Garage has aquired car in a misleading way!

Ibrahim5

Biggest repair bill i had on a diesel came to around £3K. That was on one of the horrendous Peugeot / Citroen / Ford 1.6 TDs. Horrible horrible things.
Written by motorguy 5 days ago. Sounds like an engine problem to me. 

DB1904

motorguy said:

Ibrahim5 said:

I have never had any problem with any engine I have ever owned. All my cars have had famously good engines. I avoided the Ecoboost specifically because it was new and had no track record.

Neither have i.  And i'd say most people could say the same of their car history. 

Whats your point?

Yes you have. 

Ibrahim5

My advice is that if you always buy cars that are known to have tried and tested reliable engines you don't get £3k repair bills and don't have to moan about horrible engines.

motorguy

Ibrahim5 said:

Biggest repair bill i had on a diesel came to around £3K. That was on one of the horrendous Peugeot / Citroen / Ford 1.6 TDs. Horrible horrible things.
Written by motorguy 5 days ago. Sounds like an engine problem to me. 

In the context of the thread where we're discussing total engine failure, no i've never had a total engine failure on a car i've owned.  I would imagine most people are the same.  Which was my point.

That particular car was one i took in when i was motor trading and was back in the day when the issues with those were not fully known.

The engine itself is fine on those.  Its the terrible DPF / EGR valve setup they built around it thats problematic.  The DPF had been clogged which clogged the EGR valve and the previous owner had driven on at it, putting extra pressure on the turbo and it then went.

Resolved DPF problem for around £600-£800 IIRC expecting that to fix it. Still issues.
Resolved EGR valve problem for around £300, expecting that to fix it.  Still issues.
New turbo and revised oilways fitted by Ford themselves.  Loads of money.  I think it was around £1,800 i gave them but that got a new turbo with a warranty. 

That resolved the end to end problems.

I spent the money and resold it, but simply vowed not to actively buy one with that engine for resale again.  Many traders i know subsequently did the same at that time.

Subsequent buyer got many years out of it.  If i'd my time again i'd have sold it for spares or repair at auction but when you're selling 20 cars a month and you get one thats a bit down on power you run with the belief its fixable.

Of the 1000+ cars i sold over the years when i was trading, statistically you will get the odd lemon.

dipsomaniac

You don't sell it for spares or repairs at auction - you put it back in the ring to try and catch another trader/member of public out. 

motorguy

dipsomaniac said:

You don't sell it for spares or repairs at auction - you put it back in the ring to try and catch another trader/member of public out

Nope.  Thats not what we'd have done.

It was me and another guy working together (he did the buying / underwriting and i did the selling) and if we got caught out we took it on the chin and move on.

There was a 530d was traded in down on power.  It felt like it could be pricey to resolve so we put it through the local auction marked accordingly.  We lost a bit on it but it was hassle free and we'd other cars to sell at profit.

We also sold stuff on ebay auction marked spares or repair if we thought that was the best return.  

It didnt happen very often.

With your sneering negativity you'd not understand that though.

dipsomaniac

motorguy said:

dipsomaniac said:

You don't sell it for spares or repairs at auction - you put it back in the ring to try and catch another trader/member of public out

With your sneering negativity you'd not understand that though.

Lol. You were obviously a lot more honest than the traders I have experienced

Grumpy_chap

dipsomaniac said:

Lol. You were obviously a lot more honest than the traders I have experienced

This might surprise you, but my experience is that most Motor Traders are not Arthur Daley types.

However, the Dealers do need to put up with unscrupulous members of the public not telling them everything that might be wrong with a car and then the car gets sold on because that intermittent fault did not come to light while the Dealer had it but the next owner discovers the fault materialise in the first week after purchase and blames the Dealer.

Dealers have a reputation to maintain - even with cars that they sell on through auction.  The auction house will soon make comment if an individual Dealer is regularly putting cars in that are not correctly described as the auction houses have their reputations to consider also.

motorguy

Grumpy_chap said:

dipsomaniac said:

Lol. You were obviously a lot more honest than the traders I have experienced

This might surprise you, but my experience is that most Motor Traders are not Arthur Daley types.

However, the Dealers do need to put up with unscrupulous members of the public not telling them everything that might be wrong with a car and then the car gets sold on because that intermittent fault did not come to light while the Dealer had it but the next owner discovers the fault materialise in the first week after purchase and blames the Dealer.

Dealers have a reputation to maintain - even with cars that they sell on through auction.  The auction house will soon make comment if an individual Dealer is regularly putting cars in that are not correctly described as the auction houses have their reputations to consider also.

That was one of the biggest issues we had - members of the public trading in cars with serious known faults that they knew couldnt be picked up on on a test drive.

• We took in a Golf GTI that every time it went about 65MPH or so the dash lit up like a christmas tree and it went in to limp home mode.
• A vauxhall diesel that had fuel pump issues - but only when the tank had less than a 1/4 tank of diesel (traded in with 1/2 tank of diesel)
• On really nice friendly guy traded in a diesel car that wouldnt start when cold.  Didnt pick that up until the following morning when we went to start it.  Upon investigation the four glow plugs had been snapped off in the block...
• Ford Mondeo that ran perfectly when warm but filled the yard with smoke when started from cold.
• Chrysler Voyager that on a long journey would suddenly die when being driven and wouldnt start for 10 minutes (great on the fast lane of a motorway).

And yes, totally RE: auctions.  We got to know the auctioneers and then have been on us if a car wasnt as described.  Whilst in theory you buy "sold as seen" at auction they frankly didnt want the hassle of an angry bidder complaining.

Jumblebumble

marky489 said:

Hi all. I’ve got a bit of a problem concerning a garage my girl friend took her car to about 6 months ago. The 2014 Kia Rio had a broken timing chain & although it was within warranty, she had missed one service so kia told her it would not be covered. She took it to a local garage & was told it would cost about £4,000 to get it fixed & it wasn’t worth it. She wasn’t in a good place with her mental health & needed a car to get to work so they managed to talk her into buying one of there cars on finance. (I had not met her at this stage & if I had I would have advised against this, at least before getting a second opinion). She still owed £3000 on the broken Kia so they upped the price of the finance to include this (which I also think is a bit dodgy). So basically she’s left with £9000 finance debt to pay off the two cars. The garage told her they would scrap the Kia Rio as it was worthless if she signed it over to them, which she did as she didn’t want the stress of having to dispose of the car. The problem we have now is yesterday the Kia Rio came up on there Facebook page for sale for £5,500! They have basically aquired the car by lieing & telling her it was worthless & would be scrapped, then fixed it & put it up for sale! Surely this is unlawful! I am going to go round there at the weekend to talk to them about it but was hoping to have some backup re: what it should have been worth as it was or a better idea of what a timing chain would have really cost. Also where would I stand legally as isn’t this basically theft? Any help would be much appreciated.👍

Let's look at another scenario
The Garage  owner buys the car
The following week his mate says I have been offered a rotten old rear end damaged Kia Rio with an excellent engine for £500 
What would you do if you were the garage ?