke-screened and finally ignored. There is evidently a top-down culture problem at your Isle of Wight operation.
I paid for the work on the OCP by direct bank transfer, so Esplanade's Accounts Department should already have my bank details. If not, I can supply them again upon request.
Thank you again for your level headed intervention.
Sincerely
ES