Year after a car sale, found out they lied...

Aylesbury_Duck

boobyd said:

Fast forward to today, car is in for MOT and... car has failed on rear suspension arm bushes my garage have told me they're so worn that when my car was on the ramp in the air, my wheels were wobbling backwards and forwards. She also told me there was no oil in the car at all, and literally a few more miles I could have wrecked the engine. Now I only did around 2,500 miles in the last year, and there is no sign of any oil leak etc.

 So if the bushes were that worn that the wheels were wobbling that much you didn't notice when you were driving? With that much play? 

This is what leads me to believe that OP has the wrong garage in his sights.  This sort of dramatic "oh, the car's in terrible shape, it could have gone pop at any time, it's a good job you brought it here" is far more suspicious than everything OP has told us about the first garage, which is pretty much all speculation.

born_again

CrippsCorner said:

Hi all. Back here again after a recent thread where you guys helped me a lot - Thanks. Not needed advice here for a long time and suddenly I've made 2 threads within as many weeks!

So... I bought a car from a garage 12 months ago (one week before lockdown #1) and part of the sale was that they would put it through a fresh MOT and service, great! It failed on one item (well two, both sides) which was rear suspension arm bushes. Salesman tells me no problem it'll all be sorted before I come to pick it up the following week, at no expense to me. Week later I return, fresh MOT (double checked via GOV website) all passed, service stamp in the book and I'm happy to take it.

Fast forward to today, car is in for MOT and... car has failed on rear suspension arm bushes my garage have told me they're so worn that when my car was on the ramp in the air, my wheels were wobbling backwards and forwards. She also told me there was no oil in the car at all, and literally a few more miles I could have wrecked the engine. Now I only did around 2,500 miles in the last year, and there is no sign of any oil leak etc.

To me, that tells me the garage I bought the car from lied about repairing the suspension bushes, and also about servicing the car. I am going to ask my garage to keep the parts for me, which should show they're nearer 11 years old than 11 months... now in hindsight, I realise I should have asked for a receipt of the parts being replaced, but I was obviously too excited at getting my car

I know it's been a year now, but do you think there's any point in chasing this issue and trying to obtain a refund? My garage thinks I should... by the way it's costing me around £500 which is mainly labour costs. Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

Olly 

Since when has checking oil been part of the MOT?

If the wheels are moving as much as they say, then the tyres would be in a right state.
Odd's on garage has looked as MOT history and picked something to fail on. Who is this garage? One you use on a regular basis. Given you say you drive older cars?

Odds on getting a refund from previous garage. I would say None, as they will say it passed the MOT with the work done. It would then be down to you to prove it. Same with the service. How can you one year on say it was never done. Especially as you admit to never checking the oil... Which if you read your handbook. Is part of your regular maintenance checks.

Take it elsewhere and get them to check it over.

Ectophile

davidmcn said:

CrippsCorner said:

davidmcn said:

So what did they do to get it passed last year if they hadn't replaced the suspension bushes? Is there maybe some other problem causing them to wear out?

My believing is that they did nothing at all - They gave me a 'dodgy' MOT so it looked good on paper, but no work was actually undertaken.

If they were going to do that, why would they have bothered failing it at all in the first place?

Simple.  They took it to an honest MOT inspector, who failed it.

Rather than spending money to fix it, they took it to a "blind" MOT inspector who issued the certicicate without even looking.  Now that so long has passed, there's no chance of an appeal against the MOT, so the inspector got away with it.

CrippsCorner

Yup, this is what I'm thinking, and I'm sure they do it all the time knowing that a year will pass before the innocent punter realises therefore they never get any comeback... I guess I'm on to a loser here. I'll update this thread when I have photographs of the old bushes.

Aylesbury_Duck

CrippsCorner said:

Yup, this is what I'm thinking, and I'm sure they do it all the time knowing that a year will pass before the innocent punter realises therefore they never get any comeback... I guess I'm on to a loser here. I'll update this thread when I have photographs of the old bushes.

So no reflection that it might be the second garage that has misled you, then?  Of course not, because that would by implication, be admitting your own contributory negligence.  How are you going to check that the garage gives you the bushes off your car and not some knackered old ones from a scrapper to justify their dramatic near-collapse diagnosis of your car?  After all, you think the first garage are capable of fraud, so why not the second?

boobyd

CrippsCorner said:

Yup, this is what I'm thinking, and I'm sure they do it all the time knowing that a year will pass before the innocent punter realises therefore they never get any comeback... I guess I'm on to a loser here. I'll update this thread when I have photographs of the old bushes.

You have had the car for a year,  you would know by the amount of noise from knackered bushes at the back after a few moments driving let alone 12 months in which you didn't notice? 
And yes I have had a VXR. 

ess0two

Nothing to see here move along...

CrippsCorner

boobyd said:

CrippsCorner said:

Yup, this is what I'm thinking, and I'm sure they do it all the time knowing that a year will pass before the innocent punter realises therefore they never get any comeback... I guess I'm on to a loser here. I'll update this thread when I have photographs of the old bushes.

You have had the car for a year,  you would know by the amount of noise from knackered bushes at the back after a few moments driving let alone 12 months in which you didn't notice? 
And yes I have had a VXR. 

I had an extensive test drive of the car before buying it, before which it even failed it's first MOT, and didn't hear any noises - Well there was some 'clicking' on full rotation turn round a corner, which has continued... but this is not a test on my mechanical knowledge which I'm sure you can assume is zero!

Aylesbury_Duck

CrippsCorner said:

boobyd said:

CrippsCorner said:

Yup, this is what I'm thinking, and I'm sure they do it all the time knowing that a year will pass before the innocent punter realises therefore they never get any comeback... I guess I'm on to a loser here. I'll update this thread when I have photographs of the old bushes.

You have had the car for a year,  you would know by the amount of noise from knackered bushes at the back after a few moments driving let alone 12 months in which you didn't notice? 
And yes I have had a VXR. 

I had an extensive test drive of the car before buying it, before which it even failed it's first MOT, and didn't hear any noises - Well there was some 'clicking' on full rotation turn round a corner, which has continued... but this is not a test on my mechanical knowledge which I'm sure you can assume is zero!

Which adds more weight to the idea that it might actually be the second garage that is trying it on here.  You've driven a car for 2500 miles over a year on supposedly dead suspension bushes and no oil.  You don't need to have any mechanical knowledge to be able to hear the noises both of those things would generate, which is why I think neither problem exists to the extent the second garage are claiming.

David713

CrippsCorner said:

I had an extensive test drive of the car before buying it, before which it even failed it's first MOT, and didn't hear any noises - Well there was some 'clicking' on full rotation turn round a corner, which has continued... but this is not a test on my mechanical knowledge which I'm sure you can assume is zero!

That could well be a worn CV joint and it would be worth getting it looked into.