Sold a scam dangerous car, young family, want advice for best next steps

Joehosty

Hi there (I have replaced identifying names with an x for now!)

I’m hoping you will be able to signpost us in the right direction or give us some advice please. I bought a car in February 2026 from a car trader on Autotrader for £4,500.00. It’s a 2015 Ford Cmax. It had done about 50,000 miles with a partial recent service history and over 6 months on the MOT. We test drove the car and the seller offered a 3 month warranty. He had done the most recent service with his companys garage, and when purchasing the car we paid via a bank transfer to the company which he gave us an invoice for.

Last Sunday evening, me, my husband and toddler were in the car travelling back from London when the brakes just stopped working on the car. Fortunately we had exited the motorway at this point and were able to coast slowly to a stop, however it was an extremely nerve wracking experience and we are aware if it had happened elsewhere it could have endangered all our lives, as well as others. The car was recovered by the RAC and taken to a local RAC approved garage and where we have taken our cars for a number of years. At this point (Monday) we messaged the man that sold us the car to inform him and to ask him about whether we were still covered by the warranty. On the Wednesday he replied saying
 “Hi Hannah,
I’m really sorry to hear about this really unfortunate incident. Could you please forward me a copy of the invoice I issued you. Also, have you had a quote yet from the garage with regard to the how much it will cost to fix the car. If you can please get me these two bits and I will look at we can best resolve this.
Thank you
x “

Later the same day the garage informed us that the engine was completely ruined as the wet belt had disintegrated and had damaged the engine and brakes. The car requires a new engine, brake exhaust which they estimated to cost around £8000 which is considerably above the value of the car. At this point we messaged the seller again to update him and to ask if he would be able to help us with the financial burden of the situation, as purchasing a new car again after spending £4500 5 months ago is going to put a huge financial strain on our family. We asked him if he wanted the car to be taken to a garage near him so they could assess and maybe offer to fix the car. We also sent a copy of the invoice over which said there was a 3 month warranty which had obviously expired. But we highlighted that the consumer rights act which states that the seller has a window of 6 months where they should offer to repair, refund or offer a price reduction

He then replied to us on Thursday evening saying:
 “Hi (Removed by Forum Team),
Thanks for your message. You are correct with regards to everything you have said. Unfortunately, I have now resigned as the Director of "x" as of June 1st 2026 as I am no longer trading in the second hand car retail business and the business although still ‘Active’ will be wound up soon due to it having no active Director. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but after a few unfortunate events the business could no longer afford to continue operating. I can only apologise for the terribly unfortunate situation you are in, but the contract was between yourself and "x", so I can only assume that you have to pursue legal proceedings against the company.
Kind regards
x”

We have looked into the company and it appears that the director was the director of the company but stood down in June. He also has another business which he is a current director for. We are obviously not sure but the whole situation appears to be very weird, and I beleive we have been scammed here. He sold us a car and despite us having legal protection in place, is refusing to honour that and telling us the business is now essentially non existant. He has said he agrees we have a legal claim against the selling business but they have no assets and therefore we wont get anywhere with them. Other mechanics have told us this is a story they have heard before and beleive we are being misled here. However we dont know what to do next, our car is now in  garage which we have to dispose of, but are worried our legal protections will no longer cover us if we dont get the car back to the original seller first. Please can we have advice as to how to proceed here? Even if we persue this via the small claims courts I presume even if we win, there is no way of recouping any of our loss given the business we have a claim against is essentially asset less and the director has resigned. We are a young and now growing family, as I am pregnant with our second child, we both work for the NHS, and cannot afford a new car at this stage, given we spent £4.500 on one just 5 months ago. We dont know what to do.

Kind regards, (Removed by Forum Team)

Emmia

If the seller offered a 3 month warranty in February, that would take you to May... It's now July.

Unfortunately I think this (warranties are only really worth the paper they're written on) plus the fact the company is insolvent, and the bank transfer payment, probably closes the door on the recompense you're seeking.

Ayr_Rage

I agree with @Emmia , no chance of anything from an insolvent company.

Even if you were in the warranty period only if the wet belt had been changed at the correct interval along with the required scheduled oil changes would you have had any cover.

