Help with a car purchase (lemon) please

thevinternet

Hi there, a bit of a long story this one so here we go. I really hope you can all help me out with some great advice, it's been a while since I've been on here, but I know you are all full of tips and information!!

I bought a car from a small secondhand dealership in August 2009, a Skoda Fabia for 2700 which ran really well, it is 10 years old, having done 54000 when I bought it.

I bought the car before my test and was insured on it as a learner driver, then when I passed my test in mid-October I began to drive the car fairly regularly (except during all the snow!!). I have done about 2 - 3000 miles in the car during this time, I will check the exact figure later.
I did not service the car immediately, as I was told by the garage that it had been serviced recently and it passed its MOT on 17th August 2009, just BEFORE I bought it. The car came with a 3-month warranty, but nothing broke on it during this time.

A couple of days ago, I put the car in for a service to an official SKODA garage, since I had been driving it for 6 months and it was due. I had the feeling that a few things might be wrong with it, but I was quite shocked when the SKODA garage told me it was unsafe to drive. It has been driving fine and I was genuinely surprised to here that. I trust the mechanics there, since they physically showed me some of the broken parts.

I have had to fork out £1300 for the repairs, including the following:

Cambelt change (apparently this needs doing every 4 years in an automatic like my car, there was no evidence of this having ever been done)
New Auxillary belt
Replace console bushes & track
Replace rear bump stops (to do with the brakes I believe, which were described as 'non-existant' at the rear )
Replace front discs and pads (again a brake thing)
Replace rear brake cylinders & shoes
Bleed system

Plus a few other minor things that I was expecting.

The question is, what do we do now?

My dad thinks that I should take the garage that I bought it from to the small claims court, to try and recoup some of my costs (ie some of the 1300 I've just had to pay). The Skoda dealership say it should not have passed its MOT six months ago if these things were wrong with it (especially cam belt). I know it's hard to prove that they haven't broken in the six months since I got the car, but I think definitely the cam belt and brakes must have been dangerously worn six months ago when I bought it.

My questions are:
1. Am I wasting my time? I feel as though I bought that car in good faith and it wasn't MOT'd properly (it was MOT'd by the garage we bought it from). What is the likelihood of getting any money at all out of them?

2. Also if we do go through the small claims and lose, will I have to pay any court fees etc? I don't know how it works.

3. Me and my boyf are disagreeing about how to handle it!! I want to send them a letter to start with, to explain the situation and ask them what they intend to do about it (ie not mention the small claims court until a second letter if we get no response). My boyf wants to go in and speak to them about it first. I think it's better to write a letter so that we have everything in writing and there's no risk of 'he said, she said' in court. My boyf thinks that a letter will be too full on and annoy the garage/put them on the back foot. How should we proceed?

4. Is there a sample letter I can send on here if we do have to go the letter route please?

Any advice/help greatly appreciated, silly me for being trusting, I should have got it checked out by an independent mechanic but it was my first car purchase and I was too trusting. Constructive advice about what I can do now would be fantastic.

Thanks people! Apologies if this is in the wrong area of the forum!!
thevinternet xx

goldspanners

thevinternet wrote: »

I bought a car from a small secondhand dealership in August 2009, a Skoda Fabia for 2700 which ran really well, it is 10 years old, having done 54000 when I bought it.



I have had to fork out £1300 for the repairs, including the following:

Cambelt change (apparently this needs doing every 4 years in an automatic like my car, there was no evidence of this having ever been done)
New Auxillary belt
Replace console bushes & track
Replace rear bump stops (to do with the brakes I believe, which were described as 'non-existant' at the rear )
Replace front discs and pads (again a brake thing)
Replace rear brake cylinders & shoes
Bleed system

Plus a few other minor things that I was expecting.

The question is, what do we do now?

your cam belt is a servicable item, all car with cam belts need changed at certain points in thier life.
again your auxiliary belt is a wear and tear item that will only last a certain amount of time.
the console bushes, i presume you mean track control arm bushes, these are wear and tear items,and again have alimited servicable life.
the bump stops are not to do with brakes,these are just rubber pads that will contact the chassis if it ever gets over loaded or gounds out,not critical.
your front pads and discs have had an extra 3000 miles on them, they are wear and tear and need changing now and again.
rear brake shoes are again wear and tear items,im guessing they were changed either because they were low on friction material or they had been contaminated with brake fluid from your leaking rear brake cylinders?
the brake system was bled because there had been work done to the brake system,fairly common practise.

i can't see how you could expect any of this to be paid for by the selling dealer, its all mostly wear and tear faults that go wrong with cars through time.

i think your biggest mistake was taking it to a main dealer, that was an incredible price for a small amount of work.
your cars 10 years old don't take it to a dealers, take it to an independant garage, i think a half decent one would have done this work for at least half of what you paid.

its not what you want to hear im sure,and there will no doubt be the usual suspects on telling you to waste your money and fight it out in small claims,but i really can't see it going your way.
did you get the car inspected before you bought it?

i think you also paid a bit too much for it aswell, £2700 for a 10 year old fabia? i know they hold thier value well but thats crazy to be honest,even if it was last year.

i think the seller saw you coming with his selling price and the dealer saw you coming so loaded on as much extra work as they could.

