Eight Years, One Award: What "Highly Rated" Actually Means
Eight Years, One Award: What "Highly Rated" Actually Means
We don't normally get excited about email notifications. This one's an exception.
Autotrader has just named us a Highly Rated retailer for 2026. On its own, that's a nice thing to put in a newsletter. What made us stop and actually read the email twice is this: it's the eighth year in a row we've won it. Every single year since 2018.
It's not an award we can apply for
There's no form to fill in, no fee to pay, no box to tick. Autotrader's Highly Rated badge is calculated entirely from customer ratings. The reviews people leave after they've actually driven away in a car we sold them. We don't get a say in it, and neither does anyone else on our team. It's simply a running total of what our customers think of us, updated every year.
Which means winning it once could be a good year. Winning it eight years running is something else, it's what happens when the way you treat people doesn't change, whatever else is going on around you.
Same forecourt, same approach, since 1996
Simon Shield Cars has been trading from Great Bricett, Ipswich, Suffolk since 1996. We're still a two-person operation at the core of it and Simon handpicks and sources every car that comes onto the forecourt. Caroline handles everything else. No sales targets, no scripts, no pressure to move you on to the next thing on the lot.
That's a slower way to run a dealership than most. It's also, we think, the only reason this badge keeps turning up in our inbox every July. When there are only two of you and your name is above the door, you can't afford to get it wrong and you find out very quickly if you have.
Why this matters more than most awards
Anyone can post a five-star review screenshot. What's harder to fake is consistency. The same result, from different customers, buying different cars, in different years, for going on a decade. That's not a marketing win. That's a pattern.
If you're weighing up where to buy your next car, that's really what this badge is standing in for: proof, independently gathered and totted up by someone other than us, that people who've bought here would do it again.
Thank you
This one belongs to everyone who's left us a review since 2018. Whether it was three lines on Google or a full paragraph on Autotrader. We read every single one, good and bad, and they're the reason we still do this the way we do.
If you've bought a car from us over the years, thank you. If you haven't yet - come and see why people keep coming back.
Simon Shield Cars is a family-run used car dealership based in Great Bricett, Suffolk, serving Ipswich, Stowmarket and Needham Market since 1996.