The Ridgeway Group has progressed swiftly since arriving in 1997 and they now generate the 15th largest turnover of any British dealer. Franchises have been built with the likes of BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Volkswagen. Their flagship high-end partner is Maserati over in Oxford. They have just over 30 dealerships and around 10 outlets (commercial, workshops etc). You may often spot the Pentagon name that is a company they acquired. Some dealerships are also named as Select where you’ll find mixed stock. In total you’ll be able to search around 2000 vehicles at www.ridgeway.co.uk. Many awards have been notched up over the years, but what has really limited their growth has been their lack of expansion.

Most of their dealerships are located down the south of England in such locations as Bournemouth, Portsmouth, Southampton etc. When it comes to the Ridgeway finance, there wasn’t much initial hope. The financing pages are split across each manufacturer whereby they list hire purchase, personal contract purchase (Select) and there is also contract hire. At the bottom of each page no rates are provided and they just advise you to contact your local dealership. Fortunately, when you scan through the used cars at www.ridgeway.co.uk you can sample prices and apply. This depends if the listing carries a HP and PCP badge. When applying you are redirected to a secure URL on www.newvehicle.com.

We checked several listings and the APR was always 12.9%. In regards to their panel they note the lenders used at the bottom of each page in the Disclosure section. The financing departments for various franchised automakers are listed (new car sales). For used cars, a few example lenders are Alphera, Black Horse and Santander Consumer. We would have expected to see rates closer to 6%, but they are probably adding on fees. When checking the dealership opening times, matched hours were seen for sales visits. These were as follows: Monday to Thursday (8.30am/7pm), Friday (8.30am/6.30pm), Saturday (9am/5.30pm) and Sunday (10.30am/4.30pm).