Bob K

Bob

Bought car. It had a higher than average list price but it looked immaculate. Plus dealer said they knew previous owner who had 'really looked after it'. Was told it had it had been recently given a service and fully looked over as part of the sale and got a 6 month guarantee. After purchase noticed log book did not have the recent service stamp. Told by dealer that the garage opposite serviced it. Strolled over, they had never heard of car! The dealer 'kindly' agreed to let a 'guy he knows' service it for us. He did this in his garage at the side of his house and also changed the cam belt for us. Shouldn't this already have been done with car approaching £60k? As service done 'privately' it has no stamp in the log book. After a month or so of ownership a warning light kept coming on. The one suggesting 'water mixing with oil'. Taken back a few times to be fixed by the garage who asked a business unit next door to have a look. The guy moaned about being asked to do it for free. Awkward to stand there listening to him moan away. Wasn't this part of warranty? Not me issue, don't moan at me! It kept coming on after a second attempt to fix. We were told future attempts would cost. On third attempt we left car there and I had to stump up £30! As it did not seem affect the running of the car we gave up. 6 months after purchase it needed brand new brake pads. Costly. On the low mileage it gets this suggested, to me, that they were already quite worn. 10 months after purchase the engine had an issue which cost us £1,500 to fix. Our local garage said it was valves and engine needed a partial rebuild. Unfair to blame that on the dealer, (it was 10 months later), but a VW at 70k should not have those issues? Particularly one sold as immaculate/regularly serviced etc. Was it the quality of work replacing the cam belt? Was it already an issue when purchased? I don't know. But needing to spend 1.5k 10 months after purchasing (and having paid 'top dollar') was a shock and rather upsetting. Had a few other minor issues/repairs. I really wish we had not bought the car. One year later we have spent almost 2k on it. Add that the price paid and it was a VERY bad purchase.