Used car just out of warranty, major issue has appaeared.

jmc160

Hi folks,

I've had a trawl through the forms and found some interesting stuff, but wanted to create a post as I haven't found anything that matches my particular issue (apologies if I missed it)...

Mid-December last year, I bought a used car from a local dealer to replace our family car which was dying a death. The car looked to be in good condition (for a 10 year old car), full service history, 89k on the clock, just what we were looking for. I paid £1500 for the car plus £150 for a new cam belt and water pump as there was no evidence of this in the service history. they gave me £100 for our old car in part exchange. The car came with three months warranty.

This past weekend (about a month after the warranty expired), we broke down on the way to our son's birthday party in another town. The car reported "Low oil pressure" and proceeded to dump oil all over the car park of the venue. RAC was called out and they found a pipe that connects into the oil filter(?) was disconnected from its spigot and was basically just spraying oil all over the engine bay. he re-connected the pipe, washed out the engine bay, filled me back up with oil, I thanked him and we went our seperate ways.

On the way home from the party, we broke down again, this time no alarms or messages on the dash but we had a lot of white smoke coming from the back of the car. RAC was called again, they found that all that new oil the previous guy had put in was now gone, and this time they towed me to the garage I have used for years where it sat for the weekend and I phoned them yesterday to tell them what the issue was and ask them to take a look.

I've just had a call back from them and they've said that the engine is building up too much pressure and blowing out whichever pipe is easiest, causing the engine to dump the oil. they said the cause of this is something to do with the piston rings and I was probably looking at having to replace the engine. Best case scenario, I'm looking at approx £1500, pretty much what I paid for the car four months ago.

I've already called the dealer to try and open a dialog to get this sorted. I've been told to call back either tonight or tomorrow and talk to the owner. I asked for his name three times, they wouldn't give it to me. I also asked for a specific time to call and they wouldn't give me that either.

So what I'm wondering is, in this instance where the car is just a month out of warranty, we've probably driven about 2k miles since buying it and now we're looking at such a big repair, what's my best recourse? I don't know a great deal about the new Consumer Rights Act, but from the looks of it I *think* I'm covered?

If anyone can offer any advice on what's probably going to happen and my best course of action for if they refuse to do anything, I'd really appreciate it. Many thanks in advance.

m0bov

Best bet is to draft a letter with everything that has happened, the diagnosis from your garage and their contact details. Put in the letter you are claiming under your statutory rights. I doubt you will get a FOC fix, but maybe cut a deal with the dealer.

What car is it? It could be a blocked PCV filter or hose.

jmc160

m0bov wrote: »

Best bet is to draft a letter with everything that has happened, the diagnosis from your garage and their contact details. Put in the letter you are claiming under your statutory rights. I doubt you will get a FOC fix, but maybe cut a deal with the dealer.

What car is it? It could be a blocked PCV filter or hose.

Hmmm, that's what I was worried about

I'm not too fussed about contributing something towards it considering the situation, I mean, I do want to be reasonable here, I just would have hoped the majority of this would be covered in some way by the dealer, either be repairing the car at a low (ish) cost, or a partial refund as long as I get a decent amount of my money back. I mean, it doesn't seem reasonable to me that I'd pay that much for a car, then four months later have to pay the same out again to be able to keep using it...

It's a 2006 Renault Grand Scenic 1.9 dCI.

m0bov

Best see what the garage says, I'd drop them a letter by hand today.

jmc160

m0bov wrote: »

Best see what the garage says, I'd drop them a letter by hand today.

Thanks, looks like I'm going to have to. Spoke to them again earlier and they're not even entertaining me at the moment. Think I'm gonna have to write a letter but beforehand, it occurred to me the garage I use have said what it's very likely to be but that's about it, so I've got the car booked into a main dealer for diagnosis so we'll see what they come back with. Senseless fighting someone if it turns out not to be as bad after all. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be sure.

[Deleted User]

Too late now, but you paid £1.5k for a 10 year old car and didn't even have a mechanic look it over beforehand. I don't know about most people on here, and I could be being completely unjust, but I will trust a dealer only half way and only after a car has been looked at by a mechanic (having seen a clocked car that had also had a wing replaced off insurance).

