can anyone suggest anything??? Is this a con?

mg31

Thank you I would never have thought of that - we have racked our brains about everything else! This is such a nightmare having such a big bill on top of buying the car in the first place especially when we know and can prove its not our fault!!!

pendulum

Well I think it's pretty obvious what's happened here.

One man band trader's bought a duff car through auction and sold it to you. Previous owner knew it had a problem so auctioned it. It's blown up and now he either tries blaming you for misfueling it, or shells out the £2,000 to fix the problem himself... guess which he chooses!

I think you've done well to obtain the CCTV to show you using the correct pump, and kept your receipt for diesel. You also have evidence that the fuel itself was not contaminated. That is plenty to disprove his claims of misfueling. The only problem is it's going to be very difficult to get him to pay £2k to fix the car. I think you're very likely to win if you took him to court but would you get your money? Who knows.

crazyguy

mg31 wrote: »

Thank you I would never have thought of that - we have racked our brains about everything else! This is such a nightmare having such a big bill on top of buying the car in the first place especially when we know and can prove its not our fault!!!

If you have the proof you say that you have then surely Trading Standards would have done something here ?

It does sound very strange and I cannot quite understand what proof you have that didnt get you an open and shut case from the petrol garage to pay up in full for any damage caused.

mg31

pendulum wrote: »

Well I think it's pretty obvious what's happened here.

One man band trader's bought a duff car through auction and sold it to you. Previous owner knew it had a problem so auctioned it. It's blown up and now he either tries blaming you for misfueling it, or shells out the £2,000 to fix the problem himself... guess which he chooses!

I think you've done well to obtain the CCTV to show you using the correct pump, and kept your receipt for diesel. You also have evidence that the fuel itself was not contaminated. That is plenty to disprove his claims of misfueling. The only problem is it's going to be very difficult to get him to pay £2k to fix the car. I think you're very likely to win if you took him to court but would you get your money? Who knows.

Thanks that exactly what we think now - but i posted on here as i couldnt believe someone woulf stoop so low! maybe I am too niave! Do you think i could take him to court though??? not really sure if i can as he is very unlikely to admit what he has done and i cant prove he has done this for definate can i? would a court accept the information i have as proof???

mg31

crazyguy wrote: »

If you have the proof you say that you have then surely Trading Standards would have done something here ?

It does sound very strange and I cannot quite understand what proof you have that didnt get you an open and shut case from the petrol garage to pay up in full for any damage caused.

the proof i have is our receipt and the cctv footage trading standards wont do anything as they have had no other complaints about the fuel from morrisons and they have been out and checked the deliveries paperwork and sample of fuel and it was all in order. the petrol station wont pay up as they are saying there was nothing wrong with thier fuel!

crazyguy

You cannot tell when a car will blow up unless you heariing it sound like a bag of spanners !

Personaly I think you are fighting a losing battle here as I cannot see any Court giving you any money for this.

chunder

hi just got onto this thread and what suprises me the most is that, even if you did misfuel the car he wants to fit new fuel pump, injectors etc etc etc. under no circumstances have i or anyone i know in the trade had to replace everything on the fuel system to that extent. at the most is to drain the tank and wash out, drain fuel lines, flush fuel pump which is only a rotary pump to increase pressure, clean and flush diesel rail and possibly clean injector nozzles, not a two grand bill. fords do suffer with fuel pump problems and are roughly a 1000 to 1500 repair when fitting new. PERSONALLY....i think he is trying to pull the wool over your eyes so as not to pay himself under his warranty which he is bound by law to provide for best part of six months according to trading standards.
if you can afford it it could be a good idea to get an engineer to look at the car and they can even do this whist car is at the garage. hth

mg31

The car has been repaired now as we needed it back on the road asap so cant get it double checked however what you say gives gravity to our suspicions the garage doing the repair had tried the flush etc first but couldn't get it going they said the petrol must have damaged it more than they expected the tank was full of pure petrol no diesel in sight the garage is seperate to him

mg31

Well its taken ages but thought I should end this story!! We took the advice of a solicitor who advised us that we should take the dealer to the small claims court for the monies we had to spend to repair the car. He said that the facts were we collected the car filled it with the correct fuel (which we could prove) and then the car broke down with the correct fuel in it. He said any thing that happened after that with the petrol etc was a smokescreen to disguise the fact the car was obviously faulty and under soga not fit for purpose etc etc. After much correspondance and the dealer accusing us of misfuelling and trying to cover it up we eventually got to court. The judge listened to both sides of the story and ripped holes in the dealers excuses, he said he believed us and we had all the proof we needed to show we had fuelled the car correctly and it had clearly broken down due to a mechanical fault and the petrol saga was totally irrelevent. He awarded us all costs and the amount it cost us for the repairs..... in addition to all of this happening while we were waiting for the court case date the turbo and the clutch / dmf went on the car as well which we informed the dealer about but again he tried to wriggle out of any liability. He ended up having to replace these as well as the amount the court awarded us which he did pay on time. We thought all our troubles with this car were over and technically we should have a few years trouble free motoring (obviously wear n tear new tyres etc would be needed). How wrong could we be. This week the car broke down again same as the first time, off to a local garage who ran diagnostics and found the fuel pump had collapsed and most likely the injectors no good too another potential 2k bill so the car has been sold for parts. We were clearly sold a right lemon and we are well rid sad thing is we still have to pay off the loan we took out to buy the car in the first place and we now need to buy another car, the worst of it being we bought this car to pull our caravan and we cant afford anything big enough this time so we will have to sell the van and the kids will be devasted. Will never buy a used car again!!!!