Advice on issue with used car

MassiveJim

MassiveJim

MassiveJim

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22 Feb 2014
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Bought a VW sharan from a dealer which was provided with a 1 year warranty

we are in month 3 and there is a noise coming from the gearbox area, most likely to be flywheel.
Warranty company will only pay once a full quote has been submitted and then they have to approve it.

obviously to drop a gearbox out and investigate involves a fair amount of work (garage quoted me £450 to drop the box/flywheel and put it back in again)
also warranty company only cover 50% of the parts cost due to mileage on the car.

Is the garage that I bought this from liable for the other 50% of the part cost or does that have to come out of my pocket ?
Also where do I stand if the box is dropped and the warranty company refuse to pay for the repair, is the garage that sold it to me under any liability ?


The garage that I bought this from is absolutely shocking, I had another issue with the car and the owner is extremely rude.
the warranty company also doesn't have stellar reviews.

so whatever happens I'm likely to end up with a fight on my hands.
 
how many miles have you done - below seemed pertinent
I think that if you have only done 1500 miles then it's a fair bet that the fault existed at sale so it becomes the dealer's problem. I'd be looking for a very big contribution from the dealer or I'd get legal. You could do this via Trading Stds, a 35k mile car shouldn't be lunching a flywheel, and certainly not after 1500 miles with the new owner and I suspect a court would see it this way.

Whether the dealer knew is immaterial, if I sell you a pork pie that turns out to have metal in it then it is unfit to eat and should be replaced. The fact that I don't know it's in there is neither here nor there, likewise the manufacturer is liable to prosecution. IANAL but this much I do know through my day job, which does indeed at times involve pork pies.
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done about 2/3000 miles.

Box is now out and flywheel has excessive play in it.
I submitted a quote to warranty company, they have just got back to me requesting a picture of the faulty part.
Not entirely sure what that will prove to be honest.
 
maybe they just want pictorial proof the car has been dismantled, as opposed to a mechanics theory ?
but since you've had few miles, I'd be forthrightly giving dealer a heads-up that he will need to contribute any shortfall since fault present at sale and ... you will be visiting consumer advice centre.
 
jpaul said:
maybe they just want pictorial proof the car has been dismantled, as opposed to a mechanics theory ?
but since you've had few miles, I'd be forthrightly giving dealer a heads-up that he will need to contribute any shortfall since fault present at sale and ... you will be visiting consumer advice centre.
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should i take that to mean that you believe the dealer should be footing the bill for any outstanding balance ?

If that is the case can you point me towards the section of the CRA that I can quote to him ?
I have searched and so far come up with nothing
 
i looked in to this when i was diagnosed a faulty bcm at £700 luckily it cured itself ,i went through all the supplied history looking for the fault hoping it was a pre sale thing

What are my rights after 30 days?​

If a problem is found after 30 days, but within six months of purchase, you can request a repair or a replacement vehicle. The onus is on the seller of the car to prove the fault wasn’t present when the car was sold; if they can, and you’re likely to have known about it, you won’t get a refund.
When it comes to repairs, the dealer has one chance to fix the fault. If the fix doesn’t work, you are entitled to a refund. You won’t get the full purchase price back, though. Any usage of the car will be taken into account and the refund will be adjusted accordingly.
 
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moon man said:
i looked in to this when i was diagnosed a faulty bcm at £700 luckily it cured itself ,i went through all the supplied history looking for the fault hoping it was a pre sale thing

What are my rights after 30 days?​

If a problem is found after 30 days, but within six months of purchase, you can request a repair or a replacement vehicle. The onus is on the seller of the car to prove the fault wasn’t present when the car was sold; if they can, and you’re likely to have known about it, you won’t get a refund.
When it comes to repairs, the dealer has one chance to fix the fault. If the fix doesn’t work, you are entitled to a refund. You won’t get the full purchase price back, though. Any usage of the car will be taken into account and the refund will be adjusted accordingly.
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I know about this,


the complication in my case is that the dealer has provided an external warranty, who will (hopefully) cover 50% of the cost of the part, I want to know if the dealer is still responsible for the other 50% and as I haven't taken it back to them and given them the opportunity to have it inspected by a garage of their choosing would this get them off the hook for covering any costs ?

having spoken to the consumer rights team today, the chap on the phone said that they would be, but I wasn't convinced he definitely knew that, seemed to be wanting me off the phone rather than to give me the correct advice, at least that is how it felt.
 