That's always the danger of buying an 11 year old car without a full history.

ButterCheese

Sorry to hear about this, but it is just rotten luck. It was not a scam, nor a dangerous car (as far as anyone knew). The best mechanic in the country may not have been able to predict that the wet belt would shat itself and destroy the engine.

3 months warranty means just that; if it's anything over then it's out of the sellers' hands. The standard 3 month warranty is really designed to pick up anything that was faulty/on the way out when you bought it. Anything beyond that is really a "new" problem for which the owner has to pick up the bill.

Suffice to say that this is why lots of people are advised against buying used vehicles with a wet belt, as failure can be catastrophic. You weren't to know that, but just put this down to bad luck.

Desmond_Hume

I’m a bit confused how a garage took the car in for faulty brakes and has now reported back a wet belt issue?

I’m not saying they’re lying but, how did they find that when looking at brakes?

Keep_pedalling

Did you have any symptoms of engine failure? A degrading wet belt can cause brake failure without actually writing off the engine at the same time.

Emmia

https://www.parkers.co.uk/car-news/ford/ford-wet-belt-issues/

The wet belt issue is apparently a well known one with Fords of this vintage. Early signs of a problem include the oil light coming on.

At 11 years the belt was over the end of its expected life (10 years) according to the manufacturer... Parkers reckons it should be replaced earlier (~6 years), but doing so could have been as much as £2k.

Aylesbury_Duck

When the engine lunched itself, any engine braking and the braking assistance from the vacuum servo went with it. The brakes perhaps didn't fail, but a loaded car doing 40mph without the benefit of engine braking would have a few seconds of vacuum-assisted braking before needing much more pedal pressure. It would feel like the brakes had failed.

Sadly, this is one of those things. Even if the dealer were still in business, an engine could fail at any time, especially on an 11 year old car with a wet belt that hasn't got a full service history.

I took a gamble on a wet-belt second hand car, but only because it had a full Ford service history, I got the Ford dealer to change the belt before purchase and I'm prepared to get it serviced by Ford regularly and ahead of the mileage and time interval.

It's also almost certainly not a "scam", and nor were you sold a dangerous car. The fact it ran perfectly normally for five months (assuming you did normal mileage in that time and it wasn't mothballed) means that the eventual fault wasn't known about by the dealer at the time of sale. What was known to them (and you) was the partial service history, and that fact this was declared means the dealer is off the hook, IMO. If the missing or late services were hidden from you, that would be a different matter, but they weren't.

Grumpy_chap

There is no chance of recovering anything here from the now dissolved Ltd Co.

Nor can you pursue the Director personally.

You mentioned that you paid by bank transfer. Was the full price paid by bank transfer? Was there a deposit paid by CC?

In between the car being purchased in February and the failure in late June / early July, how many miles had you covered and had you followed all scheduled maintenance requirements, including extended maintenance activities?

Ectophile

The "very weird" behaviour is completely standard for back street car dealers. They will have multiple companies open at any time. Once debts start building up against one company, they will wind it up, and switch to trading using one of the others.

The failed company may hang around on the books at Companies House for some time as people object to it being wound up. But that does little good if the money has run out.

You have no claim against any of the other companies. You can only claim against the director if you can show that they knew the company was insolvent at the time they sold you the car. That's very difficult, and rarely worth trying.

QrizB

I beleive we have been scammed here.

I don't see anything in your post to suggest that you've been scammed. You've bought an 11-year-old car with an engine that's known to have wet belt problems, without service history that would let you confirm the belt had been changed, then haven't changed the belt yourself. It's then failed in an entirely foreseeable fashion.

... the brakes just stopped working on the car.

As others have said, it sounds more likely that loss of the engine meant loss of servo assistance on the brakes. They would still have been capable of stopping the car but would have needed much more pedal pressure than usual.

Please can we have advice as to how to proceed here?

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but it's probably time to raid your emergency fund and buy a replacement car.

Personal experience: I've had two cambelts fail in almost 40 years of driving, and in both cases they wrote off the car. In the first case it destroyed the engine, in the second the engine was probably OK but the cost of getting someone to replace the belt was more than the value of the car (it had other faults that also needed attention).