After the intervention of Cars UK, Hyundai has stepped in to act on ‘Administration’ fees on cars bought under the Scrappage Scheme.
We’ve written umpteen Hyundai Scrappage stories in the last year. We’ve been impressed with the way Hyundai’s marketing team have picked up the Scrappage Scheme and run with some very clever strategies to increase their sales.
But none of the deals have been empty promises, nor have they been designed to foist third rate cars on unwary buyers. Hyundai have become makers of increasingly impressive cars, and if they carry on as they are they’re going to continue their impressive climb to the top of the car makers league table.
So we weren’t at all surprised when Hyundai launched their own scrappage scheme last week to keep up the sales momentum when the Government scrappage scheme ends. But what did surprise us was a comment on that article from a Cars UK reader who had been to his local Hyundai dealers to buy a car under the scrappage scheme, only to be told that they were happy to sell him a car but that the deal would incur a £200 administration fee.
He asked if this was normal, and the truth is we didn’t know. But it seemed an awfully big chunk out of the Scrappage allowance if it was par for the course. Car dealers have to make a living, but we couldn’t believe Hyundai would shoot themselves in the foot by sanctioning the charge. So we asked Hyundai. On a Sunday. To their credit they responded within an hour and came back to use within 24 hours with a statement:
“As you know, the contract to buy a car is primarily a deal between the dealer and the customer. The dealer is therefore free to impose whatever terms they see fit without intervention from the manufacturer.
However, the manufacturer can tell dealers that it is displeased with their actions.
Hyundai does not condone the imposition of any admin fees to scrappage deals, and it has taken action where necessary to stop these being imposed. I can confirm that this dealer has ‘incurred our displeasure’.
If customers do find a dealer trying to impose such a fee, we would advise them to let us know and then try another dealer. There are plenty of Hyundai dealers who will be only too happy to sell a scrappage car without any such fee.”
Which we find very impressive. Not only has Hyundai rebuked the dealer in question but they’ve made it clear anyone facing such a charge should walk away and go to another dealer or contact Hyundai.
So now we’re impressed with Hyundai’s marketing and PR teams!




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