2nd hand car with major oil leak

pitkin2020

Good morning peeps, need some advice on where to go after purchasing a car that has a major oil leak. Apologizes for such a long post

On sunday I bought a 2005 mondeo for £1600 from a seller on ebay, the seller is registered as a private seller but is clearly a dealer as he has several vehicles for sale and has sold several more recently.
I also asked as he was a dealer if he was available on sunday for collection and he didnt state he wasn't a dealer.

The advert never mentioned any faults with the car and when i messaged him to ask if anything was in need of repair the only fault he came back with was a knock with the suspension.

ON sunday i went to collect the car and test drove it, drove fine and i could hear the knock he mentioned on the suspension. I looked around the car and the condition was as described. I looked under the car and noticed a single spot of oil had dripped, which looked like it had come off a pipe at the front, now know that is the EGR to intercooler pipe which was split, common problem i also now know and an easy fix. I asked the seller about the oil drip and he assured me the car hadn't burnt any oil and he had taken it on some big trips recently without any issue or need for top up so i took him on his word for that.

Once i got home (100 miles away) we checked the car again and found the oil was quite low so topped it up. Monday morning massive oil patch under the car, so much i wouldn't drive the car monday and asked a mechaninc to look at it with tuesday being first available time he could.

He put it on the ramp to give the car a once over and found the oil leak was in fact coming from 3 places, the timing chain cover being the major leak and 2 smaller weeps from the sump and the oil filter housing. He also found the other following faults,
EGR to intercooler pipe split
Both front CV joints splits
Corrosion to the front brake pipes
Corrosion to rear axle
Both rear drop links corroded and need replacing

I have contacted the seller to say that sorting the oil leak out will be around £400 and this is purely because of the labour involved in stripping down the side of the engine to renew the whole cover, this is a cost i dont feel i should pay as thee seller had assured me the oil leak wasnt anything.

As of yet ive had no response from the seller, would i have a case to pursue this cost or am i flogging a dead horse

Stressed to the max so any advice would be appreciated.

:beer:

Hintza

Gather as much evidence as you can about the guy then ask him for a refund if one is not forthcoming tell him you will not only report him to trading standards but HMRC.

shaun_from_Africa

Following on from Hintza's reply, one bit of the information that you should get is a copy of the ebay listing showing the seller as being listed as private and also copies of any other vehicles he has for sale or has recently sold.


Once you have found these, get a paper print out and you can also archive the web pages here:
https://archive.org/web/

pitkin2020

Hintza wrote: »

Gather as much evidence as you can about the guy then ask him for a refund if one is not forthcoming tell him you will not only report him to trading standards but HMRC.

Im playing nicely at the moment and i believe i am being very fair in only asking for the cost of the repair that is associated with the oil leak. I expect a 10 year old car to have some worn parts its all part of buying a used car but i think the oil leak is unacceptable.

He has replied so far with

Hi

Just received your email this morning.....

I was unaware of the oil leak, drove car for around 500 miles and had no issues.

We all looked under the car and concluded it was probably the sump gasket and you were happy to take the car.

Let's not forget that its a 10 year old Mondeo with over 140k in very good overall condition, it has lots of service history and a long MOT, but its definitely not a NEW car

If you felt strongly about all the points you've listed ,why did you not have the car checked out before you decided to purchase it?

I sold the car in good faith, told you about the knocking and you also had £190 off the asking price.........

Regards

Whilst we looked and concluded it could possibly be sump gasket that was because the oil was low, once filled up it obviously went over the sump line and to where the actual main leak is. The seller also assured me the car had been parked in the same spot over night (which had no oil marks on the road) and he hadn't had to stick a drop in despite covering hundreds of miles.

I covered 100 miles and had to put in over 4 litres and where the car is parked at home looks like most of that oil is on the road now.

pitkin2020

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Following on from Hintza's reply, one bit of the information that you should get is a copy of the ebay listing showing the seller as being listed as private and also copies of any other vehicles he has for sale or has recently sold.


Once you have found these, get a paper print out and you can also archive the web pages here:
https://archive.org/web/

Good advice, I had already done this before contacting him. I took screen shots of his vehicles has for sale currently, recently sold and his feedback showing cars sold. I already have a copy of the advert itself and messages between him and myself

Hintza

Don't mess around her, just ask for your money back unless you are 110% sure there is nothing else to worry about. You can't really go back again if other problems arise.