Hi guys,

I bought an 06 reg Octavia VRs in November, November 7th to be exact. Car had covered an indicated 23,000 miles

It came from a Skoda franchised dealer but is in fact a cat D stolen recovered. Dealer bought the car in April, used it themselves a few months and then sold it on.

All he told me was that it needed new locks all the way around, new wheels (as they were stolen) and new head unit (stolen also).

Significantly he also had to replace a wheel bearing after my test drive as I could hear it was worn...

It's now January 26th, barely 2,500 miles since I bought the car and the exhaust is blowing, suspension is knocking and n/s/f tyre is bald as a coot on the inside edge.

I've taken it to a friend of mine who is a mechanic at a vauxhall franchise and he's told me:

An engine mount has broken

Exhaust has snapped at the cat

nsf wishbone bush is dead

nsf wishbone is also bent

bolts are missing from ns driveshaft

All remaining drive shaft bolts are loose

NSF tyre is obviously worn, and apparently osf tyre has a bulge in it, most likely due to a poor puncture repair.

The car is not roadworthy and not safe to drive so i'm getting it back to the dealer tomorrow morning by truck, and have called him and written a letter detailing the faults.

Now to me this sounds like pretty serious damage, but he insists it was fine when it left him and I must have hit a pot hole.

Not only do i know I've not hit anything that severe, surely if it was to cause all that damage it would also break/damage the wheel and take a chunk out of the tyre?

Surely just hitting a pot hole wouldn't do all that? Maybe bend a wishbone at most?

My theory is that when it was stolen it must have hit something which bent/weakend various parts and they either weren't replaced, or not replaced properly.

This is the real reason it had new wheels, as they were ruined at the time of the theft.

As all you guys know your Skoda's I need an honest and frank opinion on if I've been very unlucky and damaged the car, or this guy has sold me a lemon.

All help and thoughts greatly appreaciated as there will soon be £1200 repair bill which needs to be sorted. (gulp).

Cheers,

Jon

I reckon it had the living daylights driven out of it by joyriders before it was recovered and didn't get a decent check over from the garage before it was sold on. Again if I was a complete scummer looking for a good car for joyriding a VRS would be an excellent choice...

The only good thing is I suppose that nothing was broken enough to cause the car to injure you...

Before the dealer gets a spanner on it, get Trading Standards involved. You may have a case for arguing that you've been sold an unroadworthy vehicle, and/or that it was misrepresented since it's got a Cat D notice against it.

I crashed a VW once and the sort of trouble you had sounds very similar to what happened to me. My car could not be properly aligned, engine mount snapped presumably under tension etc. All this happened some time after the actual crash.

They did tell me it was a Cat D when I took the test drive, so I can't complain about that.

Although it's obviously not a straigt forward/stolen recovered. My mechanic also noticed paint irregularity and the dealer has now alluded that he sprayed both sides.....

Great!

I honestly think the guy was pretty much genuine when he sold it, but has been negliegent in checking/servicing the car and it has been supplied to me in a condition where the car isn't fully road worthy.

Certainly not if structual parts can fail that easily!

My problem is that he still insists it's me that has done the damage; now whether he honestly believes that or is just fighting his own corner I don't know, but what does the forum think....

..could I have really done all that damage by hitting a pot hole?

(And not breaking/damaging the wheel or anything else?)

Were you aware of it being Cat D before you bought it? Very unusual for a dealer to have insurance write-offs on the forecourt.

Its also unusual for a stolen recovered car to be written off, as for that to happen it would have to have been over a month from being stolen to being recovered, or there would have had to be substantial damage...

If you had a wheel bearing the bolts missing from the driveshaft might be from when they did the works relating to that particular noise...

Lessons to be learned here then!!! If it needed half a respray then it will have been accident damaged - pretty tough to defend a damaged wishbone if thats the case.

I hope you got the car WELL below book price....

You won't believe the irony here, but I was a car dealer for 3 years!

I worked for a Ford Franchise and sold probably 900 cars in my time. We bought from various sources and whilst you might get the occasional niggle our used cars were always good.

Worst I ever had was a X type jag that had the engine AND gearbox go, but we replaced it under warranty.

I walked into this franchise dealer, and just assumed that there was some professional courtesy and general honesty in the trade.

I thought, " Ok, so it had wheels nicked, sat nav nicked and needs new locks. That's about £3,500 worth alone so yeah, I could see an insurer deciding not to repair that."

I took the guys word that it really was a stolen recovered and a simple fix.

Never thought it would come to this!!!!

But... .. with regard to the suspension + other damage, do you think I could've caused it?

I don't think so really - especially regarding the driveshaft.

If he said that was all he fixed, then you have a case for mis-selling regarding the additional damage - they didn't respray it for no reason, there would have been panel damage for sure, which is a different ball game to some nicked wheels and new locks. Take the car and keys to the dealer and reject it. Get some advice first of course!

You won't believe the irony here, but I was a car dealer for 3 years!

I worked for a Ford Franchise and sold probably 900 cars in my time. We bought from various sources and whilst you might get the occasional niggle our used cars were always good.

Worst I ever had was a X type jag that had the engine AND gearbox go, but we replaced it under warranty.

I walked into this franchise dealer, and just assumed that there was some professional courtesy and general honesty in the trade.

I thought, " Ok, so it had wheels nicked, sat nav nicked and needs new locks. That's about £3,500 worth alone so yeah, I could see an insurer deciding not to repair that."

I took the guys word that it really was a stolen recovered and a simple fix.

Never thought it would come to this!!!!

But... .. with regard to the suspension + other damage, do you think I could've caused it?

