“Car Chase Heroes swindle.
I booked a driving experience day with Car Chase Heroes for July 12th which I made in February 2024. I knew they had received my booking because two days later they emailed me asking for my experience day voucher number which I promptly replied with and was assured by them everything was booked. On July 11th at 10:45 pm (the night before my driving day experience). I received a text message from the company to "remind" me that my driving experience wouldn't go ahead tomorrow and ensure I have checked my email including spam.
Confused, I then proceeded to check my emails thoroughly and could not find any email regarding my track day not going ahead. Suddenly I received an email at 11 pm (15 minutes later) regarding my track day not going ahead due to a last-minute cancellation by the circuit and Car Chase Heroes moved my experience day in September. Car Chase Heroes however wittingly decided to insert a sender, subject, and date into the body of the email with a date that states 27th June, my inbox shows a timestamp of when the email came through and it states 11 July 2024 23:01. Once I received the email I replied demanding a refund as it was unacceptable to notify me the night before my driving experience of this cancellation. They argued that they didn't notify me last minute and that the email was sent out on June 27th, they cannot issue me a refund either and I would need to reschedule my event day. The funny thing is, none of the emails sent before or after that email were written in the same format with a sender, subject, and date in the body of the email.
I intend not to do any more business with this company that lacks integrity and can only fault myself for not doing my due diligence by reading other reviews from people who have been stung by Car Chase Heroes. I would urge everyone to look elsewhere to book a driving experience day.”
“The car was not in great condition, the brakes were terrible, steering was really not good, the owner had not really maintained it very well
Long cues getting in, then registration, and even longer cues at the end to get video and pictures
Good selection of cars, but need to look at your processes to try and cut down cues, quality of older vehicles, 6x laps not enough time, and not real value”
“Been waiting 3 years after redeeming my voucher to actually get to drive what I'm supposed to. Each time it's either the cars aren't available today but they let you book, they cancel the event and move it to another time without checking to see if you can attend or not, there's a strict no refund policy which explains why Tim Roche is probably so rich. Personally I'd advise against ever getting one of these vouchers. Organisers on the day seem in chaos, the ques are phenomenal that you get to hear how others have been waiting years to get their experience and then your stuffed if the car stops working. Apparently its in the small print! DO NOT BUY THESE VOUCHERS FOR LOVED ONES...IT'S A DISAPOINTING PRESENT YOU FEEL YOU HAVE TO KEEP TRYING TO DO.”
“Unfortunately my son never got to go on the experience as the admin team take far too long to reply to emails - 8 days! Extra costs also involved if you want to enjoy the experience. This was a birthday gift from his grandparents and we have given up trying to book now.
No dates were offered for the preferred track (30mins drive) so had to go with another track which was a 3hr drive away. Therefore booked a hotel to make a weekend out of it only to have the session cancelled by car chase heroes.
Rescheduled session and hotel only to have the 2nd session cancelled again by car chase heroes.
Booked for a 3rd time but unable to go due to my son obtaining an injury which prevented him from travelling let along being a passenger in a car on a track. When asked if we could reschedule, we were advised we would have to pay a cancellation fee as we hadn't taken the insurance. This I would normally not argue with but we had the previous sessions cancelled by them.
Also you have to pay extra for weekend sessions and extra laps to make the distance of travel worth it.”
“Have tried to book car experience on line experienced problems each time I tried to redeem voucher. Have tried to get through on the phone numerous time never get an answer just music . Such a waste of time and money”
“Booking this red letter day back to back driving experience was so difficult, I had to pay to extend the voucher for another year , then tried to book but nothing was available.
Then I read all the other reviews about having to wait hours and the poor organisation of car chase heroes , paying extra for cdw and paying to park plus you will be sharing the track with 12 year olds who really can't drive !!!!. I at that point I thought forget it , its a shame as my kids bought me the voucher.
But it's such a relief to forget it !!!”
“The day was fantastic and my 10 year old loved driving the 4 cars and then I paid 60 to get all the photos and video on a memory card come home to check it and it's empty no pictures on it at all. 10 year old in tears”
“A bit of a let down really. I booked 3 laps (apparently, most customers only book 2) but after the 2nd lap, I was asked to return to the pit lane. When I mentioned I had booked 3 laps, the instructor apologised and took me out for the 3rd. However, this was really just another warm up lap as the momentum had gone (pit lane speed restrictions and all that).
We queued for possibly an hour to review the photos but very disappointed as the instructor was posing with his thumbs up (in a childish way - apparently they are told to do that) so didn't buy any photos at all.
All in all, I have had better race day experiences with other companies. Would not be my first choice for a driving experience.”
“Lots of additional costs. Bought from John Lewis for Christmas presents. Do not buy for kids as limited availability and if you want to go at the weekend another additional cost. Turned up - like a cattle market. Avoid!”
“I attended a castle Combe event
I was very disappointed with the experience and would expect a significant refund or another session free of charge.
There were several issues on the day, despite arriving on time:
- I did not get to drive any of the three cars I had selected!! (This appeared to be because of a time constraint). I paid extra to drive the 458 this was not there on the day. The GT40 had too many other drivers lined up to drive it. And the Atom which I was really excited to drive as it's very different was also too busy for to drive.
- I did not get the high speed passenger ride which I was really looking forward to.
- I waiting for 2hrs 30 for my first drive and was then rushed in any available car to finish up as fast as I could.
