Active since Aug 2020
What can I say, Auto Trader aesthetics is amazing. That GUI of theirs is something amazing, however, it’s just a better looking gumtree. Don’t get me wrong, I love gumtree. They fully let you know that they are not responsible for any purchases made on their site, anyone is allowed to advertise and just in general keep an eye out because if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Auto Trader on the other hand doesn’t. I saw an advert for an amazing deal for a ‘2019’ Renault Kwid Climber on their site from a My Dream Car “dealership” in March 2020 for R85 000. I made the purchase because naive me thought that Auto Trader had some sort of screening process for the companies that advertise on their site. The car turned out to have been in an accident which the company didn’t disclose to me, a few deadly serious issues later and I am just at the beginning of my spending on car and I’m well over 7 grand. See my review on My Dream Car. Given, Auto Trader is a huge site... which also makes it all the more the reason that I expected a more professional platform. At least they could add simple code to verify the legitimacy of a company before allowing one to advertise. Just saying. I sent the company a few emails concerning this “dealership” to let them know that it has done this before and it was just simply untrustworthy and shouldn’t be given space to deceive other potential customers. Again, see my review on the “dealership”. Auto Trader simply sent me emails reassuring me that Auto Trader itself is a legitimate company and that they would gladly help out by telling the police the same thing if it needs be. I further told them that the issue wasn’t the legitimacy of the platform but the quality. They told me that they were looking into the “company” in question and left it there. So faith level in the platform is at 40%. As long as I view it as a free for-all-site like my beloved gumtree( I really like gumtree), alls good.
I saw a few bad reviews about this “dealership” but I just thought that the reviewers were being overly excited and just didn’t do secondhand purchasing right. It could never happen to savvy ol’ me. I made a cash purchase of a Renault Kwid Climber from them in March of 2020 and they didn’t tell me beforehand that the car had been involved in an accident. I paid for the car to be couriered and on that same day they told me that my car was booked and gave me a day that it would arrive in Cape Town by. With that in mind, on the day that the car was expected to arrive at my place in Cape Town I had still received no communication from the “company” and when I enquired of the ETA they told me that the car wasn’t able to be booked which would have been helpful if they had at least communicated this anytime during the 3 days before the expected delivery date. To cut things short, I ended up flying up to Jo’burg to pick up the car and drove it down to Cape Town. I arrived in Cape Town and realized that the car had a consistent oil leak and so I took it to get checked which is when I found out that it been on a serious accident and that the oil sump was broken along with the seals not closing completely. It was a mess and had to pay almost 8 grand to fix it. I then found out that on top of that the brake fluid container was completely detached from where it was meant to sit and couldn’t be reattached and the wiper fluid container was also completely missing from the car. Realizing that this was way more than I had bargained for, I called the “company” because they had promised me a 1 year warranty for the car incase of any problems from their part. After several failed courteous attempts at communication with Mohammed Rehaan Said who was the sales person who had sold me the car and then with the “company” I began digging for other contact details. I found a contact number for a man called Michael who later turned out to be the manager but obviously did not tell me. Eventually when I started discussing terms of resolving the issue he stopped picking up my calls. I filled a legal complaint with Miosa Ombudsman because not only had they sold me a damaged and dangerous car, illegally by not disclosing this, they had refused means to rectify this. Miosa got back to me and told me that the “company” had closed down. Moral of the story kids, it’s not a company. If you see a bald Mohammed Rehaan Said trying to sell you a car from any dealership and a Michael, run away. They are not on your side. Also, pay a mechanic a few hundreds for an hour and take them with to the dealership to check out the car and be there in person. Old sales tactic, “the car is currently being test driven and might not be available for long”
© Copyright 2026 hellopeter.com and its affiliates. All rights reserved.