I don't know a massive amount about Octavias being new to them myself, but from an engineering point of view I would have thought that any pothole impact that did that much damage would be fairly indelibly marked on your memory and likely as you mentioned, your wheels.. I took out a few steel wheels on my old 205 due to potholes that I hit at anything up to 50 odd miles an hour and the bang that gave when it went was pretty epic, didnt spanner anything else though.

I agree any bump big enough to bend the structure of the vehicle is going to make you realise it in a big way.

I think you will have to take into account the price paid and do you have the normal used Skoda Warranty.

You were told it was Cat D write off, had been stolen and recovered.

I presume you got it at a price that reflected its history (much cheapness!)

If you have a Skoda approved used car warranty then that may cover some of the faults.

If it was sold as seen (much cheapness) then I guess you get what you pay for!

If I was knowingly buying a car that had been stolen and recovered, whether from a dealer or elsewhere, I think I would be getting it independantly inspected before parting with my cash - surely such faults would have been found then if they were already present?

You need to reject it - they've sold you something that isn't what they have described and under the sales of goods act you can reject that (also because the car isn't roadworthy). goods are of merchantable quality.

They need to take the car back and loan you are car until you can get a replacement.

Hand them this letter with the keys when you go to the dealer

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/theoneshow/txt/new_car_letter.doc

Get trading standards involved let them inspect the car, or pay for a full RAC AA inspection then see a solicitor and go for a full refund, under the sale of goods act

If they are a skoda dealer get onto skoda UK as well

Even though the car was a cat D it should have been VOSA inspected and a certificate should have been issued before it was sold

don't hang around the longer you leave it the harder it becomes to fight them

How much did you pay for it????, a car that age should have come with a min 12 months warranty regardless of price

If it looks like a lemon, smells like a lemon and drives like a lemon....

I'd get rid. You'll never be happy with it and always worry about the real history.

Get trading standards involved let them inspect the car, or pay for a full RAC AA inspection then see a solicitor and go for a full refund, under the sale of goods act

If they are a skoda dealer get onto skoda UK as well

Even though the car was a cat D it should have been VOSA inspected and a certificate should have been issued before it was sold

don't hang around the longer you leave it the harder it becomes to fight them

How much did you pay for it????, a car that age should have come with a min 12 months warranty regardless of price

No VOSA inspection for a cat D, it's an IER at best and being honest only if the insurance company insist. Of course a REPUTABLE company would have an IER done without being asked.

Few things to think about. Firstly you're ex trade, you should be more aware than the average punter as you've worked the other side of the desk. When someone tells you a car is a CAT C/D and it needs new locks, new wheels and you hear a wheel bearing shot on a car with 20k on the clock you've got to be asking questions about what it may have hit at speed and looking at it VERY carefully or getting someone else to. The only way you're going to buy something that's going to be impossible to p/x to a main dealer and have a very limited audience for private sale is if it's well below book.

So at that stage you will have asked as many questions as humanly possible about the work, a reputable repairer will have all the answers and have gone the extra mile supplying genuine parts invoices/pics/IER and depending on the nature of the repair possibly a VOSA inspection, I know someone who does exactly this for a living and does it well.

The damage you describe is not going to have come from the kind of pot hole that you'd continue driving after hitting. Push the dealer for full disclosure, you want to see the job card and the parts invoice etc. What side was the wheel bearing replaced on, get the original appraisal if possible. If they had the car at the time they will have the paperwork available as they either assessed it themselves or will have received a copy of the assessment from the underwriter as the insured party, no franchise dealer knowingly takes a C/D in as p/x so i'm assuming it was stolen from them or they took it from the insurer as a write off.

Start making the dealer do some work, if it turns out that the original assessment includes items that were not done i'd be surprised, if they've missed something they should rectify it, just because it's a write off doesn't say it has to be in any worse condition than a non write off, just that it should be a lot cheaper.

Wonder who's car it was. Likely a member on here

I don't understand some of the posts on here, the OP has clearly stated he KNOWINGLY purchased a write off, he's already decided he can live with the history being less than perfect, considering he was trade at some point you have to assume he's savvy enough to have got this for a song and be aware of what a CAT D is. Clearly nagging doubt isn't the issue here, it's the potential cause of the damage/repairs that need doing and who pays for them that he's asked for advice on.

As to car dealerships people have a misguided idea that car dealerships are ethical and moral. They aren't.

I know someone who unloads cars for a very well known brand, they have 'minor' re-works to do daily and at least a few a year that are or should be total wrote off's. Thing is they avoid giving up on a car like the plague so everything apart from significant structural damage is re-worked and put out to the network for the rest of us to buy.

A local Pug dealer was flogging grey imports without telling people not that long back. It's only a few years down the line when people went to p/x they started to go back,in the case I know of they took it back at it's private sale value to avoid any more adverse publicity and going to small claims.

My local VW dealer did near on 6k's worth of damage to a new Golf and from what I was lead to believe by the person who crashed it as no claim was made for the Golf on the trade policy nothing was recorded. It was fixed at cost and put out to some 'lucky' punter who probably still doesn't know his or her pride and joy had a 50mph encounter with another car.

So yes knowingly or otherwise car dealers do sell less than pristine cars and aren't above putting financial gain above ethics. What is unusual is they knowingly sold you a car that had been written off, as far as rejection goes I suspect they'll try and make good the repairs needed, if you've got a full years Skoda warranty (and the policy as far as i'm aware is they have to give you one for any car they sell) then several of the items will be covered, the rest the dealer will probably be happy to do after the usual posturing. If not then go with rejection and/or small claims, you'll suddenly find they start being considerably more co-operative.

Edited 30 January, 201016 yr by Avalon