Advice please, stuck with a lemon on Finance.

[Roverload]

Hi all my mother bought an 09 Ford Focus 1.6 tdi using car finance from carloans4u last November. The car has been nothing but trouble since the start, we've had DPF failure and ad blue refil costing in excess of £1000. Battery packed up, bonnet switch which kept setting the alarm off, the boot won't open and now it's puffing out clouds of white smoke. Originally I thought it was the turbo but expecting something more sinister. I don't know what possessed her to do it but she elected to spread the payments over 6 years. She's since become self employed and as a result no financial company will touch her with a barge pole. She cannot afford to fix it again if it's anything else other than the turbo (new cartridge only £75). Is there any way out of this hell for her at all? I understand we can't sell it until the finance is settled. Any advice would be much appreciated as the dealer has dodged us since the start and we don't know what to do. Help!

[Roverload]

dudleybloke said:

Adblue refill is a consumable that you can do yourself for a couple of quid.

Not as straight forward as that I'm afraid, it's a nightmare to get to, then you need a decent computer system to programme into the car the amount of adblue you've put in it, it has to sinc up. Our problem stemmed from a faulty fuel cap sensor that's supposed to work out how much fuel you've put in so it knows what ratio to mix the adblue. It emptied the tank in days long before we bought it resulting in every scheduled re-gen failed. Even though the car was doing 900 miles a week on motorways.

[Roverload]

SidJames said:

Sorry, you didn't buy a "lemon", your mum bought a crappy oldish car on finance that nobody should have allowed her to take. An extended warranty taken out as well. (May not help, but thought I'd ask.)

How much has she got outstanding on it?

I fear she will be out of pocket.

I believe she is 8 months in to a 6 year contract.

UPDATE: Turbo has gone completely as a result of the inlet manifold coming up, some chunks of carbon made their way to the turbo and messed it right up. The garage who have the car advised a new inlet manifold and a new turbo. With labour we are looking at another £1000 ish bill. Again, alot of computer stuff needs to be done which pushes the price up. A dealer told me today another fault with the 1.6 that causes turbo failure is the oil feed to the turbo, apparently its too small and gets blocked easily, sump has to come off for that. Unsure if this has also been a factor. He then told me Tha neither he or any other respected dealer local to me will touch them with a barge pole as they always come back broken.

[Roverload]

TooMany2cvs said:

George111 said:

A turbo usually fails when the bearings fail, a recon turbo for a common car is usually £300 or so exchange and fitting doesn't take very long for a competent mechanic.

Usually.

The 1.6HDi/TDCi, especially, does seem to have a whole raft of interesting failure modes, and there's a lot of inlet tract and oilway cleaning - or preferably replacement - that really should go along with the turbo replacement if you want it to have a chance of lasting.

As more and more turbos get replaced, the race to the bottom of the market on price has hotted up, and I'll let you guess exactly how much TLC's gone into this...
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/301723070969
or
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271623288994
(includes gaskets? A good quality gasket set is damn near half that price alone...)

Agreed, my mechanical experience comes from old VW's and Rover K series engines. I know very little about turbo engines never mind modern turbo engines. The cartridge idea went out of the window pretty quickly. The garage advised a brand new unit from turbo dynamics as he's always had problems with recon units. We're going to hold off repairing it for a bit and see if we can get any help from the dealer or the finance company. Failing that we're stuck with it and not sure what to do, if we can't sell it and it's just going to keep breaking which, from what I've read, is likely, we're just going to let it sit there until we work out what to do. Personally I'd be looking to the finance company to allow a trade in and re-finance on a different car, yes we'd take a hit but either way it's going to cost her money.

The previous point about mileage over 6 years. The plan originally was that she was going to move closer to Bristol so she has good access to all her clients which would probably reduce her weekly mileage down to around 300 miles per week, and also at the time she wasn't self employed so re financing for something brand new after 2 years was the plan. Obviously not really do-able until she's been successful for a couple of years.

Thank you everyone for the replies. Any suggestions / advice is most welcome.

[Roverload]

xRIEx said:

Hamish Finn said:

Remember the agreement is between the buyer, the supplying dealer and the finance company. Three way agreement.

If the dealer is not honouring any warranty (or perceived warranty), then speak to the finance company. Explain what has happened.

This. Under the Consumer Credit Act, isn't a finance provider jointly liable?

Can you give me a bit more on this? I.e. What to say to them 😁

[Roverload]

Update: Garage did a quote to repair. In order for the warrantee to be honoured it needs alot of other parts and tests. The quote I've been given came to £1800. Complaint filed with the finance company. They say we should receive a reply within.... 4 weeks.

[Roverload]

bearman68 said:

Jimmyarm said:

Just to throw a spanner in the works, if the turbo has gone it is game over.

We and most garages we talk to won't just fit turbos to these engines unless a new or recon engine is fitted at the same time.

If the garage will warranty the turbo fair enough but expect it to fail again in short order.

We learnt the hard way, despite cleaning the sump and fitting new feed/return pipes etc testing the oil flow rate etc the only one of these we have done failed within 1000 miles.

Bit of a thread hijack, but would it be possible to 'drop' a 2.0 lump into the body. The engines appear to be pretty similar. Anyone any experience of this. It seems to 2.0 does mega miles.

I had this thought also. The electrics side of it worries me a bit though. Modern cars seem extremely sensitive and I'm guessing it's not as easy as a 90's car.