Car problem! yay!

bobert50

bobert50

bobert50

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Joined
1 Mar 2007
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Just bought a car yesterday from a fairly big second hand car dealer, took it on a 25 min test drive and all seemed fine, great infact. So i bought it and drove home...

This morning its perfect..except for the gearbox :mad: I'll try to explain the problem...

It seems to intimitently go into 2nd + 4th + reverse (the gears going downwards, basically), yet all the gears going upwards (1st/3rd/5th) feel absolutely perfect and like normal. Sometimes when putting it in 2nd/4th/rev it just falls back into neutral and if i'm honest, the lower direction ones all feel kind of "spongey" as if they're not slotting in properly yet the 1st/3rd/5th which i'm having no problems in the slightest with all "feel" perfect/normal as you slot it in. Theres absolutely no "stiffyness" at all trying to go into any gear, just this falling back into neutral thing.

So i have 2 questions please :)

1) whats likely to be broken? anyone had anything similar? google isn't bringing up much apart along identical lines :(

2) which would be the best place to get in touch with as to getting this fixed? the garage i bought the car (which is 2 hours away :( ) or the warranty which i appear to have a very comprehensive one covering anything mechnical/electrical within a 3 month period for upto £1000.

I'm assuming its something i'm going to have to act very fast on ideally and i'd much rather get it sorted than try to push for my money back as i think the car is great.

Any help, especially regarding who to get in touch with first (car dealer or warranty place) very much appreciated :)
 
Dealer first, they'll tell you to bring the car back and they'll get their local workshop to look at it.

Sounds like it could be the linkages (if this car has any, you don't say what it is)
 
I really appreciate the feedback so far, thanks :)

I'm going to get in touch with them shortly and see how it goes.

The service history is really comprehensive, to say the least! The only major work done at all recently was a new clutch + flywheel about a year ago at a crazy fee (carried out by honda).
 
Would it be normal to expect the garage to pay for everything? including just getting it looked at? or just the actual repair? Also, do you have to just take their word for it and get the money back off them afterwards? Sounds a bit easy for the garage to just lie and say they didn't agree to anything afterwards to me! Unless i'm missing something?

Admittedly, i'm not really knowledable with this sort of thing...

EDIT - what i mean is, what legally are they obliged to do ?
 
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Quick update.

I've spoken to the garage and they seemed fine about it, they said i'd have to bring it back which hopefully won't be a prob but it looks like whatever it is, they'll sort it.

Will probably write another reply when its fixed because i'm sure everyones really on the edge of their seats with anticipation! :o

Thanks for the help.
 
in the first 6 months of owning a car, if you find a fault, not including wear and tear, it is the dealer who has to prove that the fault wasnt on the car when they sold it to you. After 6 months you have to prove that the fault was there. This is what trading standards said on the radio yesterday.
 
Yeah I heard that on Radio 1 driving home also lol :) Be interesting to see how garages find a way out of it and fob you off I guess.


Any luck with the car so far then?
 
Hi, another update! sorry its taken me a while.

It was indeed one of the linkages and i've had a temp fix until i get the new part fitted next week but the car now drives perfectly.

The car's brilliant, really liking it and finding it a pretty faultless drive and by diesel standards, extremely un-tractor-like (my word!).

The economy is turning out to be above expectations too.

I'm tempted to do a little writeup on it at some point in another thread if anyone is bored enough to read :D they're really quite good cars! very impressed so far, especially for the money paid.

Thanks for helping find the problem btw.
 
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