Seriously getting tired of this French car bks now on PH. Not only is this a load of st, you are not helping the OP by posting drivel like this. Cars don't start sometimes, all cars. It could be a component that is not even from France. You can just alt+F4 for all I care.



OP, Any warning lights at all? Try the immobiliser trick above and yes the TDC (top dead centre) sensor can be temperamental. It is located under the airbox on the right side of the engine. It has a 'banana' shaped bracket and looks like this.



I took mine off and cleaned it with some alcohol and the car was fine once again. Even if it's broken it's £30 for a new one and will take about 30 minutes tops to change by yourself. If you sign up to cliosport.net and search for a problem you will have the answer and a place to buy it from in about 5 minutes.

Everyone knocks French cars but the only stuff that breaks is the easy and cheap stuff to fix, whereas the stuff that breaks on a VAG car is something massive like a brake master cylinder to the tune of £800 (from memory).

Poorcardealer there has to be a degree of leeway. You cannot expect to sell a used car and if issue crop up abandon the customer. It is YOUR job as a car dealer through knowledge and experience in the field to be able to assess cars that you are buying into stock for any potential issues.

AGREED.....But, as an example the OP's car runs fine for 700 miles, so clearly no problem that the dealer could identify prior to the car being sold, its part and parcel of the job, but this is the reason i dont sell cheaper part exchanges now, there isnt enough margin in them to spend time finding electrical faults.

As the average buyer has no clue about cars. At the same time ther needs to be a degree of common sense from buyers of second hand cars. They arent going to be perfect so they should expect the odd dent etc.

PROBLEM is when things are tight economically, customers are looking at the dealer to rectify absolutely everything.

Fundamental things like brakes that are barely legal etc are for the dealer to spot and sort and are the dealers issue. Likewise any serious issues such as engine gearbox or electrical problems you should reasonably be expected to notice.

AGREED

I bought my first car off a second hand dealer for 250 quid iirc and the exhaust started chucking out its filler a short while later. I didnt go running back complaining as it was to be expected on an old car and quite frankly for the price I paid it would have been unreasonable to complain.

If however the engine blew up ten minutes after driving off i would be knocking on his door. Mechanically it was sound and everything worked as it should.

So he's saying the solution is he doesn't sell cheap cars anymore. I guess, like loans sharks, the sort of people who will sell into that market will go underground so consumers will be completely unprotected.