Dealer Deceit!

[skodababe]

My first Fabia was purchased from a Skoda main dealer and was 6 months old when I got it. The salesman told me the garage had bought the car from Skoda UK and it was probably one of their staff cars. The log book was not available as the car had been subject to a failed sale and the document returned to DVLA. They promised to sort everything out and to cut a long story short once I had parted with my hard earned they didn't bother.

Six months late when I needed to tax the car i realised i didn't have the relevant documentation and so applied to swansea. After a lot of confusion and about 3 incorrect documents I finally got the correct one which told me the car had belonged to Europcar. I did some digging and found out it had been used as a Hire car at amongst others Edinburgh airport. The dealer refused to accept any responsibility for this and we have just traded the car for a different one as we were fed up with a series of niggling problems probably dur to it's initial hard life.

Has anyone else had similar problems? I wanted also to tell the story so others can avoid getting into the same situation.

Thanks

Skodababe:confused:

[Stimps]

Eeeek! Not good :(

Not much help now, but remember that there's a list of dealers somewhere in the reviews section where you can say what you think about an individual dealer...

Hope you've changed to a 'proper' dealer now...

[day tripper]

That is well on top! :< i hope it wasnt from horners bury as im awaiting a vrs.

[steve]

YES, ive had a similar problem-ish.

After much forkin about{to much to explain} i ended up with a Octavia TDi.

After being told it WAS a 1 owner car ,it turned out the owner had been Eurocar rentals. Add to that it had a list of problems as long as your arm.

My wife asked them to exchange the car but they declined saying they would do their best to fix it.

Thanks to a few people on this site i found out i HAD the right to demand they change the car{Skoda have a 30 day exchange plan-funny the 'Dealer forgot to mention that'}.They also ADDED extra money to the finance agreement,of which they had no explanation.

Car dealers are the scum of the earth. The only time they take any notice of you is if you threaten physical violence,or offer to set alight to their more expensive vehicles .

Its quite amazing what you can achieve with a gallon of petrol and a lighter. {this was a ford dealer}Even the police ended up on my side :eek:

best of luck

Steve

[spc]

Originally posted by skodababe in this post

The salesman told me the garage had bought the car from Skoda UK and it was probably one of their staff cars........ After a lot of confusion and about 3 incorrect documents I finally got the correct one which told me the car had belonged to Europcar........ I did some digging and found out it had been used as a Hire car at amongst others Edinburgh airport..... The dealer refused to accept any responsibility for this ............Skodababe:confused:

I think that's about as bad as it gets! How can the dealer 'not know' where the car came from. And how does this story fit with the present campaign about having a V5, I'm sure most of us would have trusted a franchised dealer in this case. Lesson learned by all who read, I hope. I'm sure you want to move on from this experience, but have you had any dealings with Skoda UK? That has to be worth a name and shame them.

hope you have better luck with the new car, and hopefully a different dealer.

[stopan1j]

Personally wouldn't buy a car because it was registered to Skoda UK , any accident repairs may in my opinion have been repaired internally and will have avoided insurance claims and registers - be very careful - the ones I have seem didnt look the best of examples or bargins to me.

John

[KJB]

I bought a Fabia 16v comfort hatch which was less than 1 yr old from a dealer. He was "up front" about it being an ex hire car when asked about history. Personally I would rather have an ex hire car than an ex-demo as I feel an ex-demo would have got more abuse. I havent had any probs with the car (apart from the obligatory dashboard squeak !) for over 18mths. Every used car has "previous" of some description doesnt it ?.

[Gasman]

Ok, here we go - on with the flame proof suit:

The vast majority of Skoda dealer's late plate used stock is sourced from Skoda UK - most of this will be ex-rental, some will be ex Skoda Management company cars. Where else could a dealer get enough used cars from? It would be nice to have a forecourt full of 'one careful private owner' cars but this is not realistic. (Incidentally how many of the owners on this forum who blast their cars aroung the 'ring would volunteer that information to the dealer come PX time?)

It does sound as if this particular dealer was underhand in his attempts to hide the car's history - I don't see the point in this as the previous owner is always identifiable from the V5 and the dealer is only storing up problems for the future when this info comes to light, KJB's dealer obviousley got it right and now has a happy customer.

