Advice on where I stand with second hand car problems (Sale of Goods Act?)

zim_zimmer

Afternoon all.

I'll paint a brief picture of the background to this and then explain my problems!!

About 10 weeks ago I purchased a second hand car, a Vauxhall Vectra 1.9 CDTI (75k miles). Bought due to high mileage on the motorway to and from work. The cost of the car was £5.5k and I traded in my old Picasso. The car came with a 3 month / 3000 mile warranty.

From the very start I had problems. Well 5 days in and the car starts juddering whilst trying to accelerate and the little LED on the dash flashes up with a picture of a spanner (as well as constant squeaky brakes!), so immediately phoned the garage who booked the car in to get it seen to. They had it in for a day to cure the brakes and the light however didn't solve either problem!! So back in it went and they had it in for 3 days and the car came out with a new EGR valve.

5 days after receiving it back I was driving home from work and due to head out on holiday the next day when the problems re-occurred on the motorway. Luckily got home ok but obviously our holiday was ruined as we was not able to drive the car!! Had to wait until the morning to phone the garage to report the problem again as I gt home from work around 7pm and they were shut.
Next morning they were quite good to be fair and sorted us out another car to get on our way and they retained my car to diagnose the problem. The EGR valve they fitted was faulty and they had to replace that, however they also had to replace the fuel injectors as that was another related problem.

Back from holiday and get the car back, no problems and running like it should be. That was for 8 weeks until last week when the problems started again. By this time my car is out of warranty on mileage but took the car back on Wednesday and they say they can't find a fault code on the car and to 'carry on driving it' as they couldn't do anything without it (whether its related back to it being out of warranty I don't know?!).

Driving to work on Friday and I get the engine Management light on halfway down the motorway to work and just about make it there! The car really was struggling this time, not revving above 3,000 revs and basically nothing happening when opening the throttle. Called the garage at work and they said bring it in, to which I explained that was difficult due to the nature of the now problem!! Ended up having to get the car towed home via Breakdown (which cost me £40) and got the car to the garage on Saturday morning, which is where it currently sits.





Now of the 10 or so weeks I've owned the car I think I've had it for maybe 8 of them, the rest of the time its been in their workshop!! Not to mention the numerous hours spent on the phone and days taken off work due to me not being able to travel there.

I am almost at the end of my tether with the car now. I have been happy for them to try and rectify the cars problems but I feel it has had an excessive amount of time being 'repaired' and has ended up causing me more problems than not. So with the car being out of warranty I guess I'm asking where do I stand with being able to return the car?? I have done about 4k miles in the car in the past 10 weeks so I don't think thats a lot compared to the problems/grief I've had :mad:


I know the Sale of Goods Act covers you for things like Quality of product, Fitness for Purpose, etc... and is an implied term of contract at the point of any sale in which you can fall back on outside normal warranty (and even in warranty!) periods. Can I put this into action?? The car clearly (to me) isn't fit for purpose, and I could potentially (not sure how I'd prove it!) catch them on them selling the car with inherent problems?




Any advice please!!!


Thank you!

sturll

You dont need me to tell you you have bought a lemon.

Your problem sounds like the crank sensor and possibly oil in the spark plug through a dodgy rocker cover gasket.

Now, in terms of where you stand you dont have much say. Since every problem you have had has been sorted by the garage. Its a sad fact that when you buy a second hand car you do not know the hisotroy and often the garage who sells it doesnt either. At best you could sue for compensation but in all honesty the garage does seem to have been pretty accomodating.
Its easy to blame them but the car is probably as much of a pain to them as it is to you.

My advice - Get the car road worthy and sell it.

Pew_Pew_Pew_Lasers!

You give them one more chance to repair the fault. After that, you take it to a Vauxhall dealer/independant, you get them to fix it, and you send the garage the bill. When they don't pay it, you take them to court.

zim_zimmer

Thanks for the replies...

Since every problem you have had has been sorted by the garage

Attempted repair I would like to add, every repair has come back faulty on the same problem each time!!

but in all honesty the garage does seem to have been pretty accomodating

Yes they have, and as you mention I haven't got any problems with the garage, just the darn car!! The guy said to me the other day he's spent £900 on repairs on it so far, whether that true or not I don't know but its irrellevant as whoever and whenever the car would have got bought they would have had to be done.

You give them one more chance to repair the fault. After that, you take it to a Vauxhall dealer/independant, you get them to fix it, and you send the garage the bill. When they don't pay it, you take them to court

This was the line I was going to take with them, I'm getting a diagnosis on the fault later today. I've got a funny feeling even though the breakdown guy plugged in his fault reader and it came up with the fuel injector problem (the inherent problem), that when the garage do it they will find something diffrerent thus not be liable to repair it as its out of warranty... or is that just being cynical

Whatever the diagnosis omes back with I was going to say that this is the last chance... any further problems and I return the car for a refund or exchange for something else (if they have something available), what do you think?

oldagetraveller

sturll wrote: »

oil in the spark plug through a dodgy rocker cover gasket.

Is this some new type of dual fuel engine? When did they start fitting spark plugs in Diesel engines?

zim_zimmer

oldagetraveller wrote: »

Is this some new type of dual fuel engine? When did they start fitting spark plugs in Diesel engines?

Fair point on that one!!


Things have taken a turn for the worse on this one. As soon as I mentioned Sale of Goods Act to them they turned, it was like Jekyll and Hyde!! A few personal attacks as well thrown in which I was very disappointed about considering how good they had been up until now, but the mention of SOGA is not words they like... maybe they've been down this road before!?

He is offering me to contribute on the payment of the repair (totalling £100 for me) as a good will gesture. What I don't think he quite gets is seeing the whole situation from my point of view.

I need a reliable car for my job
I need a reliable car for my family

All I have got so far is a car that has been back into their workshop 5 times for 3 different faults. The car is obviously not reliable and I feel that everytime I get in the car that something could potentially go wrong, I just don't feel confident with it. And even if I did contrbute towards the repair who is to say that it won't repeat itself 2/3 weeks down the line!!!


So I might 'pay under protest' for now just to get the car back as I'm starting to get pressure from work with regards to the amount of time I'm taking to sort out the car problems and try and claim my money back later... has anyone done this before???

harveybobbles

I've not read the OP in full, but we have lots of problems with this engine on the Vectra and Saabs. 9 times out of ten it's the manifold flaps which fail, puttin the car into limp mode or reducing the low down power as tho the turbo has failed.
The EGR valve on them fails too and they used to be out of stock all the time as they were that rubbish! They also had a bad batch of EGR valves - which supports what they said about the new one being faulty.