2nd hand car - expensive repairs

[CD1]

In August 2023 I purchased a 2nd hand car form a used car dealership. The car costs around £25k, is a 2016 plate with 49k miles on the clock. 5 weeks after driving the car off the forecourt and having covered around 800 mile it started heavy smoking out of the exhaust.

I booked the car in the local garage and they said it's looks like DPF issue (not covered by the 3rd party warranty I was sold with the car) and to take it back to the to the dealer to fix. I organised for the dealer to look at it, drove it back to them (25 mile away) the car stopped smoking on the journey back. The dealer had the car for 7 days, plugged in to the ECU, said there no error codes, it was driving ok and nothing else for them to do, there was no issue.

Early November and a few hundred mile later the car started smoking again. This time I captured the smoking on video, so I contacted the dealer again and gave them the video to watch. They said silly things like, I'm not driving the car enough so DPF issues are inevitable and that the smoking on the video looks normal.

I showed the video to my local garage who confirmed the smoking isn't normal, suggested it could be a mechanical fault on a fuel injector for example which would not show as an error on the ECU.

I spoke to Citizen Advice Bureau and they advised on the Consumer Rights Law and said to contact the garage to allow the dealer a chance to repair or replace the goods in a reasonable time without causing significant inconvenience.

Mid November I sent an official complaint stating consumer rights laws to the dealer detailing the issue and asking them take the car back (again) to repair it or take the car back for a refund.

Eventually the dealer agreed to take the car back to inspect and repair it and agreed to supply a courtesy car, but they didn't have a courtesy car available immediately. I gave them over 3 weeks before getting back in touch and they then tried to blame the delay on the courtesy car request. So I offered for them to collect the car from me and forget the courtesy to which they agreed, but unfortunately they never followed through on this and failed to collect the car, I never heard from them again until I got back in contact recently (see below)

So I've been forced to take the car into my local garage to try and fix the fault with the intention of then trying to seek the repair cost through the small claims court, thinking the cost would be few thousand pounds.

The local garage have seen the heavy smoking on the car for themselves. The car has been in the garage since 2nd January. They have ruled out what they can, the fuel injectors have been tested, coolant was low but pressure tested ok. This was at a cost £800. They now believe it's a fault on the twin turbo unit leaking coolant into the exhaust which needs replacing and they've quoted £8.5k for the work so far and the cost of a new turbo.

As the cost is so high, this last week I contacted the dealer to give them one last opportunity to fix the car themselves by organising collecting it form my local garage or to take the car back for a full refund. They've not agreed to this, they have stated they want me to book the car in with them for inspection, but they've had so much opportunity to do this previously and constantly delayed the process that I have not faith in that resolution.

My quandary at the moment is what is the best way to proceed? Do I pay for the repair and seek the costs back through the small claims court? What are my chances of getting my money back

Do I have any other options?

[echat11]

Hi CD1

Welcome to LB

How did you pay?

[CD1]

Thanks for the welcome.

I paid the full amount in cash, bank transfer

[echat11]

Thanks for the welcome.

I paid the full amount in cash, bank transfer

You should have paid some of it on credit card, that way, in this scenario you would have been covered.
You would need to prove that the fault existed when you purchased the car, from what you have posted you can.
Have you gathered evidence, reports, invoices etc? You have video, the garage aren't 'playing ball', no doubt
the same old 'nonsense' if you return it.

Wait for further comments here, I think you have a good case.

[CD1]

I paid the deposit with my debit card, not a credit card. That's a hard lesson to learn.
Yes I've got a full log, all communication has been via email so I have a record which shows them saying the right thing but then being obstructive and delaying and not following through.

[echat11]

I paid the deposit with my debit card, not a credit card. That's a hard lesson to learn.
Yes I've got a full log, all communication has been via email so I have a record which shows them saying the right thing but then being obstructive and delaying and not following through.

You've got video footage of the smoke, wait for further comments.

[Pezza54]

£8.5k for investigation work and to replace a twin turbo sounds too much money. What car is it? You should obtain a second quote
You should check your warranty now the garage believes the turbo is at fault, not the dpf
The turbo could be covered by the warranty It is rare for a turbo to leak coolant and would need a major fault
The dealer when he failed to get back to you, after you reported a recurrence of the fault, failed to repair the car within a reasonable time and if you were unable to drive the car, caused you significant inconvenience by not providing a curtesy car
The dealer has breached CRA 2015 and you are within your rights to get the repair work done elsewhere and make a court claim
BUT check your warranty first. Obtain a second garage diagnosis and quote. The second garage may have a different opinion on the work required

[CD1]

£8.5k for investigation work and to replace a twin turbo sounds too much money. What car is it? You should obtain a second quote
You should check your warranty now the garage believes the turbo is at fault, not the dpf
The turbo could be covered by the warranty It is rare for a turbo to leak coolant and would need a major fault
The dealer when he failed to get back to you, after you reported a recurrence of the fault, failed to repair the car within a reasonable time and if you were unable to drive the car, caused you significant inconvenience by not providing a curtesy car
The dealer has breached CRA 2015 and you are within your rights to get the repair work done elsewhere and make a court claim
BUT check your warranty first. Obtain a second garage diagnosis and quote. The second garage may have a different opinion on the work required

The warranty has expired now. It expired about 2 weeks ago which was 6 months from my purchase date. I showed the video to the warranty company and they wouldn't open a claim or assist until a part could be identified, along with the assocated labour costs.

It's an Audi SQ5 and the garage fixing it currently is an independant audi/bmw specialist. The cost of the twin turbo unit (direct from Audi) and other parts that need to be replaced at the same time is approx £5,800 +vat, labour is £600+ vat. The garage have said they would not use an aftermarket or reconditioned part. All other costs are the diagnostics investigatitve work that been done leading up to this point.

This garage have been helpful in my opinion, so although a second opinion would be great, it's will be a hell of lof hassle trying to sort this out.

Also there's no ETA on the Turbo unit from Audi at the moment, it's on back order.

[Pezza54]

When you first took the car to your local garage you were told it looks like a DPF issue. Did the garage ask you if a warning light was coming on the dashboard?
The garage should know a faulty DPF causes a warning light on the dashboard and asked you if it was lighting up
At that sort of money the court judge is likely to ask you if you obtained a second diagnosis and quote. Your claim will be stronger if you include one as evidence
If your claim ends up over £10k it will probably be allocated to the fast track meaning if you lose your claim you are likely to have to pay the defendant's legal costs

[CD1]

When you first took the car to your local garage you were told it looks like a DPF issue. Did the garage ask you if a warning light was coming on the dashboard?
The garage should know a faulty DPF causes a warning light on the dashboard and asked you if it was lighting up
At that sort of money the court judge is likely to ask you if you obtained a second diagnosis and quote. Your claim will be stronger if you include one as evidence
If your claim ends up over £10k it will probably be allocated to the fast track meaning if you lose your claim you are likely to have to pay the defendant's legal costs

The first garage (different to garage to who are doing the repairs now) said there was DPF errors on the ECU and left them on there for the dealer to say. The dealer said there were no DPF error codes when they checked. I think they are lying about that and simply cleared them.

Since then there have been no further DPF errors logged. The issue does seem to occur during DPF regeneration but they don't believe it's a DPF problem.

I appreciate what you are saying about the second quote, the struggle I have is time to organise it, and the additonal cost, it's seems to be quite difficult to get a car booked into a decent garage round these parts currently, everywhere is at least 2 weeks before you be seen and that's with just a standard problem.

At the moment my claim is under £10k providing the issue is fixed with the turbo replacement.