Steve, I'm sorry but car dealers are not the scum of the earth, clearly you have had a bad experience with yours but there are a lot of good, honest, customer focused dealers out there who are simply trying to make a living in an increasingly difficult market.

Ok, I'm ready to duck!

[TaviaRS]

Gasman, no need to duck.

The dealers I have used know all about my use of the car at the ring at on track days. It is fairly evident to anyone looking at my car that it has had a hard life and that it is modified. Non standard rims, brakes, suspension, exhaust, etc etc make it fairly plain, as do the tow here decals and the ignition switch markings

Admitedly, I have nothing to lose as although my car is only 18-20 months old it is essentailly worthless, 90k+ mileage and more chips than McDonalds see to that.

I feel that "scum of the earth" is a tad harsh. There are good ones and bad ones, same as in any profession (OK excepting estate agents and lawyers ). If I get a bad one I walk away or if I feel I cannot trust the dealer I'm dealing with. Having read Steve's post I feel he's had a very bad one. Must say that on the whole the Skoda dealers are far better than most I have come across in terms of technical knowledge and general attitude.

If a dealer is dishonest with me then I would have to take it up with either the dealer principal or with the manufacturer/importer.

[robmawer]

Mine was a year old ex-hire car - the dealer was open about this and I think it was

reflected in the price.

I think hire cars are pretty well looked after by the hire companies themselves -

certainly they're always delivered clean and in good condition. Admittedly I'm not

particularly merciful while I have them, but I'm cynical about this doing huge amounts

of damage to the car.

As for problems - I've come across new cars in worse condition!

I do, however, have old style rear light clusters which I'm suspicious about!

I think the dealer could have been a bit more honest, but then I doubt the salesman

will remember the history of every car on the forecourt, and if he doesn't have the

V5 there to check then there's not a whole lot he can do!

Rob.

[Jimmy]

If for some reason the V5 is not at hand have a look in the service book on the inside cover (Octy anyway). The name, address and usually phone number of the first registered keeper is written in by the dealer. Re: the V5 I think the law has changed now so a dealer cannot sell a car without it but I might be wrong.

On the subject of hire cars. As a very regular user of such vehicles I would never entertain the prospect of buying one for myself.

[robmawer]

But just how hard a life does a car need to have before it's worth not considering

for buying?

Look at Jon's car - galactic miles despite the age and ragged for a lot of them. Yet it

runs well, and as far as I'm aware hasn't given him any major mechanical problems!

So if it was for offer at the right price, wouldn't this make an absolute bargain?

I'll start the bidding at

[TaviaRS]

Add a 0 and I'll consider it

As you say mine has a fair number of miles on it. On the road its driven fairly gently, mostly on motorways. About 8% of the 90k have been on track and, yes, it does get a fairly hard thrashing

On the other hand it is very well looked after, no expense has been spared in its care. It gets a service every 10k miles. Long life oil is put in (so it should last 15k rather than the 10 of normal stuff), it has had a new clutch as a precaution, ditto the cambelt (normal done at 120k, mine was done at 60), I've replaced the wheel bearings, just in case (just going to do them for the second time next week). It is always allowed to warm up for 10 minutes before I'll exceed 3,500 rpm, after a run its allowed to cool down for a similar time. I check the geometry every 10-15k miles to ensure no undue stress/wear is being inflicted.

It is washed at least once every 2 weeks (usually every week) and get a nice coat of polish every 6 weeks.

So yes, it has a hard life, but it is pampered.

[robmawer]

Well, it would be even more of a bargain at

[mannyo]

Then of course there is freakcrab's vRS. He has the very RS that was used by autocar and other magazines for review, He has had no trouble with it despite being driven on track and doing constant 0-60 timed runs proberbly with less than 1k on the clock.

As for hire cars, I always seem to end up with brand new ones. The last one I had (renault megane) from malaga airport had less than 10kms on the clock, it was driven off the transporter to the petrol station and back.

[philc]

You're obviously lucky, Manny, last one I had from Malaga was a Polo with 35000km's on it!

