Second hand car engine failure after 3 months

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 11:19

Purchased a Rover 75 on the 23/09/2013

Wednesday night the wife was driving the car when the engine died in a cloud of smoke. Short version, garage have stripped it and informed us that there is a hole in the piston. Cheapest option is replacing the engine for which they are quoting £2300 (Roughly what we paid for the car)

So the question is, do I have any recourse from the dealer here, or do I have to eat this? Would appreciate if this could be kept to the facts - I appreciate that a lot of people would be 'down to the dealer with a baseball bat' or whatever, but I won't be, so I need to know what their specific obligations are/are not, in this situation.

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 11:29

Thanks Housey. Looking at that, it raises what may well be a stupid question - would the issue be considered present at time of purchase? I'm assuming that the hole didn't suddenly appear, but would have been developing from before we bought the car? I don't really have enough mechanical knowledge on this?

tl;dr - would the dealer be able to get out of this by saying "There wasn't a hole in the piston when we sold it to you"?

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 11:39

Ok, seems fairly clear cut. Last question - do I simply phone the dealer and discuss it, or do I need to do anything else before/after?

What I mean is, is there anything I can do or not do at this stage which would potentially hurt me if this did end up in court?

edit: Housey - answering questions before I ask them is simply showing off

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 11:49

Housey said:
Can I check, you say the garage has established the cost of repair, I assume this is the garage from where you purchased the car?

No, its an independent the RAC guy recommended to my wife (I wasn't there when the car died). The dealer itself appears to be a dealer only - there was no obvious signs of a workshop on site (Small, out in the sticks type dealer)

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 12:39

Called the dealer, got a machine, waiting for a call back.

Janesy B - How? A piston doesn't suddenly develop a hole, so its either been close to failure from before I bought the car, or something else has failed, again due to an existing fault. Surely an engine can't go from perfectly working to utterly shagged from wear and tear in just 3 months?

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 13:12

Thanks for the advice. Just to clarify, I wasn't looking to go in all guns blazing, I would much rather deal with this amicably. However, I want to go in armed with the right knowledge in case they want to put up a fight.

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 13:18

The garage that looked at the car suspect head gasket failure is the actual cause, but they said that was a best guess rather than a diagnoses. Also of note, he mentioned that the bolts on the engine do not appear to be original, suggesting a head gasket replacement at some point prior. The car is at 55k.

No work has been carried out since purchase.

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 13:34

Haggisman said:
B) You/your wife have ragged the **** out of it and that's why it's broken.

Did I mention its a rover?

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 13:44

I'm likewise no expert, so I'm just going on what the garage told me at this stage, which to be fair he made clear was his best guess.

I think I need to stop second guessing here anyway. From my perspective, the car went bang within 6 months. If the dealer can prove it was due to a fault developed after the purchase, then fine. If not, they are fixing/replacing/refunding it.

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 13:54

When I say recommended by the RAC man, I actually meant RAC approved garage, but I take your point.

Linkex · 29 Nov 2013 at 16:16

Its a 1.8. K series according to the garage. He said they are known for head gasket issues

Linkex · 2 Dec 2013 at 17:05

Finally got a call back from the dealer. Guy seemed friendly about the whole thing, is going to speak to the garage and call me back. Will see how it goes.

Linkex · 5 Dec 2013 at 09:59

The dealer has had the car picked up to have a look at it themselves (Or their preferred garage) - Will give them until tomorrow and then call them for an update. Will update here when I know more.

Linkex · 19 Dec 2013 at 13:26

Just an update, dealer has been dragging their feet. Car wasn't even collected from the garage we originally took it to until the 17th, every time I spoke to them it was 'Sorry, there was a problem with collecting it, but its getting collected in the next couple of days'. After it was finally collected I was told they would need a couple of days to look at it. 48 hours later, call for an update and am told the mechanic is coming to look later today. So that's 17 days from informing them to them even lifting the bonnet, assuming that even happens today and I'll be without a car for Christmas. Joy.

