Help! Dodgy car or dodgy garage????

sooty2202

Hi All
Can anyone help please?
I bought my son a car just over a year ago for £1500, a little 56 plate peugeot. We have had nothing but problems ever since, but guess what they only came to light after the 3 month warranty ran out!
So, over the last 3 months we have used the same garage (recommended by a friend), the car has been in 3 times and cost in total £1400 in repairs! (Some of this was covered by another warranty taken out and the mechanic advised the car would be good for a couple of years if we had the work done), any how, when the car had its MOT done 3 weeks ago the mechanic suddenly mentioned the Cat was on its way out (the exhaust was replaced in March 2020, so was surprised at this news). He said it wasn't a big issue as it would be covered by the warranty. Roll forward to today and the engine light has suddenly come on (along with a message about emissions) and he said its probably the Cat breaking up and its going to be a very expensive repair, not to drive it as it will cause major damage and to bring it in on Monday!!!
 So what on earth do we do now????
The clutch is also on its way out so I beginning to think when I directly asked his advice when the head gasket as to whether we should scrap it, he wasn't totally straight with me.......

couriervanman

It was a 13 year old car when you bought it.......did you test drive it and have somebody give it a once over before buying

forgotmyname

As above its 13 years old with parts that are mostly 13 years old. Clutch is one of those things that we replace if keeping cars
long enough. a Cat is one of those expenses that crops up occasionally.  Exhaust replaced but not the CAT. They would not
have known if the CAT was good or not.

Dodgy car or garage or just an old car thats coming to the time in its life where it needs more repairs
and where the average owner becomes competent at doing their own repairs.

angrycrow

Let me guess its got the 1.4 vti or 1.6 vti prince engine and it uses a lot of oil. The oil goes through the engine and clogs up the cat. Emissions then rise and it fails the mot. I had one of these that used 1l of oil every 1000 miles which Peugeot considers normal consumption. It destroyed a cat in 2 years. Somebody running into the back of it and writing it off did me a favour.

It's not a dodgy car it's a normal 13 to 14 year old peugeot. Other things likely to go, coolant temp sensors rust off, signs are red overheat light on dash and coolant fan running on. £25 to fix. Thermostats can fail which is a pig of a job to change them.

Sparks plugs are stupidly expensive on major service. 

tacpot12

I would take it in on Monday to find out whether it will be repaired under warranty or not. If not, I would consider ditching the mechanic, as he has not given you the best advice. However, if the other repairs they have done have held up, then he is probably a good mechanic; he's just not a good fortune teller about future faults. 

If it is going to cost you a lot and the clutch is going to need doing, you have a choice to either invest more into this car in the hope that it can be made good, or to scrap the car - you might get £100-200 for it. I know that scrapping would be a difficult decision as you have spend nearly £3000 on the car for a year's motoring, but the investment might be wasted if the engine is worn out and using oil to the extent that a new cat will quickly be damaged. I'm inclined to think the mechanic would tell you whether the engine was worn out, but if you don't trust him now, you either need a second opinion or a pre-emptive decision to ditch the car and start with a new one. 

I think that if you are going to buy another old car, you need to choose something with a reputation of reliability, and with good evidence of being serviced throughout its life.  You also need to appreciate that most of the time, when people get rid of cars, they are doing so because the cars have faults and are starting to cost too much money to maintain. You need to find a car where this is not the real reason it is being sold. 

Stubod

13.5 years is the average life of a car. I guess you may have done a little better if you had gone for a more reliable make in the first place?

macman

Any warranty on a car of that age is completely pointless, as everything likely to fail will be excluded under wear and tear. It's simply a marketing ploy.

sooty2202

Thanks all, this all helps. So the head gasket was replaced in August along with the thermostat, at the time I asked his advice as to if there was any point getting the work done or would we be better scrapping it. He said he couldn't see any other issues, then 4 weeks later he does the MOT and warns the CAT is on its way out and now a further 2 weeks on the engine light comes on. From the comments above I get the impression its all connected and the replacing the head gasket was the wrong advice!

Jack_Cork

I had the same issues as angrycow, only had the car a couple of years and it was rubbish. The car used more oil than petrol, and you could see from the on line MOT history it had failed every year on emissions and had a new cat just before we bought it. Gearbox failed, brake caliper seized, etc., scrapped it the end, but did get £200 for it. It was probably 10 years old when I bought it and cost less than a grand, but spent half of that again keeping it going.

I dont want to depress you OP but my opinion you are better off getting rid, it will be a money pit