Automotive Consulting Engineers Ltd

As you can see from the thousands of 1 star reviews on Google, and there were thousands of 1 star reviews on Trustpilot here which it appears the business has removed as it was used as evidence the investigation by the IMI, Mr Thomas of ACE is anything but reliable or capable of providing reasonable customer service. Should you find yourself in this position contact their regulator The Institute of the Motor industry, they are independent and can investigate complaints against Mr Thomas, not surprisingly Mr Thomas will not make you aware of this. I did this under their complaint about professional standards. Despite the IMI being provided with the thousands of complaints on Google reviews and Trustpilot they did not consider it gross misconduct so he was not suspended or struct off. However they have told me this is only because mine was the first complaint they had received, why they prioritise this over thousands of bad reviews I can't understand and they won't explain. However they said if they receive more complaint he will likely have his membership terminated. So if you are one of those that were treated in the same way as me please raise a complaint with the IMI. Tel (0)1992 511521 The IMI did write to him stating he had breached their professional standards so the complaint was upheld against him, this I reviewed today. Graham Thomas inspected my car which he stated had a fault due to a design flaw / fault due to Porsche faulty manufacturing. It took weeks to get him to produce the report, and when asked to follow through and provide a response to Porsche trying to belittle in competence and impartiality Mr Thoms would not respond despite many request by text email and phone. He and his firm would not investigate a complaint against their poor service. He continued this refusal to communicate with a large law firm after making appointments he would not attend or meet and request to do so. He even told a senior member of the IMI that he would communicate and then refused to, so they saw it first hand. The whole point of getting a report from ACE was to get them to represent me and the law firm in court, otherwise his report is useless. .Moreexpand_more

Terrible company carried out an inspection on a car I sold for the buyer. Confirmed they would contact me with a date for the inspection as I wanted to be present, They didn't! They couldn't even supply me with a correct invoice (they kept putting the buyers name on it). They were contracted to do an engine inspection and diagnosis of why the engine had failed and all they did was take pictures of the car, wheels and the engine. The report they produced came to the conclusion that the car was not as described at the point of sale 3 months earlier and after it had been driven for 7 miles with no oil or water in, by looking down the plug holes and stating the exhaust tips had carbon on As probably not as described. No compression test no parts even remove as someone else had already taken the plugs out and if they hadn't they would not have done so. When I queried the report they sent me an invoice for £240 saying that had to be paid before they would discuss anything to do with the report. They are rude and dismissive to deal with and have totally miss diagnosed this vehicle. Just in case they want to reply to this with excuses the reg No is LR05NSZ. I have now employed a decent company to state what they should have done for the £840 they charged and I will be suing them in court, If you are thinking of using them DON'T, If you need any further information please leave a comment and I will reply.Moreexpand_more

Dodgy! Scary this can exist in this day and age! Did not let me part of process, paid off by the garage! Daniel king dismissed all! 448382e D this user from Watford if you see this please contact me.

I looked around a booked ACE, (Definitely not ace, not even mediocre at best) these! They have come, spoke very well and told me what I wanted to hear with a caveat that it will be factual and objective, but the report, so subjective and missing key facts. They had all the evidence needed! Maybe I should have read the reviews!

Saved me a lot of money with there inspection great report covered everything about this car great company will use again. Many thanks.

Would leave zero stars but that's not an option! My finance company used these to inspect my vechile, I'd not heard of them before so headed to Google to look them up, straight away I seen the low rating reviews so I immediately phoned my finance company to express my concerns, was basically told it was my only option, so I had the inspection carried out , and wasn't surprised in the slightest when the report came back and had completely different things on than what the inspector had stood and told me as he was inspecting the vechile. Givem the fact I'd read on a review similar happening to other people. This company should be contacted by watchdog as there's definitely something dodgy going on here. One word of advice avoid!

Waste of money. I had an engineer inspect my 2019 van with engine failure, the couldn’t remove anything only visually inspect so I paid a garage to dismantle the engine, they then visited again and inspected, was very positive and told me to send service records etc. I thought great, job done. Then on the actual report, NONE of what the engineer communicated with me was included! It just merely states, lack of servicing. And says, no service record was presented, even though I sent all service records to the enginner! Don’t waste your money, they’re useless!

Requested a vehicle check to settle a dealer/sales dispute contact person MrGraham Thomas listened to my request and arranged an inspection by Mr Dave bird who agreed to come at a convenient time to carry out this service your people restored my faith in humanity AN honest and reliable company thank you Sam Harvie.

I purchased a 2018 Ford KA+ from Carzam June 27th 2021, 4 months later the oil pump failed rendering the engine beyond economical repair and facing a repair bill of nearly £6K, I had covered 4500 miles from sale. Following my complaint to Carzam, they sent an inspector from this shambolic company to assess the car, in their report they were pleased to report (like it was some kind of revelation) the car had not covered 23,000 miles from sale as thought, but 4,500, however somehow they concluded that this was covered in 10 days. Words almost fail me, ones I can repeat on a public forum anyhow. Their final words on the matter, bearing in mind that absolutely no technical investigation had been carried out, and the Ford garage had given them the their report on the condition of the vehicle, saying that this premature failure was likely the result of a lack of servicing, but "ace" ? Conclusion was that the fault was not present at sale and the result of wear and deterioration, so Carzam not liable, in their pocket or what. No doubt they will come up with some pathetic response to this review, however check out reviews from many of their other badly served consumers. So called "ACE" you are a JOKE.

