Second Hand Car Fault

scaredofdebt

Hi,

I've just bought a 54 plate Ford C Max diesel (1.6), 125,000 on the clock for £1,300

Car is in generally good condition, drives well, but there is one major fault that I just discovered.

The seals need replacing around the injectors, the car has leaked about 200 ml of oil in 1,000 miles since I've had it, almost two weeks now.

I've rung the dealer to see if he'd be willing to pay for the repairs as my mechanic says the fault has probably been there for some time, ie when I bought the car. I checked the engine before buying it and there was no sign of any oil leaks, but there is now as you can quite clearly see where the oil is coming from.

Car came with a 3 month warranty but that doesn't cover the issue apparently.

Repairs are around £180 - parts only about £40 but it's 2-3 hours labour.

Any advice?

I don't want to reject the car as other than this it's pretty sound, mechanic says he can't find any other faults with it other than the thermostat that could do with replacing, but it's not causing an issue currently, just runs a bit cold.

Do I just take the £180 hit or do I have any other recourse, small claims court?

Mechanic says if I leave this fault it is likely to lead to turbo failure ie £700 or so bill as they are very sensitive to any impurities in the oil, carbon etc.

Is that right? Car was serviced 3,000 miles ago.

Thanks for any comments.

fivetide

Any sign that the weeping oil had been cleaned up for sale?

BeenThroughItAll

scaredofdebt wrote: »

Hi,

I've just bought a 54 plate Ford C Max diesel (1.6), 125,000 on the clock for £1,300

Car is in generally good condition, drives well, but there is one major fault that I just discovered.

The seals need replacing around the injectors, the car has leaked about 200 ml of oil in 1,000 miles since I've had it, almost two weeks now.

I've rung the dealer to see if he'd be willing to pay for the repairs as my mechanic says the fault has probably been there for some time, ie when I bought the car. I checked the engine before buying it and there was no sign of any oil leaks, but there is now as you can quite clearly see where the oil is coming from.

Car came with a 3 month warranty but that doesn't cover the issue apparently.

Repairs are around £180 - parts only about £40 but it's 2-3 hours labour.

Any advice?

I don't want to reject the car as other than this it's pretty sound, mechanic says he can't find any other faults with it other than the thermostat that could do with replacing, but it's not causing an issue currently, just runs a bit cold.

Do I just take the £180 hit or do I have any other recourse, small claims court?

Mechanic says if I leave this fault it is likely to lead to turbo failure ie £700 or so bill as they are very sensitive to any impurities in the oil, carbon etc.

Is that right? Car was serviced 3,000 miles ago.

Thanks for any comments.

Sorry to say, but you've bought just about the worst possible C-Max. The 1.6 PSA diesel is a bomb waiting to go off.


Fix it, wash it, polish it, hoover it, sell it for as much as you can before it goes wrong, and buy something else is my advice.


A 100K+ PSA 1.6D is just going to cost you more and more as time goes on.

scaredofdebt

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Sorry to say, but you've bought just about the worst possible C-Max. The 1.6 PSA diesel is a bomb waiting to go off.

Fix it, wash it, polish it, hoover it, sell it for as much as you can before it goes wrong, and buy something else is my advice.

A 100K+ PSA 1.6D is just going to cost you more and more as time goes on.

I only expect to get a year or so out of a car for that price, there are a few around with 150k plus on them.

scaredofdebt

fivetide wrote: »

Any sign that the weeping oil had been cleaned up for sale?

It did look very clean for an engine of that age and mileage to be fair. The car hasn't done many miles for the past 4 months or so when it was serviced so I put it down to that.

OddballJamie

scaredofdebt wrote: »

I only expect to get a year or so out of a car for that price, there are a few around with 150k plus on them.

Seems a bit of a waste to spend £1300 on something you only expect to last a year. Surely spending less and going down the bangernomics route or spend more and get something reliable that will last longer would make more sense.

Buying private should make your money go further too.

BeenThroughItAll

scaredofdebt wrote: »

I only expect to get a year or so out of a car for that price, there are a few around with 150k plus on them.

Believe me, the 150K plus ones are for sale because there's a big bill waiting around the corner.


Exceptions to every rule and all that, but the 1.6D is dire. The 2.0TDCi isn't that much better.


If you must have a C-Max, buy a petrol.


I stand by the 'sell it now' advice - in a year it could easily cost you as much as you paid for it.

scaredofdebt

OddballJamie wrote: »

Seems a bit of a waste to spend £1300 on something you only expect to last a year. Surely spending less and going down the bangernomics route or spend more and get something reliable that will last longer would make more sense.

Buying private should make your money go further too.

Every car I have ever owned, new, second-hand etc has cost around £100 per month in depreciation, wear and tear and repairs etc.

I do quite a few miles, I bought a "banger" for £500 last year and got 6 months out of it, had a 5 year old Mondeo before that, cost £3k and lasted 3.5 years but I had to spend £1,500 on repairs etc.

I am limited a bit in what I can choose as I do ~30k miles a year so need something with decent economy.

OddballJamie

30k a year? In that case follow BeenThroughItAll's advice and sell it.

I had the 2.0 version of that engine and it was a money pit.

Retrogamer

The injector seals failing on those engines is very common.
It causes the diesel fuel to mix with the engine oil and turn to a type of sludge.
The sludge then blocks up all the oil routes in the engine and starves the turbo of oil. A lot of the time replacing the turbo won't fix it because it's all still gunked up inside the engine.

My friend bought one last year with the seals failing. He replaced the seals and when he changed the engine oil, it had a lot of sludge in it. It's still running just now though but unsure of the mileage.

Tilt

To answer your original question, forget what the warranty does/dosn't cover as they normally aren't worth the paper they are printed on. In any case you have your statutory rights under the SOGA to rely on. If the defect existed at the point of sale, the seller is obliged to rectify. Clearly the area which was affected by the issue was cleaned before the sale which suggests that the seller was aware of the problem.

Be nice though when you ask him to sort it. You may need to follow up your request in writing even if he says no verbally.