Well I recently sold my 205, It was my "weekend" car so to speak, I didn't really drive it enough to keep it long term, being in university and having another car to run. A great idea was thrown forward by a friend, sell them both and buy something which is both quick, cheap to run and reliable.
Started to do a good bit of research and came across a few cars, Volvo d5, Golf gti/tdi, polo gti, lupo gti etc... When i had found the car I wanted, I took it for a test drive, checked the oil for traces of water, checked the water for oil, exhaust wasn't overly sooty (no signs of over fuelling) and checked everything over thoroughly for rust etc which might have been hiding. Signed for the car, paid the man in cash and thought I had a bought a good car (nothing £500 from a man in the pub, but a fair price for a nice looking car).
now the horror story...
When buying a 2nd hand car, from a private seller, you have almost NO RIGHTS when problems occur, in my case, after driving for 40-50 miles, at 60 mph, developing a misfire and then watching 1/2 of your engines oil get thrown out the back in a cloud of black/blue oily smoke. then you have the events of 'phone call to RAC>recovery truck>recovery truck 2>home' which took nearly 6 hours from start to finish (from the first Truck arriving - apparently the RAC don't pay their sublet companies to cross the Severn bridge). I get the car to a local garage next day, who tell me the engine is kaput, I show them the rebuild photos, with new parts being fitted such as oil pump. The compression tests on the engine showed 70-75 psi across 3 of the 4 cylinders and 0psi on cylinder #2 (from gearbox side). The minimum wear on these engines is 6bar (roughly 85 psi), so even though the engine had been 'rebuilt', it was quite obviously unhealthy and on its last legs when I bought the car.
In terms of rights, I have been advised by the Citizens Advice Bureau that unless the car was sold as otherwise advertised (ie, told it had a new part, but actually didn't) then there is not a lot which could be done. The word rebuilt can cause the mother of all f**king assumptions. Just because something has been rebuilt, does not mean it has had ANY new parts in the eyes of the law. I am 99% confident when I say this, but if you bought a car or anything for that matter, which had X rebuilt, YOU would expect it to be stripped down and 'rebuilt' with new items where needed, not just reassembled with the original parts. Trying to take action against a seller in a private purchase is like pissing into the wind, you will spend a lot of money, time and effort and end up being told that its your fault as you agreed to buy the car and it now your possession and the incident happened when it was in your possession.
Well, the basic reason for this post is to make people more aware to the way in which you can buy something which may not be what you think, and stand almost no rights when/if a issue should arise. Maybe its just my bad luck, that a engine should blow after 40 miles of careful driving (Truthfully, when you don't know the roads at all you tend to take you time and don't rag the arse end from your new car).
Well that's the end of my rant/story. Comment as you wish, call me a tit or unlucky, either way, it was a purchase which has bitten me (and my bank balance) in the arse and is currently mocking me from my (now oil soaked) driveway.