I'd say they aren't liable as it's a tricky one as it's up to the dealer to prove the fault wasn't present at time of purchase and going by the fault you would have noticed it when you bought it/test drove it. The dealer will say you/them didn't notice the issue at purchase time and then did 2/3000 miles before the fault showed up so it wasn't present at purchase and expected wear and tear on a used car.
 
yes but Massivejim is not a car mechanic to spot early symptoms of dmf failure -
with hindsight (& some youtube videos) was the car making noises associated with failure dealer should have recognised.
Any possibity to do some detective work on previous owner (v5?) was problem known by them.

is car age and mileage within typical window where you might expect dmf failure - such that wear & tear clause should not apply.
 
In my case as soon as i spoke to the warranty people i knew that route would be a waste of time all their effort goes in to avoiding claims ,as said i went through all my service history looking for my electrical fault but no luck.
unnecessary info for this thread to follow......
in the end booked it in for a bcm at a vw indie in Redruth, they made me wait 7 weeks for a slot then forgot to order my part that was apparently on backorder.
luckily their incompetence gave my car time to fix itself ,maybe as i replaced a damaged screen the old one was leaking slightly and the electrics dried out dunno
 
MassiveJim said:
the complication in my case is that the dealer has provided an external warranty, who will (hopefully) cover 50% of the cost of the part, I want to know if the dealer is still responsible for the other 50% and as I haven't taken it back to them and given them the opportunity to have it inspected by a garage of their choosing would this get them off the hook for covering any costs ?
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That's not really a complication. In fact arguably the warranty company may also be able to recover their costs from the dealer if the fault was present at point of sale. The warranty is there to cover failures which occur after you have already purchased it (although in most cases isn't worth the paper it's printed on due to the number of exclusions & get out clauses).
 
warranty company now want to arrange an independent inspection of the car.
so I need to wait for that.

as for proving that the fault was there when the car was purchased, the warranty company would surely try and argue that this was the case, and then they wouldn't pay out.
And I imagine that it would be difficult to argue against that as a flywheel doesn't just suddenly fail at 100,000 miles does it ?
The dealer wouldn't want that as a diagnosis as he would be on the hook to pay for it. although previous experience with him means I would likely be looking at a small claims court to get that money because he will just flat out refuse to pay it.

However the CRA states that the garage you purchased from should be given the opportunity to have the car inspected at their own garage, under no circumstances should you have work carried out without contacting them first.
he will definitely try and use that against me, as their was already another fault with the car that he is refusing to pay for, i won't go into details here as its not what this post is about, but I already know what kind of person he is. (one phone call with him ended with him literally shouting **** OFF! **** OFF! down the phone then hanging up on me)


as for me knowing about the noise, its a 2.0 TDI VW as with any diesel its a bit rattly and noisy when you listen to it idle, but there wasn't any particular noise that concerned me when I looked at the car otherwise I would have walked away from it, its a super common car. The noise genuinely only got worse/noticeable around a week or so before I reported it to the warranty company.


Is rejection of the car at this point an option ?
 
Update to this.

engineer visited the garage on Monday last week.
Finally got an answer from the warranty company late on Thursday to say that the claim was rejected.

owner of the garage we purchased from was at a funeral when we called on Friday
spoke to the owner of the garage this morning and he is ordering the flywheel from euro car parts and will pay the mechanic directly once the work is completed, he did put up a bit of resistance initially on the phone and I can tell by his tone of voice that he isn't happy about the situation but I consider this an absolute result given how the last phone call went with him.

We were fully expecting an argument with him and then having to pursue this in a small claims court.
 
I have sat in taxis with flywheels on the verge of grenading and in my experience, it would have been very noticeable at time of purchase (if it only then went on to last 3 months). Could be that it has just fluke exploded or was driven in a way that triggered its final life. Good outcome if they are renewing it, but I wouldn't give too much agro -- at the end of the day I think they are still considered like clutches, pads, discs as consumables...
 
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dlockers said:
I have sat in taxis with flywheels on the verge of grenading and in my experience, it would have been very noticeable at time of purchase (if it only then went on to last 3 months). Could be that it has just fluke exploded or was driven in a way that triggered its final life. Good outcome if they are renewing it, but I wouldn't give too much agro -- at the end of the day I think they are still considered like clutches, pads, discs as consumables...
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Well it wasn't noisy 3 months ago is all I can say, if it were we wouldn't be in this situation right now.
 
MassiveJim said:
Well it wasn't noisy 3 months ago is all I can say, if it were we wouldn't be in this situation right now.
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I'd then argue it was a fluke and not presenting at time of purchase -- you get a really pronounced vibration and wobble way before it stops working. It'd be good to get 100% but I'd also be happy at 50%. At 100k+ miles something will always need doing tbf...
 
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