Believe that a car I purchased from Renault 9-months ago had been involved in an undeclared accident

Anonymous868

I purchased a car from a Renault dealership 9-months ago.
The car was 1.5 years old, with under £2,000 miles on it.

The entire transaction was done online via emails | But the messages & paperwork from the dealer said the car was in perfect condition, with no mention of any previous accidents or structural frame damage.
*The car did however have ''beige foam padding'' all over the back of 'pedals & footwell area'.
(But as this was my 1st car, combined with the fact that I had never before looked at the underneath rearside area of a car's pedal area, I had just assumed that all cars had foam padding like this there for insulation/or a more mechanical purpose).


I took the car to be serviced this weekend, but was told that apparently there is severe structural damage to the underside of the front-bumper :: Which whilst is not visible when looking at the car, is there, and would need to be a paid repair should I wish to have it repaired.

I have not been involved in any accidents, so was quite confused to hear about this.
Moreover though, when I looked at the pedals & footwell area of the other cars in the showroom, none of them had foam padding!

So I am now feeling very confused as to why my car has this foam padding?
With the most likely reasoning seeming that the previous owner had an accident (which damaged the underside of the front bumper), but either they/or the dealership simply 'padded over' the damage using this foam-padding... However the dealership failed to mention this during the buying process.


Ultimately I have had the car for 9-months now, but only yesterday really realised that this foam-padding would not of been part of the car when it was sold brand-new (silly as that may make me sound)...
But so what steps can I now take to seek further info about the presence of this padding please?

-And if neccessary, how can I actually 'prove' that this foam padding was there when I purchased the car, rather than 'added by me at a later date'?

TadleyBaggie

Sounds more like there is missing carpeting under the pedals and you are seeing normal padding that is put in for noise suppression reasons. Can't see how a front bumper repair has anything to do with the area under the pedals.

Anonymous868

TadleyBaggie said:

Sounds more like there is missing carpeting under the pedals and you are seeing normal padding that is put in for noise suppression reasons. Can't see how a front bumper repair has anything to do with the area under the pedals.

Hello and thanks for your reply.

I wasn't aware that all cars have padding there (*but which is simply normally concealed).
I will take & post a photo in the morning of it for clarification :: But hopefully it is just missing carpet, which I can ofcourse get replaced myself.
(Just bewildered how on earth the previous owner managed to ruin & remove the carpet when they only drove 1,700 miles in 1.5 years though!)

Herzlos

Your first port of call is to contact the Renault dealer you bought it from, explain the issue and get them to look at it and confirm if repairs are actually needed.

Then see what they say regarding a repair. Since you've had it 9 months you may have a hard time proving that it was like that when you bought it. Is there anything about it in the service history or any indication that it had other work done?

The carpet could be ruined pretty easily by spilling coffee or something.

jimjames

Anonymous868 said:

I purchased a car from a Renault dealership 9-months ago.
The car was 1.5 years old, with under £2,000 miles on it.

I took the car to be serviced this weekend, but was told that apparently there is severe structural damage to the underside of the front-bumper :: Which whilst is not visible when looking at the car, is there, and would need to be a paid repair should I wish to have it repaired.

Not sure if that's your phrasing or exactly what the garage told you but severe structural damage doesn't make sense on a bumper. They're generally plastic and not structural although the garage may have been referring to something else underneath the plastic part. Did they explain any more about this "severe structural damage" as that sounds like a far bigger issue than the foam inside the car? You would expect if damage is that severe that it would be visible to anyone looking at the car although if it was taken somewhere like KwikFit then there may be an element of exaggeration involved.

Anonymous868

I have attached 2 photos showing this padding.

*It's right underneath + at the back of the pedals area, so you would only see it if you literally crouched down and looked underneath into that area.


Hopefully this is just the standard padding that all cars come with though, for noise-cancelling purposes?

daydotz

That's normal my clio is like that 

Jenni_D

Is there a cover missing? (That sound insulation is normal, but you don't usually see it).

Anonymous868

Jenni_D said:

Is there a cover missing? (That sound insulation is normal, but you don't usually see it).

That is how the car arrived when I puchased it.

But thankyou, I will look online and see where I can purchase a cover from if possible.