This was a 30th birthday present from my family and I was very annoyed with the overall experience.
The extra costs on top of the experience day I was gifted we also really frustrating +£50 for a 'premium track'+£25 for a 458 drive +£25 insurance”
“Do not book this experience, it is a total rip off!
After paying for the gift, you will also get stung with a £25 charge to book on a weekend then when you arrive on the day, an extra £2 for parking AND £29 waiver fee.
After the total £100+ cost you will then need to stand (unsheletered) for hours on end until they call out your name as there are hundreds of other people there in front of you even though you booked! No organisation at all. Can't comment on the cars as we gave up waiting!!”
“Where to start, 1st time car was broken which I can happen at any point(a mini)
2nd time arrive at the site to be told that one car was not there and no reason why, golf GTI, and also the other car was not working and handnt been for a while.
3rdtime they cancelled two weeks before and this took us months to get organised with the cars we wanted to drive. We had booked a hotel as this was my birthday weekend and other things were planned.
4th time we get an email to say it’s cancelled after booking early last year and now to be told the cars that are wanted to be driven are either off site for other things or can’t get at the same time. Also told that if we want a weekend when some are we have to pay extra for this, but this was there choice not ours.
Try to call the it takes over 20 mins to get through for them to say there is nothing they can do. Again we have a hotel booked and another experience at somewhere else the next day. Now looks like it will be next year maybe when they have the cars and will have to pay to extend which is a JOKE!
We did have a good time there and the people at the site were really nice, but this does not mean that excuse things”
“Last year I booked the Mini Cooper s experience but due to mechanical issues it got cancelled. I have had my experience gift end date extended as to date am still awaiting dates for this experience option. It’s disappointing when the mini option is not available on many of the locations offered. I have searched with the thought a 2hr drive would be acceptable to get to a location but to date have not been able to secure a booking for my chosen experience.”
“I recently had an unfortunate experience with Car Chase Heroes . The communication from their team was exceedingly poor. Despite reaching out multiple times, I often found myself waiting for days, if not weeks, to receive any form of reply regarding our booking. This lack of prompt communication significantly impacted our plans.
Adding to the frustration, they only notified us days before our scheduled date that the slot we had originally requested was already full. Without considering our availability, they automatically rescheduled us for a later time slot. This was particularly inconvenient as we had personal commitments, which we had previously communicated to them.
The biggest letdown was their inflexibility in handling the situation. Despite the oversight being on their end, they offered no option to reschedule free of charge. This lack of customer-centric solutions was disappointing, to say the least.
Given these circumstances, I regret to say that I cannot recommend Car Chase Heroes . The overall experience was marred by poor communication and a lack of accommodating customer service. This was not the experience we had hoped for, and it's unfortunate that it did not meet our expectations.”
“I must say the actual driving experience is amazing BUT everything else is downhill. Firstly my driving experience got changed to a different day. Secondly one day before we got an email saying the I (15 year old) couldn’t drive but when we got there after a couple hours drive and a awfully long queue wait we were greatly told that I could drive but for some reason the way they checked that I could drive is by my height but Im taller than my dad and there were no questions whether he could drive. Thirdly it’s a money grab, basically they tell you “you can drive 3 laps for £10 or 6 laps for £19” (these aren’t real figures) or something like “you can drive this car for £34 and then drive this car for £23” and you’ll spend the £23 for this other car because your told that your driving a super car but these next 2 complaints will prove to you that this extra £23 isn’t worth it. One the time between is huge my dad was to drive the Nissan GTR at around about 1pm but he never drove it because it broke down but, I was meant to drive the Nissan GTR, however I believe that around 2 hours is far to long for a driving experience. If your wondering my father ended up driving some sort of Lamborghini which in my honest opinion is far more worth it than the Nissan GTR. Secondly the cost of switching cars and drivers is equivalent to millions of pounds. So to switch drivers was £30, and to switch cars was another £30 so in total it was £60 for my dad to drive another car, even if I still wanted to drive the Nissan GTR it would have still costed us £30 to switch. The two final points are not very clear and you drive incredibly slow. Firstly there are no signs what so ever, none to direct you, none to say where you go to drive your car, nothing and when you drive it’s literally a ‘driving’ experience and not a ‘racing’ experience, so not much of a car chase after all is it.”
“Terribly organised - would never put anyone through this torturous wait. Also hidden costs too. would not thank anyone fir this ‘gift’. Had a time slot of 1:30 and still weren’t in the car by 4:30.”
“I was looking forward for my favourite car experience as I paid extra £40 for it but it turned out to be a total nightmare! As you arrive on site they charge you for parking, then a very long queue meanwhile some of staff trying to sell you insurance, until I get to their desk and told that the car has mechanical issue and cannot be driven. They offered no alternative and was told to re-book it but my voucher would pass it’s expiry date so my loss was cost of the expensive voucher plus £40 extra for the car I wanted to drive. It’s absolutely shocking that there is no compensation and they take no responsibility! I have never seen such a lack of care and customer satisfaction anywhere and staff couldn’t even careless! How could they operate as a business in such a fashion is beyond me and I guess with huge number of people who are willing to put up with this only to get their hands on their favourite car, could be the only reason to continue their business. But for me never again!”
“Awful experience from start to finish. Staff are only interested in getting more money out of you, then rush you through, making no effort to provide a good experience.
The number of cars on the track made it impossible to drive at speed and was just like being in a huge line of traffic.
Never again.”
