Hello All, I am very new to this so I apologize if i do anything wrong.*
I will start from the beginning but will try and cut down the long story short!*
I had a car accident in August 2013. I was paid out for my injury's and needed a new car due to work purposes. On 31st October I called a Private seller up that was selling a vehicle on Auto Trader (Audi A3 1.9TDI 55Reg) I gave him a call and decided to make arrangements to go and view the car with my partner. Having living in London to go and view the car myself and my partner drove to the seller's home address in Leicester. The advert read this :
The car is in decent condition for an 8 year old car,the car is completely standard it has full service history and that you have just had a major service done. Cam-belt and water pump costing 500 pounds so this car is good for a good few years. These cars deliver a unbelievable MPG and the 1.9 engines are more or less bomb proof.
then he went on about what specialties the vehicle has. So having read that we went and had a look.*
Upon our arrival the seller was not at the address and therefore I gave him a call to let him know that we had arrived,to only be told that he had taken the car to get some fuel as there was none in it. When he arrived back myself and my partner introduced our-self's and then he began to follow my partner around the vehicle as he looked around it with a torch while asking questions.
I sat inside the vehicle to only realize that the fuel gauge was still empty!
My concern was that he knew the car heating was faulty and I also believe that he took it up the road to warm it up so that I would not notice the faulty temperature gauge and also the fact that the interior heating was blowing out cold air whilst at stand-still.*
He reassured us that the car was immaculate apart from a few little things such as tire wear, car stereo, and little marks on the body work which is minor compared to the age of the vehicle. Fair enough!*
We took the car out for a test drive up the road and admittedly found no problems besides the judder coming from the engine when pulling away from first gear, which I later found out to have been caused by the engine mount.
Due to it being dark and late at night we put our trust in him as he seemed like a genuine person.*
After asking various questions such as, "why was the cam belt re-fitted within 10,000 miles of it being done". he reassured us and replied "I had it serviced not long ago for piece of mind as he gained this car through a part exchange".
The service he had done and had receipts for was for a new Thermostat, cam-belt kit, rad cap, water pump and bottom crank pulley bolts. After viewing the car and taking it for a test drive my partner then requested to see the relevant paper work that he had for this vehicle, to which he replied it was in your property. As we approached the back door he told us that he had left his door keys at work. He then called his girlfriend who said she would come home from work to let us in. While waiting for her arrival he requested going to McDonald's Restaurant up the road from his property for a hot drink. After getting our drinks he then pointed out how cheap the garage was on fuel and that he didn't realize how cheap it was. Hmm... Baring that in mine my first thoughts were - For someone to have only just gone and put fuel in a car you would think he would notice the garage just around the back of his house and how cheap the fuel was in there!?
After walking back to his property to meet his girlfriend we headed into the flats and up into his property. Paper work was given out to both myself and my partner and we all went through the car history plus receipts of recent work that has been carried out on the vehicle from him and previous owners. So we thought, Great!*
He showed both myself and my partner the car history booklet that showed stamps up until 07/02/2013, plus the HPI Clear receipt too which the certificate release date is 06/09/2013 that he said he had done for the vehicle for "piece of mind", but having looked at the date of purchase on the DVLA Log book he registered the vehicle on 13/10/2013..Confused yet? I am.
After agreeing to buy the vehicle from him, I completed the sections on the log book in front of him and gave him £3,400 cash.*
You asked if I wanted to send off the log book to which I agreed.*
After leaving his property my partner drove the vehicle to my home address in London. We decided to take the car to my mother's house to show her my new car. After turning the engine off for no more then 30 minutes we set back to go home. On our way the water level warning light lit up on the dash accompanied by a loud bleeping noise. I immediately pulled the car over and on closer inspection I noticed that the water level had dropped drastically. After topping up the water level I proceeded home. The following morning my partner checked the water once again. All was fine. Later on that day (1st November 2013) I noticed that the internal heater fan wasn't getting warm and the temperature gauge was not rising. After speaking to a local mechanic he advised me that I had a possible thermostat problem. A few days of me persevering with topping the car up with water, I decided to buy a new thermostat, a thermostat housing and gasket which I brought on 4th November 2013. My partner went to take the car to the garage on 6th November 2013, after pulling off and getting only 50 yards down the road he heard a massive bang. After pulling over and looking under the bonnet he noticed that an engine mount bracket had snapped. I believe going from the service history receipts and the service he had done on 24th October 2013 which he apparently paid £500.00 for was false! The work carried out by the garage that he used (no names) was bodged, dangerous and life threatening.
After calling the local garage, my vehicle that I had brought from this seller, was recovered by a recovery vehicle. After the mechanic had inspected my vehicle I was informed that 1 bolt out of 3 had snapped, 1 bolt wasn't even tightened up and was lose, so that's the remaining bolt under severe strain and pressure, which led to it snapping out of what I was told is called “the alternator & air con bracket”. The mechanic also checked the thermostat & housing as whilst the engine was stripped he was going to replace the thermostat & sort my heating problem out. On closer inspection he noticed the thermostat had been tampered with & basically put back in the car with only the upper body and no working parts. He believes this was done to hide the fact that the car has more of a major problem such as, head gasket and believes it was bodged so that the car could be sold quick and seem like there are no faults. Having looked back through the service history and receipts the work carried out by the garage that you used is warranted. I have contacted the seller on different days and due to him having an Iphone it would tell me when he read the messages, which he did but didn't reply.more 2*
