My Fiancée's basket case Skoda and its woes...

Caporegime
Joined
25 Nov 2004
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25,876
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On the road....
My Fiancée has a 2012 Skoda Fabia 1.6tdi, bought on finance about 18 months ago at 62k miles from a dealer who's now "retired" although we suspect he's just moved and set up under another company, long story short, she's had numerous problems with it since day one, the only issue he resolved was a duff battery which he reimbursed her for replacing the day after we bought it.

Its dashboard instrument needles won't illuminate at night making it difficult to see how fast you're going. We noticed this two days after buying it, on contacting the dealer again we were informed he'd retired and to speak to the warranty company - Not covered by the warranty company...

The engine is in limp mode , codes point to a glow plug circuit fault, it's had new glow plugs and a glow plug relay - at our expense - to no avail. Yes, it wasn't covered by the warranty company..

The heater won't work, just blows cold no matter what the HVAC is set to. - Warranty company claiming it's not covered, surprise surprise!

The driver's window failed two days after buying it, the dealers response was "I've retired now speak to the warranty company" said warranty company said it wasn't covered (of course!)

The warranty that seemingly covered nothing expired after 3 months although we still get letters asking if we want to extend it...

Now, its water pump has sized which has stripped the teeth off the cambelt, possibly causing catastrophic failure to the engine, we are having this looked at by the garage who looks after my Volvo...

We have a receipt in it's service history for a new belt, water pump and pulleys fitted by a VAT registered garage at 53k miles in March 21, the interval is apparently every 5 years /75k miles the car had covered 82k miles when it failed.

There's probably a few other things I've forgotten!

In desperation, she contacted her finance company yesterday and they took down all the details and said they will launch an investigation as in their view the car was not fit for purpose when sold and they are going to chase him for some answers.

Personally I don't think we'll get any positive outcome from this although the finance company seem to be implying we might, is this in any way realistic?

As we stand, my garage thinks we have a slight chance that if we replace the belt, pulley and water pump we may be lucky and the engine will run again (although the limp mode issue will still be there) we're looking at roughly £400 to do this simply to see if it works, the head will still turn freely by hand, he's of the view that it wouldn't with bent valves, I don't even know if the engine is an "interference" type or not.

So, given the finance company is now investigating, do we just sit back and wait for their response, proceed to see if replacement parts fixes it (at the risk of wasting £400 potentially) or just bite the bullet and look for a replacement engine?
 
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Man of Honour
Joined
12 Jul 2005
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Aberlour, NE Scotland
I would wait on the finance company as I can't see any point in blowing £400 on a belt and water pump on a engine that may be buggered. If the finance company fails to sort it out then I guess the next move would be to take the seller to court in a attempt to get the money back.
 
Caporegime
OP
Joined
25 Nov 2004
Posts
25,876
Location
On the road....
So even after all this time we may well get somewhere with this then?

They did say last night that had they been aware within the first six months we could have simply handed the car back and interestingly, they also said as the majority of the problems have existed since we bought the car, we may still be able to , given the dealer has disappeared I'm assuming the finance company would have the car back.

I'll sit back and see what happens.

Thanks guys. :)
 
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