ACE did an inspection on my car for Santander finance and amazingly missed all the problem points raised and couldn’t find anything wrong with my vehicle. Also I had had the car 63 days from purchase and the so called professional consultant worked out I had done 31272 miles in that time, I had done about 1900 miles. So some issues he put down to the amount of mileage I had supposedly done since purchase. So report went back to finance company and no issues to claim for. This company is rubbish, they had my car 5 days to come to the negative conclusion. Thanks GP Thomas ACE Ltd.

This company are a joke. My finance company used ACE to do an inspection of my van which suffered complete engine failure after only 3000 miles driven over a 13 month period, the van is only 5 years old. The van was sold to me with TWO out of 3 broken engine mounts making the van extremely unsafe. Broken engine mounts cause both internal and external engine damage. The engine was stripped by a different mechanic unrelated to ACE. It was discovered that the fuel pump was broken which ultimately caused the engine to be destroyed. The most common cause for fuel pump failure is fuel contamination. When the fuel is contaminated it allows small foreign particles to run into the fuel pump which over time can cause the fuel pump to brake down, this does NOT happen over night. This COULD be the cause of the engine failure. However, in ACE's report the mechanic clearly states that he has no idea what the cause of the engine failure was even though he was aware of the fuel pump and the broken engine mounts. He completely ignores these vital pieces of evidence in his report and concludes the fault was not pre existing to me purchasing the van. How can you not know what the problem was and still say that the issue was not pre existing?You man claimed to be a mechanic yet when I described to him a loud banging sound from the engine when you accelerate he said " that wouldn't be the engine mount " but he was wrong because it was in fact two broken engine mounts. As a qualified mechanic he should know that a loud banging noise from the engine is a CLEAR and OBVIOUS sign of a broken engine mount therfore I question his knowledge on mechanics. The entire inspection lasted approximately 32 minutes armed with nothing more than a torch (I have cctv evidence of this). His report is the difference of me having to pay a further £8500 for a van which was illegally sold to me due to its EXTREMELY unsafe condition. The concrete evidence which I have has also been completely ignored in this man's report and has without a doubt been written in the favour of the finance company regardless of all the evidence. Do NOT use this company, they are clearly a bunch of inadequate morons that don't know what they are doing.Moreexpand_more

I don’t believe this company to be independent. Despite two (actually independent) reviews of our faulty car, the finance company requested their own review carried out by ACE, and low and behold the ACE review said exactly what the finance company wanted so they can deny any liability.

Automotive Consulting Engineers Ltd has the interests of the finance companies at heart and with this, there is a substantial collective of disgruntled people who feel extremely hard done by. This company provides a lip service as a smoke screen to the finance companies who are keen to win cases of which they are liable. I have collected accounts from a relative number of people and examined them before submitting them to Trading Standards, The Government Agnecy 'Insolvency Services' and passed on details to Watchdog - I have footage of their "Engineers" which has also been submitted. These people behind and directors behind the company name need to be in the spotlight for the insincere nature of their actions. Clearly as the reader of this may be able to tell, I fell victim to their corrupt service which was in the interest of their clients. Thankfully I have had their corruption highlighted, acknowledged and accepted - thus winning my case through the relevant Government Agencies and Ombudsman. This has taken around 18 months. Now with a collective of people we are doing all we can to have this company held accountable for their conclusions, assessments (or lack of) based from quite frankly, mistruths and corruption. All of these allegations are printed with evidence and a stronghold of information which can and will stand in court without jeopardising the outcome.Moreexpand_more

After three weeks of being messed about and reading the reviews on this site, I have decided not to continue with ACE. They have been totally unprofessional, shambolic is more to the point, and have now resent me the very detailed form I filled in two weeks ago on their site (so I don't have a copy) and asked me to fill it in again. I can only see more incompetence down the line!

Found no faults on my van but another garage found them on a test drive 3 days later it doesn't start not the first time this company has been wrong always sides with moto novo rogues off a company now left with a £2500 repair bill after 3000 miles since purchase pure joke.

I was advised that finance company were doing independent review. Engineer arrived, very smart and listened to everything I said. Advised me that although I probably wanted answers immediately, unfortunately he would be unable to do so and that the company has a strict impartial position. I left him alone to do the assessment and he then took the car on a test drive. I had a full understanding of the vehicles faults. When I received copy of his report, to my relief he had picked up on all the faults. The report was concise and to the point.

Following a challenging car accident, ACE Ltd was asked to conduct an independent assessment of the damage. The task was dealt with in timely fashion with a very satisfactory outcome. The ACE team were unfailingly helpful and supportive throughout. In sum, this was a job well done. Highly recommended.

SHOCKING TO SAY THE LEAST ! So called experts, have a aged man show up with a £30 diagnostic tool for a £80k car. Device was not even recognised by the car and clearly lied on the report to side with the finance company. DESCRIBED THE CATALYTIC CONVERTER DAMAGED At 20k MILES BY WEAR AND TEAR. What a joke, DO NOT USE ! BIASED REPORTS DEFINITELY NOT INDEPENDENT. Better of having your grandma inspect the car and fill in a report on microsoft word.

Excellent prompt service. Detailed professional report.

The company was supposed to come and inspect my vehicle. A date was arranged and I received daily telephone calls to ensure I and the vehicle would be available. I asked for a time bracket of when the engineer would attend, morning or afternoon would do. All I received back was the engineer would call and let me know the day before. This did not happened. I tried to call their office, an 08450 number charged at £0. 85 a minute and after being held was told no one was available. Eventually, they called and I was told the engineer could not attend as he was “unavoidable delayed”. The company is totally unprofessional and I would advise anyone reading this to find another provider.Moreexpand_more