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Please read: MAXI Clio + Prima racing service



  172 'Raymondo' Sport
Remeber the silver Clio MAXI by Prima Racing?? (I will never forget it)

Please read: I have waited almost a year to post this on here but here goes:

In august 05 I bought a Clio Maxi on ebay from Prima Racing for £7250. For the first couple of months it was fine, however then the problems started and it turned into the worst car I have ever owned (and yes I have owned a Tata Gurkha!)....

First, the 18inch wheels made the gearing absolutely useless. If you were doing 70mph at around 3,000 rpm in fifth and put your foot, nothing would happen until you eventually got to 6,000 rpm. 190bhp I was quoted by prima and you could get over taken by a nova.

Second, the six pot Prima Racing calipers were a complete waste of time. They were no better than original clio brakes. They would stick to the discs when parked for more than a day and whenever you braked the car pulled to the left, under 10mph when you braked the steering wheel actually turned 1/4 of a turn with no hands on it!

Third, and the most annoying problem, the car suddenly developed a fault where you are driving normally then the revs would completely drop and you would lose all power. Like one big flat spot. It would splutter and sound like a complete dog. I took it to the garage and they changed the lambda sensor and it was solved.. for a time... the lambda wiring had been hanging loose and melted on the exhaust (prima build quality)

Fourth prob, the brakes then developed a major problem, only one of the front brakes were working as only one disc was being worn, the other had no pressure from the pads whatsoever! Then when you drivin there would be an awful vibration from one of the front wheels caused by the caliper, basically this car felt like a death trap.

5th prob, headlights would not work, and then when they would they turned on the brake lights. (prima wiring for you)

So eventually I had enough, it was out of mot so I booked it in to go back and see Prima in Nottingham to get the brake prob solved and get an mot - 2 hrs away from me.

When I bought the car it was decatted and they did not have the cat. I was unhappy about that but the boss there said he would mot it no problem for me and he could pass it without a cat. So I took it there (at 55mph on the motorway it was so dangerous!) and when i got there the boss said he now couldn't MOT it as new mot regs meant you needed a cat. Being renault specialists, did he have or no anyone who had a spare cat? noooooooooo..I thought ok then, but why didn't you tell me before I came all the way down? He said he tried which is BS. Complete waste of time.

But I still needed my brakes sorting as the car was dangerous. His mechanic had a look and told me the bolt holding all the caliper together had snapped!! So I could of been killed at any time lol, They then told me it would take days to fix so I was stuck without a car in Nottingham. I had to rent a car for 3 days until it was sorted.

When I picked the car up the bill came to £341. They had to rebuild the caliper they said. I said I could of just got a new caliper fitted for less than that and it would of taken a couple of hrs to source one and fit it!!

Bearing in mind all the probs I had had and the fact that I had only done just over 1000 miles since I bought the car from them, I asked for a slight discount, maybe 10%, bit of goodwill as I had bought the car 6mths earlier for £7250 and considering they messed me around with the cat MOT situation..

The boss then started to lose his temper and proceeded to tell me to "f!&* off and get out of here" "either pay me or I will keep your keys" - I was paying £350 for this pleasure! They said all the problems were my fault and said I had probably been tracking the car - I has never been near a track or driven hard!

I had not been rude or abusive, just polite and stated my problems I had with the car in less than 1500 miles. He the disappeared and I then got both barrels from his wife and then her daughter, swearing telling me I where to go etc. I couldnt believe it and was stunned. I geneuinly have never seen customer service like that. Eventually I paid and left but am still angry about it almost a year on.

I bought an CAT for it (which is now for sale) and got it mot. The mot tester commented on the headlight wiring which was a joke.

Then guess what the cutting out / power loss lamda problem reappeared!!!

I was so desperate to get rid of the car I sold it to a dealer for £6100 (which I was delighted with!!) on the way it was spluttering etc but he didnt notice or test drive it thank god.

It was the worst car I have ever experienced. Hateful car! It was unbelievably slow in 4th or 5th (under 6500 rpm), handled like a boat, full of problems and I cant believe I gave over 7 grand of my money to those people at Prima. I had a bad feeling about them from the start. The boss seemed dodgy and stressed when I first met him, like he was hiding something. Then when i went back the treatment I got was unbelieveable.

These are my views only but I would never want to meet or have to do deal with such shady, rude, abusive, money grabbing lowlives again. They were all muppets. I was warned by people on here about them and how the service when I bought the car. Should of listened more!

Remeber family run businesses are only great if they are nice families!

Hope this is not deleted as its a genuine unbiased account of what happened.
 
  Octy vRS & Ninja 650
Wow, they sound real nice!

I didnt get it as bad as that, but reminds me of when I went to get a new jack off the renault sollihul dealer when mine broke when I first used it and it broke!

What car have you got now then?
 
  172 'Raymondo' Sport
thanks for reading it, however bad it may sound, when you are actually there and on the end of it its alot worse. The abuse was coming from all the family! All I wanted was a slight discount considering the brakes could of killed me! Shoddy service and shoddy car.

I buy and sell cars now and again so at the moment I have a peugeot 405 td lol but I have owned all the hot hatches and a standard clio 172 so I know how they should drive! But I bought Maxi to keep as it looked amazing. But never buy a car on its looks, drive it first!

Has anyone else had bad service from Prima??
 
  Mazda MX5 1.8
not the 1st horror story ive heard about prima to be honest
i know i certainly wont buy anything from them ever.....

cant stand companies just out to make money and just shrug their shoulders (or tell u to f**k off in this case) when something goes wrong.
just so infuriating!
 
