Faulty used car

leigh810

Hello

I'm looking for some advice on a car I bought 6 months ago as I'm a bit out of my depth. The car is 6 year old mazda 6 and I bought it for £4500 with a three month warranty from a local (non-mazda) garage. Shortly before the warranty ran out the oil warning light kept coming on and there was quite a major oil leak.

One of my mechanic friends looked at it and suspected that there is a major oil pressure problem causing the valve to go, and that the car has a major problem lurking under the bonnet. I took it back to the garage and they said the leak was only due to an injector valve, which they replaced. They said my friend's opinion was rubbish and that the valve needing replacing was just one of those things. At this point they wouldn't take the car back and swap it, only part ex it and I would lose £1500. I took the car back and hoped they were right, however 3 weeks ago I checked the oil and it was dry, with oil all over the engine again.

I took it back to the garage and again they didn't want to know, they said it wasn't the work they had done to the valves, and again it was unlucky. They offered to fix it and charge me for it (the car was out of the 3 months warranty now) and said basically I was unlucky and they have no responsibility for it. I didn't get them to repair it and took it to the mazda garage for their opinion on what is wrong and an estimate of how much it will cost. They said it is a camshaft oil seal which has gone and they would need to investigate further to find a cuase. They are unable to give me an estimate as they said they wouldn't know until they investigate further, they said potentially up to £2000 depending on the severity of the cause and time involved.

I had intended to now write to the garage and ask them to pay for this as the car isn't fit for purpose or as described. I suspect they will decline due to their previous responses. My aim is to lose as little money as possible with this, I paid for it in full on mastercard, and I suspect the car is currently worth at least half what I paid, if not less. Is it worth me pursuing this through the small claims court, writing to mastercard and asking them to refund some of the money through the section 75 agreement or put it in a car auction, lose the money and just walk away now? :-(

Thanks for reading :-)

arcon5

What mileage is it? Sounds like you bought an old car subjected to many years of wear.

Retrogamer

When was the car last serviced?
What was the mileage when you bought it and what is it now?
Did it come with FSH?

The Sales of Goods Act could maybe help here.
It states that all goods sold must be fit for purpose and last a reasonable amount of time.
Any faults reported in the first 6 months that the seller doesn't wish to deal with, they have to prove the part failed due to improper use or negligence.
You may have some come back since you reported the fault during the first 6 months and the fault still hasn't been repaired. It depends how long you waited before stating to them it wasn't fixed.

Hopefully someone with more knowledge on SOGA will post some replies.

spacey2012

Look on the receipt and find out what type of trading entity the dealer is.
LTD, or Sole trader

leigh810

Hi

The mileage was 80,000 when I bought it, it's 84000 now. It's a 2 litre diesel so I thought it would have years of use left in it. The garage serviced it for me in January before I collected it (but they're not a mazda garage), and changed the cambelt too. I found out from the mazda dealer that the car doesn't have any service history on record. The company is a Ltd company.
Thanks for your responses :-)

motorguy

leigh810 wrote: »

Hi

The mileage was 80,000 when I bought it, it's 84000 now. It's a 2 litre diesel so I thought it would have years of use left in it. The garage serviced it for me in January before I collected it (but they're not a mazda garage), and changed the cambelt too. I found out from the mazda dealer that the car doesn't have any service history on record. The company is a Ltd company.
Thanks for your responses :-)

That Mazda diesel engine isnt great and is known to have problems.

You are within your rights to expect them to repair it though. Sounds like you will need to call Citizens Advice / Consumer Direct to get something kicked off formally. They wont do anything other than advise but it will be the correct advice.

TradePro

motorguy wrote: »

That Mazda diesel engine isnt great and is known to have problems.

I'm fairly sure it's a Ford-Peugeot 'alliance' engine, and as you say Paul, not quite as good as you could normally expect from Mazda.

leigh810

Looking around on the internet, there are so many comments and stories for this particular engine, none of them good :-(
I've spoken to consumer direct and they have outlined what I need to include in my letters and will try and make an appointment at the CAB.
Thanks for all your suggestions :-)

mattyprice4004

Mazda 6 diesel? Run fast and run far!

I'd be looking at a section 75 claim for the fault, but bear in mind something like this is a minor issue on the 6 diesel. It's not a great engine.

bikingbarney

mattyprice4004 wrote: »

Mazda 6 diesel? Run fast and run far!

I'd be looking at a section 75 claim for the fault, but bear in mind something like this is a minor issue on the 6 diesel. It's not a great engine.

Thats not quite fair with regards to the newer 2.2 diesel engine mazda 6!

The engine in question is a mazda engine with a rubbish system for dpf regeneration where it lets fuel mix with the oil to burn off the soot in the dpf, if a regen isnt complete it dumps the unused fuel into the engine oil which makes the oil level rise and the oil saturation rise aswell.

I would hazard a guess that this car will give you nothing but problems for the forseeable future!

jase1

Not sure how much of the six months this car has been on the road, but 4000 miles in six months will not be doing a modern diesel any favours whatsoever.

Is this motorway miles or round the houses?

If the latter; these engines are far from the best, but can be reliable enough if driven up and down the motorway every day. Your usage patterns (assuming the 4000 miles is typical) will cause problems.

My suggestion? Petrol next time.