Freeborn Garages - Southampton..

[DGW]

Freeborn Garages

Britannia Road

Northam

Southampton

Hants

SO14 5RG

02380 213080

Services: Repair only

Edited 22 June, 2010 by DGW
Details updated

[ncarring]

Originally posted by kingly - Tue Jan 20, 2004

Pros: good discount from list price and easy trade in of old car

Cons: still waiting for my rubber boot mat (2 months)!

[ncarring]

Originally posted by ScoobyChris - Wed Jul 14, 2004

Just had my 60k service with them. They carried out all the work they said they would within the time they said and kept me informed of anything they found and were happy to talk things through with me. I only went with them as they were the cheapest in the area, but they supplied me with an '04 Fabia Comfort courtesy car while mine was in (with 1/4 tank of petrol) and picked up on all the things I knew were wrong with the car, as well as giving some advisories on others.

Other nice touch was they replaced my missing dust caps free of charge and also ordered in a new steering arm something or other as there was a lot of play in my one, to be replaced as a warranty item. Both without me asking!

[Chris197]

Just bought an Octavia 2 sport from them (ex demo 05 plate 4800 miles) -

Arrived at the dealer at 9.00am to pick up the car, salesman takes me inside to fill out the paperwork. All the formalities are dealt with very quickly (so far 10/10).

On my way home about two miles from the dealer and im greated with an airbag warning light from the dashboard:eek: Im not to fussed the cars under warranty I can except one small oversight.

I pull into a burger place to have breakfast and at the same time phone the dealer to see if there is any chance of me getting the car looked at, thinking they might want to sort the problem out. Im told "we are to busy you may aswell get it looked at in London".

Nice one I thought, good service. Take £16000 and five minutes later fob me off. After breakfast I realise they havent given me the service book that goes with the car, another phone call and im told "we will post it to you". Im two miles away for ***** sake so i tell them NO ill be there in a minute and at the same time please ask service if they will look at my airbag for me.

I arrive back at the dealer where they promtly give me the service book but inform me they cant even look at the car unless I want to wait two hours and even then its a maybe. So I decline their offer and once again start heading home.

About forty miles from home the oil light comes on and the maxidot display says "check oil level":eek: I phone dealer (while im driving) to say I dont believe the car has had a PDI, he says "the car has been checked but he will just go and check the records to make sure and phone me straight back".

He must be doing a thorough job of checking them records because im still waiting (A WEEK LATER). And by the way the oil level was off the dip stick but dont worry because ive put the £12 litre of oil in I bought from you while i was there and when youve finished checking your PDI records can you have a look for the sat nav manual that you never gave me.

Cheers for the experience Freeborn (never again):thumbdwn:

[mac]

Won't be going there then !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!---Ever !!!!!!!!!

[ScoobyChris]

Originally posted by ScoobyChris - Wed Jul 14' date=' 2004

[/b']and also ordered in a new steering arm something or other as there was a lot of play in my one, to be replaced as a warranty item.

Just to add to this (a couple of years later ) the new steering track rod arm wasn't replaced under warranty after all (as my car was outside warranty as I knew) but I kicked up a stink saying they'd promised it done free and we reached a compromise of me paying for parts and them paying for labour....

Chris

[Organist]

Wouldn't bother with this dealer again. Indifferent is the best way to describe them.

Just don't ask for a finance quote - you'll get it scribbled on the back of an old used envelope.

No Coffee worth drinking.

Go up the road to Winchester Motor Company - Nice coffee, and professional more mature smartly turned out out staff with a lot more knowledge and a lot less 'allo mate, how's it goin' from slips of kids who should be put over ones knee and roundly spanked for talking to customers like that!

[nedbloggs]

Just before I bought my Octy (from Winchester btw) I was living next to Freeborn Skoda, so decided it would be nice and easy to walk down having phoned and booked a test drive (hadn't had one at that point). Went down and was shown a car that had been on their forecourt for 6 months - i'd been watching (as I said, I lived next door) and was told that because I was not planning to make a decision for a month that I should come back then! Ha! So the following weekend I went up to Winchester Motor Co. and took out their demo for 40mins. 2 weeks later I had bought my lovely black vrs which I am still incredibly happy with!

[Stuart_J]

We took delivery of our new Superb yesterday, we chose Freeborn purely on the deal offered, they managed to beat all the local dealers by a big margin & even some of the Internet boys.

The only niggle in an otherwise very pleasant "buying experience" was caused by the DVLA "trying" to transfer our personal plate over but Freeborn hassled them & also collected & delivered documents to the DVLA in person to help speed things up.

So as far as buying cars I will give them 11 out of 10.

If you are thinking of buying in the South give them a try & talk to or see Simon, very pleaseant & not pushy, just gets the job done

Stuart

Ps If your thinking of buying a well specced Octy try the Superb before you comit, IMO its a no brainer.

[StuartBell]

Bought a pre-reg Roomster 2 1.9TDI with 10 miles on the clock, less than 2 months old, and £2700 off list, including fitted extras.

Sales executive Joe Hosegood was eager to close the deal, and judged the right level of persuasion very well. Arranged for the retro-installation of the third rear headrest (requires some trim-work) to install on standard non-headrest central seat) well within the promised timescale. So far, so good!