  172 'Raymondo' Sport
Yeh ok, I should clarify that, when I bought it was on the borderline with all the graphics, centre caps and stuff, but once I got rid of those it looked alot better in all silver.

I gave them £7250 cash for the car without even driving it lol

You dont know how happy I was to get £6100 back for it. I would of been pleased with £5000!

I bought it and the speedo read approx 15000 miles, yet when I mot'd it they advised me that the rear brake pads were low and close to the limit. Is this possible in 15,000 miles?..... and why was the steering wheel changed to a omp one? I know the original ones are ugly but it makes you think as they wear easy maybe they were trying to cover something else up....

2000 - 2005 - 15000 miles in 5 years...

oh yeah and when I bought it one of the engine mounting bolts was loose and you could unscrew it by hand!
 
  clio 200 F4Rt
i only ever spoke to prima once (well cituning, all the same tho) was at Donny one year.

They had a t/b'ed saxo lump on show, wanted some info on their kit etc, as i was ready tto buy... all i got was a 'grunt'. so thought.... f**k them!!!!
 
My limited experience of Prima is similar. Rude, abrasive, unhelpful. I tried to get some information off them regarding one of their engines they tuned. They made it quite clear they thought i was a waste of their time and basically had no intention of even talking to me.

By the way it would have been illegal for them to keep your keys until you paid. If they wanted the money they would have had to file a claim at a county court. You cant go around taking keys off people. Only the the Police and a court appointed agent would have that authority.
 
not the 1st horror story ive heard about prima to be honest
i know i certainly wont buy anything from them ever.....

cant stand companies just out to make money and just shrug their shoulders (or tell u to f**k off in this case) when something goes wrong.
just so infuriating!

There are plenty of stories out there about Prima. Im suprised people still go to them.
 
i only ever spoke to prima once (well cituning, all the same tho) was at Donny one year.

They had a t/b'ed saxo lump on show, wanted some info on their kit etc, as i was ready tto buy... all i got was a 'grunt'. so thought.... f**k them!!!!

Grunting, exactly the same response i got, and you had the same idea as me. f**k them!!!
 
  ITB BG 182
i spoke to them once on the phone for my car an was told that the 30mm drop from eibach springs would cause my car to make a knocking noise on the road as its the wrong fitment that eibach make an they then advised me to go for pi lowmax springs that would drop the car 25mm, i lookd into them on here an found out the spring they would sell me would drop the car 55mm... too low then they wanted stupid amounts for it, When i phoned them back quoting to them on the drop an how much they said to me something on the lines of "you my son do not have a f**king clue what your on about" then they slammd the phone down...
Never again, nu-ahh
 
I bought some side skirts from them many years ago.

They were different lengths.

Total waste of space.
 
D

Dani

They took 6 hours to lower my pug when I took it there. And it was much lower at the rear than it should ahve been when I eventually got it back. I wouldn't go back to them again.
 
  FF Black 182 + Cup Packs
I nearly bought this car on ebay about a year ago but pulled out after couldnt get hold of the money in time. It seems like i was very lucky! I know I wont be going to them in the future after reading this
 

al

  ST on the way...
Sound like a really nice company!!! :S

I had a 16v style bonnet from them for my Renault 5 a few years back, surprise surprise it didn't fit properly, it sat almost an INCH off the car!! Didn't want the hassle of asking them to sort it so did it myself with bonnet pins.

Als_R5_GTS_22.jpg
Als_R5_GTS_23.jpg
 
  FN2 Type R +MK6 Golf
Sounds like LAD with there claims of power against the very personal family business run by prima.
Sometimes i think they dont realise car owners may know about cars too.

ian
 
  BMW F31
can you post some pics of the car lisa as i think it may be the one near me, that a friend was looking at.
 
The strange thing is some rally drivers really rate their engine work. I know a number of relatively high spec competition rally car owners that swear by them. Ive seen some of their work and it seems all good. But these are on peoples cars who pay big money and have the reputation to sink Prima if they dont get the goods.

I think this is a case of us being the bread and butter. Easy money. No come back. So they just sell crap to us and concentrate efforts on the big fish.
 
  172 'Raymondo' Sport
I nearly bought this car on ebay about a year ago but pulled out after couldnt get hold of the money in time. It seems like i was very lucky! I know I wont be going to them in the future after reading this


Haha yeh it was on ebay in august 2005, starting bid of £7000 no reserve, eventually went for £7250. I thought it was a bit of a bargain considering it had done approx 15k - which I now am v dubious about! They were asking over £13k on their website! They are trying to get that now aswell for a C2 which just looks plain tacky.

I will now have second thoughts about buying a car from one of these tuning companies, Prima, LAD etc unless I recieve a full warranty etc as you just cant trust the quality of the conversion and bits. I will just stick to stock cars built by the manufacturer.

I am laughing reading all these msgs, you have to be careful, the boss guy there has a really short fuse!

Thanks again for reading my msg, just glad other people on here are already aware of this company and their customer relations.

Just to add after I sold it the new owner contacted me a couple of mths back after getting my details from the V5 and asked if I had ever experienced any probs with it as the car was starting to splutter and lose power. Luckily he was covered I think by the 6mth warranty from the supplying dealer I sold it to. So the problems continue! Great car well done Prima!
 
  Mini Cooper S sport
A hard lesson learned there...

Not nice to hear of such bad treatment, if you were a 6'5 burly bloke I bet they wouldn't have been so rude.
 


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