And I am really sorry, after living with a mechanic, I realised garages can't always be trusted either. So many cars came to him after repeated repair attempts (expensive) and he'd find out it was something different. Meanwhile all that previous money was just money down the drain.

Find a mechanic or garage that others have used and find to be trustworthy. The engine may need replacement, it may just need the pistons reborred. It depends how much damage has been done to the engine because of the piston problem.

I'd also try googling what the symptoms are, find a forum for the make of car and start asking questions. There are usually some really good knowledgeable people on them. I like to check what a garage says.

Fosterdog

Are you sure your warranty has ended? You bought it mid December with a three month warranty, we are now only mid March so exactly three months after mid December, the most you would be out by is a few days.

I've just done a quick google of the problem and quite a few results just on the first page said the same as your mechanic, it looks to be a common issue with these cars. The turbo blows the oil, replacing the turbo is only a temporary fix and the only complete fix is a new engine.

macman

These 90 day warranties generally have so many exclusions that they're nearly worthless anyway-expired or not. Have you actually checked the dates and terms?

jmc160

deannatrois wrote: »

Too late now, but you paid £1.5k for a 10 year old car and didn't even have a mechanic look it over beforehand. I don't know about most people on here, and I could be being completely unjust, but I will trust a dealer only half way and only after a car has been looked at by a mechanic (having seen a clocked car that had also had a wing replaced off insurance).

And I am really sorry, after living with a mechanic, I realised garages can't always be trusted either. So many cars came to him after repeated repair attempts (expensive) and he'd find out it was something different. Meanwhile all that previous money was just money down the drain.

Find a mechanic or garage that others have used and find to be trustworthy. The engine may need replacement, it may just need the pistons reborred. It depends how much damage has been done to the engine because of the piston problem.

I'd also try googling what the symptoms are, find a forum for the make of car and start asking questions. There are usually some really good knowledgeable people on them. I like to check what a garage says.

Thanks, I've been chatting to some people on a Renault forum about it and there's some ideas floating about, but we all agree that it needs a proper diagnosis a this stage so I've got it booked into the local Renault dealer's service centre for proper diagnosis.

jmc160

Fosterdog wrote: »

Are you sure your warranty has ended? You bought it mid December with a three month warranty, we are now only mid March so exactly three months after mid December, the most you would be out by is a few days.

I've just done a quick google of the problem and quite a few results just on the first page said the same as your mechanic, it looks to be a common issue with these cars. The turbo blows the oil, replacing the turbo is only a temporary fix and the only complete fix is a new engine.

macman wrote: »

These 90 day warranties generally have so many exclusions that they're nearly worthless anyway-expired or not. Have you actually checked the dates and terms?

Ah, good catch on the warranty! We're looking for the paperwork now to check exact dates and the terms of the warranty. They gave us a leaflet of some sort..

From what I've found so far (insurance policy change notification), it looks like we paid for and collected the car on 11th December. The break downs happened on the 12th March, the garage had a look Monday (14th) and we called the dealer to report the issues yesterday (Tuesday). At this stage I have no idea where that leaves us in terms of being covered or not (assuming it's not excluded in the terms of the warranty)... Any help?

ETA: Just to add to this, I'm going to draft a letter to send to the dealer, but I've just had a call from the Renault dealer to say they can't look at the car til next Tuesday as they had made a mistake on their calendar and can't fit me in until then. Based on what I now know about the warranty and dates involved, should I send the letter immediately, or wait until I've got the full diagnosis?

wealdroam

jmc160 wrote: »

From what I've found so far (insurance policy change notification), it looks like we paid for and collected the car on 11th December. The break downs happened on the 12th March, the garage had a look Monday (14th) and we called the dealer to report the issues yesterday (Tuesday). At this stage I have no idea where that leaves us in terms of being covered or not (assuming it's not excluded in the terms of the warranty)... Any help?

Also remember February is a short month, which may help with your 90 days - I'll leave you to do the sums.