Stuart

[Guest]

Good guys; I've purchased two cars now, one from Andy and one from Joe.

Service team get the job done too, although there can be some wait for courtesy cars etc.

[Organist]

Just brought a new 2008 Octy II from WInchester Motor Company. Freeborn's couldn't even get near the price, and the sales dept is still the indifferent shower of ***** as it was two years ago. That's two brand-new Octavias they've missed out on, and about £35,000 worth of turnover. A little attention is all that was needed!

[riph72]

I bought my Octy 4x4 from here, I found the experience rather good actually. One or two niggles, but I'd be quite happy to buy from them again (although it's not likely because I live in Swansea).

I dealt with Andrew Cooper. Following the sale and me getting the car back to Swansea, he's answered numerous questions via email (mainly about paperwork such as ISR registration, missing radio booklet etc), and has also phoned me to follow up on one occasion. He also posted the missing radio booklet to me.

So, it's a general from me!

[Fareham man]

Just purchased a new Superb from Freeborns and the whole process from date of order til day of delivery has been excellent. The salesman, Andrew Harris, was helpful without being pushy and kept us informed of progress of the order at regular intervals. This is the 5th new Skoda we have had and Freeborns gave the best puchasing experience we have ever had. We choose to go to Freeborns rather than any dealer more local to us, as the reception of the sales staff are much better in our opinion.

The Service Dept has now improved immeasurably with new reception staff who know about customer care, good communication and the value of brand loyalty.

All in all a big thumbs up for Freeborn and their sales and service staff.

[pixi]

Please note this review is coming up for three years old now, but better late than never

Easy to haggle for a good price on a new Fabia vrs (willing to match Drive the Deal). I had Andy dealing with my purchase from start to finish, which was relatively painless. Only a couple of things that could be taken as negative were the fact only one set of keys available, meaning I had to take the car back over to the mainland when the second set arrived so they could be programmed :confused: No biggy, as it meant another opportunity to give the car a nice drive on proper roads.

The thing that did annoy me at the time was I asked Andy to let the garage guys know I wanted them to check the wheels/brakes at this time because of an odd noise that was happening. When I went to get them checked, they knew nothing about it so I was left feeling like he wasn't interested after getting the sale. The garage bloke took pity on me and did take it out and look at it though.

If I wanted another Skoda and was looking for a good deal I might ring them, but then I did have Winchester on the phone the morning I went to do the deal, who also wanted to match the DTD price and I think others have had better customer service from them.

Thankyou and Goodnight.

[StuartBell]

They were featured on the local news recently, boasting increased sales of motorhomes, but shedding Skoda and Hyundai dealerships will mean a lot of lost jobs. They may also be selling Citroen cars I guess.

I can only speak as I found them when I bought my Roomster in 2007; exemplary service, and no problems whatsoever. Also, a properly-priced 10K service, not the rip-off that others had from other garages.

Stuart

[afcb ian]

Just had my first variable service done there at 18k.

Service done on time and completed by 12.30 the same day.

Courtesy car ready and clean and free of charge.

Warranty items;

Rattle from rear seat - fixed during service

Rattle from front seat belt unit - confirmed as faulty and parts ordered.

Dash mounted cubby hole lid keeps popping open - confirmed as faulty and parts ordered.

Rear O/S door module intermittent fault - confirmed as faulty and parts ordered.

And they swapped the tyres corner to corner free of charge as requested.

Can't say fairer than that

Well done guys. Very pleased and will be going back again. Its a thumbs up from me

[Guest]

just to confirm, they've shed the skoda franchise now but i guess they will continue to service

[afcb ian]

just to confirm, they've shed the skoda franchise now but i guess they will continue to service

Yes they still stamp evrything with the official Skoda gubbins

[afcb ian]

Update.

All warranty items completed with no hassle. Car washed again (only 4 days since service) and free courtesy car again.

Good service all round

Edited 21 June, 2009 by DGW
No need to quote earlier post.

[a6rnh]

we went to freebourn a couple of years ago to look at an octavia and the sales guy joe was awful. a proper cocky lad, stereotyped car salesman who criticised my ford as soon as i walked through the door.

****************************************************

Edited 6 March, 2011 by DGW
Inappropriate mention of another dealer deleted. Also Freeborn is an Skoda authorised repairer.

[charlie vrs]

I traveled 50 mile roundtrip to Freebourn's rather than using my local steeler for first service. Freeborn were great, di the service and fixed a few issues under waranty. Left the car clean. Very reasonable price and quite happy for me to provide my own oil.

Thoroughly recomended.

[@Lee]

Freeborn now have no links with Skoda or SUK as far as I can tell. They only sell Citroens and motorhomes these day.

 

Might be worth removing them from the dealership list.

[TheWanderer]

I would concur with that comment as there's a Freeborn near Godalming and as leepatrick01 has stated they only sell Citroën & Motorhomes.

[PetrolDave]

I vowed never to take my wife's Fabia back to Freeborn (where we bought it from new) when they fixed the faulty wiring to the reversing light switch (a common fault on the Fabia) but didn't bother to check that the reversing lights were now permanently on!

 

I had to crawl underneath (in the snow as it was mid-Winter) and fit a spacer to the switch.

 

Glad that they have lost the franchise...