A bloke I work with in the office ordered a brand new car from Makro and paid his deposit - nice cheap price for a new car. The delivery was meant to be 2-6 weeks, and the small print said to allow for another four weeks in case of supplier problems.

He's now into his 16th week of waiting. Makro either do not return his calls or say the car will come 'next week' and then a day before the expected delivery day they call him to delay it for another week or month.

I rang Makro and asked as a new customer if I could buy the same model car as a gift for my other half for Xmas and they said it was available and could be available straight away.

They've given him a courtesy car as he sold his car based on them telling him that the car would be available that weekend (which was 8 weeks ago). The courtesy car is a very low grade model and not big enough for the whole family to fit in. He's complained but they won't do anything.

Last week the car was promised for delivery on Wednesday, then it was delayed until Saturday. They gave him the registration number of the vehicle......and today rang and told him it would now be the end of January for delivery. He's already taken out insurance and there's a £76 fee to cancel it.

He's on the phone to the Office of Fair Trading as I am typing this.......

If I were your friend I would threaten to contact the sheffield star, I'm sure they wouldn't want bad publicity.

Tell him to mail David Walsh on the action desk at the star

He is the consumer journalist, does a full page on a Friday, he would be able to help I am sure

David.walsh@sheffieldnewspapers.co.uk

He threatened them with the Star AGES ago, but didn't go through with it because they kept saying 'oh the car will be here next week'. So he thought the problem had been solved and there was no need for the Star. They aren't a couple after publicity necessarily, just a new car that was ordered in the summer.

Now for the science bit...

It seems that Makro buy cars from Vauxhall through an intermediary company as though they are buying a fleet of cars, then this intermediary transfers them to Makro. Vauxhall found out and immediately stopped the supply as technically Makro ended up undercutting them.....not good for Vauxhall! Now Makro cannot get the car from Vauxhall at the price they agreed with my work colleague and they end up selling it at a loss - the guy in the office thinks Makro want him to cancel which is why they are messing him around so much, so they won't lose money.
He won't cancel. It's a war of principle now.