Rolandtheroadie

As above i'm afraid. How Skoda know it shouldnt have passed an MOT in August is beyond me.

thevinternet

goldspanners wrote: »

i think you also paid a bit too much for it aswell, £2700 for a 10 year old fabia? i know they hold thier value well but thats crazy to be honest,even if it was last year.

i think the seller saw you coming with his selling price and the dealer saw you coming so loaded on as much extra work as they could.

Ok, well thanks for your advice anyway.

I've left some of the work out, that's why you think it's so high, there was also an annual service in there, brake light etc, plus the VAT on the parts and labour.

I appreciate that these items need changing after owning a car for a while, I'm not disputing that, but my main problem is that it passed it's MOT a few days before I bought it when it clearly shouldn't have done. I feel that the garage passed it without checking it properly, or passed it just to sell it quickly.

You may think that it's a lot to pay for a fabia, but it's an automatic, and round here (I'm just outside London) I'm afraid that's what they cost....pretty standard compared to other garages I've seen.

thevinternet

scotsman4th wrote: »

How Skoda know it shouldnt have passed an MOT in August is beyond me.

Because the Cam belt has NEVER been changed...it needs to be done every four years in an automatic, not after ten. The point is, if I can get them to say that in writing, would that help my case?

thevinternet

goldspanners wrote: »

there will no doubt be the usual suspects on telling you to waste your money and fight it out in small claims...

How does small claims work? I thought that there were no court costs if you lost or has my dad got that completely wrong?

Rolandtheroadie

thevinternet wrote: »

Because the Cam belt has NEVER been changed...it needs to be done every four years in an automatic, not after ten. The point is, if I can get them to say that in writing, would that help my case?

Cam belt isnt an MOT testable item.
They dont know it hasnt been changed they just know theres no documentation to say it has been changed. It's got nothing to do with a car being an automatic or a manual either.

thevinternet

scotsman4th wrote: »

Cam belt isnt an MOT testable item.
They dont know it hasnt been changed they just know theres no documentation to say it has been changed. It's got nothing to do with a car being an automatic or a manual either.

Ah, that's useful to know, thankyou. Strange that two separate people have told me that the cam belt should be changed more regularly in an automatic, maybe that's wrong then.

Can anyone give me some advice on the legal side of things please? i.e. my questions at the bottom of my original post? Thankyou! xx

anewman

Cam belt is nothing to do with the MOT whatsoever. MOT testers may ask if a cam belt has been changed on a diesel due to the emissions test which stresses the belt. There have been numerous cases of them snapping during the emissions test causing a few hundred pounds worth of damage to the engine (and you can imagine the owners get narcy with the MOT tester when after all it was their own fault for not servicing the car properly). This is merely to ensure the owner is aware of the dangers involved with not having had the belt changed.

Brakes would fail the MOT if there was any leaks, they were unbalanced/inefficient, the disks were pitted/heavily scored, or the brake pads were observably thin. Sometimes rear cylinder leaks are hidden until you get the drum off or the leak is very bad (the MOT man doesn't take the drums off, but Skoda doing a service would). The disks may be Skoda measuring the thickness left and rigidly applying the servicing criteria (when disks are worn to a certain thickness it is recommended to replace them - although in many cases disks worn over this level will pass the MOT).

It is quite possible the car passed in August fine, but legitimately needs the work doing now. Like has been said above I would take it somewhere other than Skoda dealers. Places selling themselves as VAG specialists will usually be cheaper than Skoda dealers and these are the types of cars they specialise in.

Also one thing to check is the check the MOT details online to see if there were any advisory notices not passed on to you. The details are on your MOT certificate.

There are forums at www.briskoda.net if you have any specific questions regarding your Skoda

In terms of whether the original MOT test was wrong, it hardly matters now as it is long outside the time you have to be able to put an appeal into the DVLA for them to examine the car.

harveybobbles

Advise on legal side of things: Dont bother wasting your time.

Note to self: Dont use main delaer for servicing.

thevinternet

scotsman4th wrote: »

Cam belt isnt an MOT testable item.
They dont know it hasnt been changed they just know theres no documentation to say it has been changed. It's got nothing to do with a car being an automatic or a manual either.

Also, the back brakes were literally non-existant. As in parts of them were actually missing! Should this not have been checked during the MOT?