Oh, and during that last conversation he managed to slip in a line about checking what damage the other garage may have done if they tried to turn it over, which tells me they are setting up to try and blame them. *sigh*

Linkex · 21 Dec 2013 at 16:58

I've just had a call from the dealer. Their mechanic has said the cheapest option is to replace the engine, quoted at £900-£1000, with the dealer offering to pay half as a 'good will gesture', which would leave me with a bill of approx £500. Oh, and I can apparently kick in an extra £60 and have the cam belt done on the replacement engine at the same time, if I want to. While this is still a lot, this is obviously the dealer getting trade rates, as the garage we went to wanted £2.5k to source and swap an engine.

I have a friend who is a receptionist at a local solicitor firm and she kindly had a chat with one of the guys there. Basically, I'm looking at £150 just to sit down and discuss options, with additional fees if they actually do anything.

Obviously I also have the option of refusing the offer and telling them that I consider it their responsibility to fix it, but that brings the risk that they will retract the 50/50 offer and refuse to take responsibility, leaving me with only the solicitor option.

So really, I can see 2 options here:
*Accept the deal they are offering - Fixed cost and no risk
*Push back and demand they resolve it at their own cost - with the risk that I then have to pay an unknown amount for a solicitor, with no guarantee that I will get a better result. In fact I risk being left with a car that wants £2.5k work done (roughly what its worth), plus solicitors fees. Bearing in mind I took a loan to buy the car in the first place and would have to take another if I had to pay full wack for a replacement engine, that would leave me over £5k down on a car worth £2.5k

Any thoughts/suggestions/advice? Bear in mind that worst case scenario above is really not an option I can afford to risk, I don't really seem to have any other option.

Linkex · 22 Dec 2013 at 01:20

Just to clarify, they are estimating £400 for the engine, £400-500 for labour.

Linkex · 23 Dec 2013 at 14:07

Have been mulling this over for a couple of days and I think I am going to take the risk and fight this. As such, I intend to offer them a choice of acceptable alternatives:
1/. Repair the car entirely at their cost, including an engine from a full service history car (As the original had this)
2/. Refund me the original purchase price and do what they want with the car. Frankly I'm hoping this is the option they take.
I believe this is reasonable given the SOGA (And the fact that they offered half tells me they know they won't win if it goes 'legal'. Thoughts?

The challenge I have is that the wife wants to 'settle' - pay the £500, take the car and hope. I'm close to convincing her to go my way, and to seal the deal, I need to show her some examples of other cars that we could buy if I succeed in extracting a refund. I've created a separate thread for recommendations at http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=25534648, if you have any suggestions for similar but more reliable car to the Rover, please let me know.

Linkex · 6 Jan 2014 at 16:47

So having decided to forget about this over Christmas, I gave the dealer ship a call on the 2nd of Jan, then again this morning and finally got a call back. Informed them that I was not willing to accept their offer and that I expect them to resolve it at their cost. Their arguments were, basically:
The car is low value - I think their point was that its a lot of money for a low value car. I responded that its not really my problem
The car is low value - hinting at costs on each side if it went to court - I blanked this part as I don't want to get into that - yet.
For all they know, the car showed signs of failure which we ignored - that's up to them to prove, which they can't, because it didn't.

They then suggested I speak to trading standards to get advice. I can only assume this was an attempt at a bluff, so I advised them that I would do just that and speak to them again. Interestingly, you can't "talk to trading standard" from what I understand. You talk to the CAB, who refer you if you are making a complaint.

It seems to me that the next thing to do is to send the template letter that the CAB gave me. If that fails to get a result, its a complaint to trading standards and have the bank reverse the charges if possible.

Linkex · 6 Jan 2014 at 16:59

No, its all debit cards. Will still talk to the bank if the letter doesn't get a result, but not sure what the options are there.

Linkex · 14 Jul 2014 at 11:29

The wheels of justice turn (very) slowly, but they do turn. Court this morning, judgement in my favour, full refund plus court costs, to be paid within 14 days*. Its been a trying experience, but a worthwhile one.

*Yes, I'm aware that if they don't pay up, I will need to go back to court for court orders/bailiffs and so on, so please don't spoil my high by reminding me of that