Faults discovered on test drives - fix or walk away?

[Matt UK]

I see more and more threads along the lines of 'took a test drive, noticed and mentioned faults, dealer said they would fix, purchased car, faults still there, dealer tried but no change, dealer now an arse, please help me'.

I was test driving a dealer 5 series and during the drive the engine management light came on.
Don't worry said the dealer, it is nothing, you buy it for today only price and I will fix this for you before collection!
I replied, you fix it and tell me when you have. I'll pop back and we'll take it from there.
No, he replied, if I take a deposit I will fix it. No deposit, no fix.
We shook hands, agreed we'd both lost an hour of our lives we were never going to get back and haven't seen each other since.

Consumables I get - tyres, brake pads etc. But even then I would rather haggle them out of the price and get done myself.

But why on earth would you part with money on a car that needs work and simply trust it will be done? Seems madness to me.

[henrycrun]

Salesmen - "just say anything to get a sale"

[timbob]

I test drove an E91 BMW 325i last week from what looked like and came across a bit "wheeler dealer". On the test drive, the car pulled to the left quite dramatically - not just a gradual drift, but the steering wheel was notching itself mechanically to the left. I tried braking hands off at the end of a slip road and had to grab the wheel and correct before the car hit the curb...

He seemed surprised when we got back that I wasn't at all interested in leaving a deposit and walked away, saying that if and when it was fixed and straight, I might come and have another test drive.

[sunbeam alpine]

Depends on the car -

Relatively new/common/not special = walk away

Rare/desireable/special = haggle

Also if it's going to be your only car, make sure it's a good one. If it's for the weekend/fun days, you can afford to be more flexible.

[cjb1]

I made an appointment to go and drive a Mercedes C180 K but got a call from the dealer to say they'd found a auto box problem so the car would not be retailed. Then made another appointment to go and test drive a similar car, went down 1-1/2 hours, drove the car, pulled away from the forecourt fine, drove half a mile and the handbrake warning light and buzzer went off (the handbrake was off) eventually the car went in to limp home so I returned it to the garage and handed back the keys telling the salesman it was broken, he didn't seem to give a care. I walked away and bought a Jaguar elsewhere.

[steveo3002]

be very carefull , dealers ive worked would say yeah will get those scabs or scratches taken care of and then paint em in with a touch in brush , tyres would be a odd ditch finder etc

any respray work was always do it cheapest as poss , never remove trims etc

if its a black n white type repair make sure its all in writting whats going to be done to repair it , as in replace xyz etc so they cant squirt some wd40 on it and call it done

Edited by steveo3002 on Wednesday 16th April 09:51

[funkyrobot]

I have written down any issues in the past as part of a deposit receipt, or have got things in writing before handing cash over (if a large dealership).

I wouldn't take anything on word of mouth. I think it also shows how much you can trust a dealer if they won't write out an agreement.

Yes, I know people on here could say it's not legally binding etc. However, it has always worked for me.

[steveo3002]

or negotiate the £££ money off to have it fixed right with quality parts

[forzaminardi]

I took a good-looking but pretty high-mileage Mk1 Mazda-5 for a test drive once and the car intermittently revved very hard without the accelerator being pressed - unintended acceleration, an American lawyer might call it. The only way to stop it, short of turnign the engine off, was to put it in neutral and press the accelerator pedal all the way down while also obviously braking to slow the suddenly fast-moving car. This seemed to reset it for another 2 minutes of normal driving. While this demonstrated the quite impressive accelerative potential of the vehicle, I found it a little disturbing and said to the salesman "I think there's something wrong with the cruise control or the ECU" and he confirmed "yes, there's obviously something not right with it, sorry about that" and we returned to the dealership.

On parkingup he asked "so what do you think of it" and I said I don't think I'm interested any more. He suggested if I put down a deposit he could have it fixed and it'd be "good as new" tomorrow. I said "na, you're alright" and walked away but afterwards I thought:

1) Presumably he thought there was a chance someone, if not me specifically, might put down money on a clearly f*cked car on the off-chance that a promised repair would sort it out.

2) The implication is that if I didn't put down a deposit, it wouldn't get fixed and so potentially plenty of other people might take an ostensibly fine but actually seriously dangerous vehicle for a test drive.

Having said all that, I walked away from that car and into a Mondeo that was fine on its test drive but ended up being completely goosed anyway, so what do I know?

[Engineer1]

As with Doogz haggle it down then get it fixed elsewhere otherwise the fix may just be enough to get the light out rather than really solve the issue.

[Snowboy]

My Disco had a few gremlins when I bought it.
But, it was from a well known LR specialist who promised to fix it all, which they did.

I would trust a specialist with a good reputation.

I wouldn't trust a generic used dealer.
I'd walk away from the sale.

[HereBeMonsters]

I fell for this when buying my Octavia. It's a tactic by the dealer to get the warranty company to pay for all the repairs rather than them.
In the end I owned the car for a year, 5 months of which I had an Impreza courtesy car - which was pretty useful over a snowy winter!

[TooMany2cvs]

Matt UK said:

I see more and more threads along the lines of 'took a test drive, noticed and mentioned faults, dealer said they would fix, purchased car, faults still there, dealer tried but no change, dealer now an arse, please help me'.

I was test driving a dealer 5 series and during the drive the engine management light came on.
Don't worry said the dealer, it is nothing, you buy it for today only price and I will fix this for you before collection!
I replied, you fix it and tell me when you have. I'll pop back and we'll take it from there.
No, he replied, if I take a deposit I will fix it. No deposit, no fix.
We shook hands, agreed we'd both lost an hour of our lives we were never going to get back and haven't seen each other since.

Consumables I get - tyres, brake pads etc. But even then I would rather haggle them out of the price and get done myself.

But why on earth would you part with money on a car that needs work and simply trust it will be done? Seems madness to me.

Absolutely. The salesmuppet's effectively saying "Oh, buggrit. Caught out. Hey-ho." and admitting that if the light hadn't popped up (which he clearly knew that it had a fighting chance of doing), it would be sold with that known fault. So what known faults DIDN'T you pick up on...? Don't walk away. Run.

[Motorrad]

Thousands of used cars out there, move on, buy one that isn't faulty. Not rocket science is it?

Moreover what sort of dealer is going to leave an obviously malfunctioning car in stock? Some asshole who will leave you high and dry- that's who.

[Mave]

doogz said:

This. Haggle, then take it to someone you trust to have put right.

Absolutely.