Help - bought a bad car.
- Thread starter Eddie
- Start date
Indeed, I have a 1.8 Zetec engine for my kit car that has no engine number, I got it from a scrapped Ford Escort and the number hasn't been ground off or anything unless they spent ages making it look like a factory job, in which case they could have easily stamped on a new number. Why anyone would do this in a N reg Escort I have no idea.
I'm really not getting all the concern with this car to be honest, there is a lot of scaremongering in the thread by people with little or no mechanical experience. I wouldn't be too bothered about the dowel, three mechanics haven't noticed anything else wrong with the gearbox mounting so it's not going to fall off or anything. It's had a replacement gearbox at some point that has one dowel in the wrong place, so what. It's a £2800 car!
If the 'good' Ford mechanic thinks the gearbox is from an older Focus or something then ask on a Ford forum to see how the bellhousing differs. It's obviously not that different or they would have found loads more wrong like empty holes where there should be bolts going through.
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Would the seller have an obligation to point out that the car has had an engine/gearbox replacement. I would have thought this would be the case, as the odometer would not correspond to what the engine has actually done, making the odometer reading pointless with regards to engine wear/servicing.
replaced engine= unkown service history
replaced engine= unkown service history
Engines always have number stamped on them. If they don't simple fact is someone out there has scrubbed it off and chances are they will have done it for a shady reason.
Have to deal with this kind of stuff everyday at work and it's a nightmare. I would suggest you contact Ford UK and state the concern you have then ask if there is any other parts on the car that has a unique/sync'ed ID (most airbag and seat components have this along with some of the other electrics).
Doing this will atleast un-earth if the car has any other hidden bits of history. I feel for you though because you are in a tough situation!
Best of luck!
Have to deal with this kind of stuff everyday at work and it's a nightmare. I would suggest you contact Ford UK and state the concern you have then ask if there is any other parts on the car that has a unique/sync'ed ID (most airbag and seat components have this along with some of the other electrics).
Doing this will atleast un-earth if the car has any other hidden bits of history. I feel for you though because you are in a tough situation!
Best of luck!
Soldato
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- There's a voice that keeps on calling me.
Maybe they didnt know?
Might be a mistake by the MOT tester.
Check with the Ford ETIS system to see what the configuration was when it left the factory:
www.etis.ford.com/vehicleRegSelector.do
Check with the Ford ETIS system to see what the configuration was when it left the factory:
www.etis.ford.com/vehicleRegSelector.do
I don't think you'll ever get to the bottom of this so I would perhaps suggest getting them to fix the car to the standard you would be happy with and just enjoy it as well as putting it down to a bad experience.
If the 3rd mechanic seems to think everything is safe and not necessarily a problem then I think your focus should be shifted to making the car drive as it should.
You have made a couple of references as to having been "taken hook line and sinker" but to be fair the garage may not have known and it may just be a case of them not wanting to dig in to their pockets to put things right.
If the 3rd mechanic seems to think everything is safe and not necessarily a problem then I think your focus should be shifted to making the car drive as it should.
You have made a couple of references as to having been "taken hook line and sinker" but to be fair the garage may not have known and it may just be a case of them not wanting to dig in to their pockets to put things right.
Associate
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Having just read this entire thread, I must admit that their being no outcome / result is very disapointing! Heres to hoping he got it sorted in the end. Hope he updates this soon!
Apologies for taking so long to update but things have taken a while to happen.
Citizen's Advice told us that we needed to give the dealers every opportunity to address the issues we had raised with the car, as this would be better for us if the case was to go to court. So, we took the car back to the dealers and left it with them. 15 days later, after numerous phone calls and failed promises (as well as being spoken to abusively and having the phone hung-up on us), we still did not have the car back, so we decided to officially reject it, as per Citizen's Advice instructions.
Citizen's Advice told us (incorrectly, as it has turned out) that we could no longer drive the car as it would/could be seen as us accepting it in the view of the courts, so we have had to leave the car at the dealers and have not had it back since.
Citizen's Advice said that they would now pass the case onto Trading Standards and that we should receive a call from them within a week. Nearly two weeks later we had not heard anything from them and decided to give Citizen's Advice a ring to see if there was a problem with the referral. They said that the case had not been referred to Trading Standards due to some 'glitch' in the system and that they would re-refer it.
We have finally received our first call from Trading Standards today. The bloke advised that we are to get the car back as soon as possible so that we can see exactly what they have done to the car and also stop them from doing anything else to it. If the issues have not been addressed to a suitable outcome then we have to decide what to do next.
That's pretty much it at the moment, not a lot has happened other than time passing. We're going, well hoping, to get the car back on Friday and then we're going to put it back in the Ford place to see what has been done. We're thinking about getting an RAC bloke to look at it, but we're not sure yet, we might do that but I'd like the guy from Ford who originally looked at it to see it, to give his opinion. If everything seems ok we'll keep the car and hopefully put the whole event behind us, lesson learnt sort of thing - I just want it to come to a conclusion now, whatever that may be. If the issues have not been addressed then we don't really have much option other than taking it to court.
I'll update further when we get the car back from the Ford place - hopefully it'll be an 'everything's worked out ok in the end' update.
Citizen's Advice told us that we needed to give the dealers every opportunity to address the issues we had raised with the car, as this would be better for us if the case was to go to court. So, we took the car back to the dealers and left it with them. 15 days later, after numerous phone calls and failed promises (as well as being spoken to abusively and having the phone hung-up on us), we still did not have the car back, so we decided to officially reject it, as per Citizen's Advice instructions.
