Advice dealing with a car dealership

angrycrow

You are very lucky they agreed to fix.

I had the same thing happen years ago. Bought car with no service history below mileage for cambelt but over on age. Booked it in for cambelt as precaution straight away but the belt broke within days of purchase. There were also issues with the brakes and the car was misdescribed on sale which only became apparent when the log book came back.

Trading standards got involved as they already had a file open on the dealer. Even with all of this the dealer only contributed 75% of the pre vat repair costs. This was only given on the understanding I dropped the claims for the false description of the vehicle and dodgy brakes and in return for leniency from trading standards.

That car took 3 weeks to repair at choice of garage needing a replacement cylinder head new valves and new cam shafts, fortunately the pistons were not holed. My share of the bill ended up being what I had been intending to pay for the belt to be changed.

Jamiekrux

Yes Adrian, its about time we didn't have to second guess everything a salesman tells us or does not tell us, this whole idea that when you buy a car you should research everything about the vehicle that could potentially fail is outdated and downright irresponsible from the sellers, maybe you have come to accept that through your own experiences but the reality is the salesmen are not taking responsibility for what they are selling, they are taking advantage of the little knowledge we had about that vehicle, and more importantly withholding information that would have been crucial to the customer when deciding on purchasing the car or the terms it is purchased on. If i had taken that car to a garage for a check over they would have mentioned the cambelt change instantly, why should I expect any less from the person selling the vehicle in the first place?

debtdebt

At the point of sale, the cam belt wasn’t due. At the point of failure, the cambelt wasn’t due. What do you want from the dealer, for them to do a cambelt change on any car they sell? What future maintenance do you want the seller to rake car of? The next five years worth of servicing, the next two sets of brakes?

Stop trying to shift responsibility of the upkeep of a car onto the supplying dealer.

You’re lucky they have agreed to fix the car at all.

AdrianC

Jamiekrux wrote: »

and more importantly withholding information that would have been crucial to the customer when deciding on purchasing the car or the terms it is purchased on. If i had taken that car to a garage for a check over they would have mentioned the cambelt change instantly, why should I expect any less from the person selling the vehicle in the first place?

They offered for sale a 9 year old, 120k mile car with no documentary service history.


What is being "withheld" there?

Jamiekrux

debtdebt wrote: »

At the point of sale, the cam belt wasn’t due. At the point of failure, the cambelt wasn’t due. What do you want from the dealer, for them to do a cambelt change on any car they sell? What future maintenance do you want the seller to rake car of? The next five years worth of servicing, the next two sets of brakes?

Stop trying to shift responsibility of the upkeep of a car onto the supplying dealer.

You’re lucky they have agreed to fix the car at all.

At the time of purchase the cam belt was due to be changed within 6,000 miles, which should really be done before that to be safe, there was no service history to state it had been changed at all since manufactured, yet they did not mention anything about the cam belt and assured us that a full service and mot would be completed, it is poor duty of care expecting us to know that it needed to be changed almost immediately. I really can't believe the blas! attitude many of the posts have about this issue. I wonder if you would feel the same way if you drove a car off the dealership forecourt and proceeded to drive your loved ones into another car days later. I guess the fact they are repairing it is all I need to know, i'm pretty sure they wouldn't be if they believed it wasn't something to do with how they sold the car. Any further sarcastic comments are irrelevant.

Jamiekrux

AdrianC wrote: »

They offered for sale a 9 year old, 120k mile car with no documentary service history.


What is being "withheld" there?

The mechanic at the dealership would have known that it was due to be changed, and if not should have, that is information he has that was not passed to us.



As I have already explained, they are the experts and should really explain what you are buying, they know an awful lot more about motor mechanics than the average person and yet they gave a broad cop out of a statement instead of the reality of the situation, which is that it was due to have a cam belt change, I can see your viewpoint and why you'd agree there was no fault in their sale, however that does not mean it is a good practice.

debtdebt

Jamiekrux wrote: »

At the time of purchase the cam belt was due to be changed within 6,000 miles, which should really be done before that to be safe, there was no service history to state it had been changed at all since manufactured, yet they did not mention anything about the cam belt and assured us that a full service and mot would be completed, it is poor duty of care expecting us to know that it needed to be changed almost immediately. I really can't believe the blas! attitude many of the posts have about this issue. I wonder if you would feel the same way if you drove a car off the dealership forecourt and proceeded to drive your loved ones into another car days later. I guess the fact they are repairing it is all I need to know, i'm pretty sure they wouldn't be if they believed it wasn't something to do with how they sold the car. Any further sarcastic comments are irrelevant.

\

A full service and MOT being carried out does not mean that the car will have a cam belt change too. A cam belt change is done over and above a service.

The cam belt might need to be changed in 6,000 miles time which means that changing it at the point of sale would have meant it would have been done 6 months early. The selling garage not changing the cam belt doesn't make them negligent or wrong.

You don't seem to grasp the fact that car dealers are commercial enterprises. They don't want to spend any more money than they are obliged to. In this case, they weren't obliged to fit a new cam belt at point of sale and they didn't.

davidwood681

OP, just out of interest would you change the cambelt on a car you were about to part exchange if it was due in the near future?

Be honest

shaun_from_Africa

Jamiekrux wrote: »

At the time of purchase the cam belt was due to be changed within 6,000 miles, which should really be done before that to be safe

Which with my current work schedule, would be in about 18 months and even for many people with average mileage it might be 6 months from the time of purchase so why would any sensible dealer spend many hundreds of £s on something that may not actually be due for half a year or more?

System

When the cambelt is due within a year or a few thousand miles of any car I've ever bought I've said I wanted it changing as part of the deal if there's no proof it has already been done.