Phil

[devonutopia]

I think the sneaky devils at my dealer took my car out for a spin before handing me the keys. It had nearly 100 miles on the clock when I drove it away from the garage! (although I don't blame them, as it was the only TDI they had)

[spc]

I guess we'll all have our own views and experiences - would we buy an ex hire car or not? The point is you just need the honest and correct information from the dealer, then go with whatever you happen to believe in, be that your own experiences, hear say, anecdotal whatever! Yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.

My 2p on hire cars, having hired about 20 in 6 months. They get used very hard, they may get serviced but they don't get 'looked after'. I was given a

[tavia4x4]

Well mine was a "dealer demonstrator" that had done 10k in 6mths......

Apart from being their 4x4 demonstrator, they mainly used it for accompanying fleet deliveries and bringing the drivers back, it was also "the one the sales manager took home" and used as his own car, hence all the tints \ toys etc.

So it had done a lot of miles in 6mths, but they seemed to be motorway miles, and I had faith in the sales manager that I dealt with direct. His daughters child seat was in the car when I first turned up to drive it, so I believe what I was later told by him.

Like so many things, it's often down to a "feeling" you get, either you are comfortable with the situation or not.

I've had a lot of hire cars, and I would not say they were treated the best, but then I've seen Rob's and it's a nice example, so quality can vary.

[DGW]

My 2002 4X4 Estate which I bought last June was a 3 month old Skoda UK-registered demonstrator with 1500 miles on the clock which had been used by the Sales Director of Forward Motors for personal use. Some chocolate on the rear seat, toys and other personal belongings pointed to that useage as being genuine. Skoda UK placed a number of similarly registered 4x4 Estates with dealers at the end of March 2002 - including my nearest one - for use as demonstrators. Some were never used on the road and were advertised for sale with delivery mileage. I would happily have bought any one of them at the right price and with the right mileage. Mine was a bargain and, as far as I am concerned, was as advertised by the dealer.

But clearly there are other cars out there which are not quite as they seem, including a Ford Ka my mother-in-law bought from a main Ford dealer. As she understood it, this low mileage car was the dealer's demonstrator. When she visited me last summer I went along to our local Ford dealer to buy some touch-up paint for it. The dealer fed the vehicle registration number into his parts computer to check which particular black paint I needed and couldn't find the vehicle's details. When he keyed in the VIN it produced details of a Jersey-registered car of a different colour. To keep the story short, the Ka started life as a hire vehicle in Jersey and was then shipped to the mainland where it acquired a UK registration number and a registration document showing one previous (unspecified) owner. The wrong colour was down to a mistake in inputting the correct colour on Ford's parts computer. The supplying Ford dealer had told the truth when they said it was their demonstrator - they just forgot to mention the car's previous history! The moral here is to check the registration document as well as the car before parting with any cash .

PS I have to own up to not checking my 4x4's registration document before signing on the dotted line. Because the car was registered to, and owned by, Skoda UK, they retained the registration document when they supplied the car to the dealer. It took a bit of chasing up through the dealer, but eventually I ended up with 2 original Vehicle Registration Documents for my car!

Time to check the dogs' pedigrees........

[ncarring]

My wife has an ex-Jersey hire Fiesta. We bought it with the "J" plates still on it. It had less than 3000 miles on it and the only sign of its previous history was the scratched surface of the paint from being a seaside car and too much carwashing. One day I will get the T-cut out or something and it will look mint. Needless to say the price reflected the origins of the car. We're very pleased with it still.

[Witchfinder]

Sounds like a job for trading standards. If a the goods are misrepresented, then you have a claim against them. Call your local trading standards office.

[philc]

I thought it was common knowledge that any low mileage Ford cars that appear in the showroom in September/October are likely to be ex-channel-island hire cars sent back at the end of the summer season. they're usually a good deal, and, as the speed limit over there is 40mph, very rarely thrashed!

Phil

[robmawer]

Tsk...if you can't thrash a car under 40mph then you're not trying hard enough

Rob.

[ncarring]

Not common to me. You obviously spend more time in Ford dealers than me :p