Citizen's Advice told us (incorrectly, as it has turned out) that we could no longer drive the car as it would/could be seen as us accepting it in the view of the courts, so we have had to leave the car at the dealers and have not had it back since.
Citizen's Advice said that they would now pass the case onto Trading Standards and that we should receive a call from them within a week. Nearly two weeks later we had not heard anything from them and decided to give Citizen's Advice a ring to see if there was a problem with the referral. They said that the case had not been referred to Trading Standards due to some 'glitch' in the system and that they would re-refer it.
We have finally received our first call from Trading Standards today. The bloke advised that we are to get the car back as soon as possible so that we can see exactly what they have done to the car and also stop them from doing anything else to it. If the issues have not been addressed to a suitable outcome then we have to decide what to do next.
That's pretty much it at the moment, not a lot has happened other than time passing. We're going, well hoping, to get the car back on Friday and then we're going to put it back in the Ford place to see what has been done. We're thinking about getting an RAC bloke to look at it, but we're not sure yet, we might do that but I'd like the guy from Ford who originally looked at it to see it, to give his opinion. If everything seems ok we'll keep the car and hopefully put the whole event behind us, lesson learnt sort of thing - I just want it to come to a conclusion now, whatever that may be. If the issues have not been addressed then we don't really have much option other than taking it to court.
I'll update further when we get the car back from the Ford place - hopefully it'll be an 'everything's worked out ok in the end' update.
As I have already mentioned, not always.
Best of luck with the car shoot1st, dealing with these things is an utter pain in the rear end.
Surprisingly, Trading Standards and Citizen's Advice cannot give an answer to that question. According to the V5 the engine should be the original engine put in the car. If the engine didn't have an engine number would it still be stated as having one in the V5? If the engine has been changed shouldn't that be updated on the V5? I don't know how these things work but it doesn't sound right to me.
Thanks, we could do with a bit of luck
The dealers are definitely aware of the engine/gearbox issue but I have no idea what, if anything, they have done about it at this stage.
OK, an update. We went to pick the car up on Friday. The car has some different alloy wheels on it, but when we looked closely at the tyres the two front ones are ok but the two back ones will need replacing in a couple of months, I'd imagine. The car we bought had four good tyres on it. When I asked the guy about it he got all aggressive, started calling us names, saying we were just looking for things to pick faults with, etc etc...in the end he slammed the door of the car we were sat in and stormed off swearing and waving his arms about like a nutcase. At this point I thought it was a good idea to exit, so we left with the car, following Trading Standards' guidelines.
My gf put the car into our local mechanics on Monday to let them have a quick look at it to see what had been done. The only things they could see had been done were the alloy wheels obviously and the sump has been changed. They said that the front alloys were ok shape-wise but the back ones still have a buckle in each one and, although it's not as bad as the previous wheels, you can feel it affecting the car around the 40-50mph mark.
Since picking the car up, we have tried numerous times to contact the Trading Standards guy, leaving messages etc for him to call us back and so far he hasn't got back to us.
My gf phoned a different Ford garage today to ask about the engine number issue and they said they had never heard of Ford releasing cars that had no engine number. So, I know a couple of you have said that Ford did do this but I can't seem to verify it. The Ford dealers today said that engine numbers can be in all sorts of different places apparently, not necessarily on the block, which contradicts what the original Ford garage said.
So, who, what do we believe? I'm willing to put the 'fault' issues to one side and just forget about them as I'm sick to the back teeth with it, but I have to get to the bottom of the engine number issue as I do not want anything to do with a potentially stolen engine, obviously.
I'm getting balder by the minute here!
I have never used the roll-eyes smilie on these forums but I reckon I'm justified in using it at least 18 times in the above text
My gf put the car into our local mechanics on Monday to let them have a quick look at it to see what had been done. The only things they could see had been done were the alloy wheels obviously and the sump has been changed. They said that the front alloys were ok shape-wise but the back ones still have a buckle in each one and, although it's not as bad as the previous wheels, you can feel it affecting the car around the 40-50mph mark.
Since picking the car up, we have tried numerous times to contact the Trading Standards guy, leaving messages etc for him to call us back and so far he hasn't got back to us.
My gf phoned a different Ford garage today to ask about the engine number issue and they said they had never heard of Ford releasing cars that had no engine number. So, I know a couple of you have said that Ford did do this but I can't seem to verify it. The Ford dealers today said that engine numbers can be in all sorts of different places apparently, not necessarily on the block, which contradicts what the original Ford garage said.
So, who, what do we believe? I'm willing to put the 'fault' issues to one side and just forget about them as I'm sick to the back teeth with it, but I have to get to the bottom of the engine number issue as I do not want anything to do with a potentially stolen engine, obviously.
I'm getting balder by the minute here!
I have never used the roll-eyes smilie on these forums but I reckon I'm justified in using it at least 18 times in the above text
I've not read the whole thread so might be missing something here, but if you've given them an opportunity to put it right a couple of times now and they've failed, reject it and if they get their arse in their hands pass it over to legals.
Seems to me that you'll never be quite satisfied with it. Even if they came back the second time and said "right, everythings perfect now", you'd still not believe them and he unhappy with the car.
I'd just take it back, get a refund and go buy another Fiesta.
I'd just take it back, get a refund and go buy another Fiesta.