Garage selling on a dangerous motor....what to do?

BrokenSpiral

Hi Folks,

Looking for a little advice here on a rogue garage!

The very short version of this story is that I bought a car from a dealer and it had a few problems. I returned it to the garage a couple of times under warranty to get stuff fixed and the car then failed the NCT as they had not really carried out the work but they had pretended to me that they had.

I then got my mechanic to inspect the car and it turns out that the car had been in an unrecorded accident and had serious safety concerns, cracks in the body, broken suspension, bad electrics that are a fire hazard, the list goes on. The car is a genuine deathtrap. The car would need tens of thousands of euro of work done and an engineers certificate before it shoudl be put back on the road.

I managed to get a refund for the car as it should never have been sold in the first place.

But, and here is the problem, a few hours later the owner of the garage put the car up for sale on a website as a private sale! He is knowingly selling on a dangerous vehicle and some poor sucker could end up buying it and getting killed on the way home!

I am terrified of something happening to someone, what can be done?
Gardai? RSA? Dept of Transport? Who should I report this to?

Esel

Local Garda Station would be my first contact point.

mickdw

Its not a blue mini convertible is it? Have not seen that particular death trap pop up for awhile.

Thatnastyboy

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

I then got my mechanic to inspect the car and it turns out that the car had been in an unrecorded accident and had serious safety concerns, cracks in the body, broken suspension, bad electrics that are a fire hazard, the list goes on. The car is a genuine deathtrap. The car would need tens of thousands of euro of work done and an engineers certificate before it shoudl be put back on the road.

I managed to get a refund for the car as it should never have been sold in the first place.

But, and here is the problem, a few hours later the owner of the garage put the car up for sale on a website as a private sale! He is knowingly selling on a dangerous vehicle and some poor sucker could end up buying it and getting killed on the way home!

I am terrified of something happening to someone, what can be done?
Gardai? RSA? Dept of Transport? Who should I report this to?

Tens of thousands???

Is it 2 cars welded together?

What kind of car is it?

Im not sure where to report it, as said the Guards i suppose?

unkel

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

The car would need tens of thousands of euro of work done

:eek:

What car is it? What year?

BrokenSpiral

It's a Silver 2003 BMW M3 SMG.

And yes the problems are huge money to fix.

Either part of the back of the car is from another vehicle or they just did a terrible job welding it back together and a terrible repainting it! The car isn't worth the cost of the replacement parts for the mechanical problems, never mind the body repair and labour costs!

For example, just part of the mechanical repairs required, it needs a new diff (1800 +vat + Labour), Gearbox Rebuild (1k-2k?), Top End Engine rebuild (massive labour cost and unknown parts cost), New Vanos (again a couple of grand), 2 Springs, SMG Clutch or Hydraulic Unit, and the list goes on.

I went to a crash repair place I know, widely considered to be the best in the business, and they told me they wouldn't touch the repair as they'd have to strip the entire back of the car before they could even quote me as with damage such as that visible they couldn't guess as to the potential chassis damage etc and being an M3 you don;t really want one that has been repaired! If it was a simple case of welding up the back end properly it would have been still been more than 6 grand!

I'll try and upload a couple of pics now too if that helps!

I suppose the message here is that even if you are buying from a dealer you need to be very very careful and get the AA or your mechanic to inspect the car! There is even a place now, in Tallaght I believe, where you can rent a lift for an hour and get a look at the underside of the car yourself!

kildare.17hmr

I have to ask, did you even look at the car before you bought it???? you said the repair work was a very bad job, did you not notice it when you looked or did you not have a mechanic or someone in the know look at it??

As regards reporting it the first thing would be to report it to the website its now advertised on, id also let the garage know i was reporting it and reporting him for being a scumbag. name and shame him

We got landed with a damaged car that would have cost more to fix than the car was worth a couple of years ago, we were rightly pissed off obviously but ended up stripping everything of value off it, inteerier, wheels, exhaust ect and scrapped it. would never land someone in it like that

Alanstrainor

I saw this car on done deal yesterday. It was going for 8000ish, anyone who'd buy a car like that for that kind of money expecting it to be in tip top condition is mental.

BrokenSpiral

Apart from the paint issue which I did not spot (I don't think anyone would unless it was pointed out to them by someone who knows) all the bodywork issues were hidden until we got the car on the ramp as you can see from the photos.

I couldn't get my mechanic up to inspect it unfortunately!

I drove the car and it had a few faults but the garage said they had put all of them right before I bought the car a few days later. I didn't have it inspected as it came with a Guarantee and the dealer is SIMI registered so I knew if I had a problem I could bring it straight back. I had it back twice for a total of 7 days before the NCT.

The garage initially said that they fired their mechanic because he was doing bad work and it was all the mechanic's fault....which would be believable initially, but not now....

I don't think I can name them and shame them although there is a thread on here about people's experiences with them!! Do any of the mod's know if it is ok to name the garage? I'll happily do it to protect people if it helps!

BrokenSpiral

Hi Alan, I paid more than that and yes it is going for 8950 now on donedeal.....despite them telling me that they were getting a refund from the trader they bought it from....

BrokenSpiral

But yeah, people will expect it to be mint and they shouldn't!
For 3 grand more they could buy an actual mint example.....

dell1211

subframe cracking in the E46 M3 is a common enough problem

r3nu4l

Have you contacted the gardaí? Also, a phone call to SIMI would not go astray. If you're that concerned about it stop posting here and make those calls...but do come back and let us know the outcome

needadvi

The Guardai? I was watching Judge Judy, a girl bought a car that went on fire and she wanted her money back from the dealer, as she did her research and found out that he had a record for selling dangerous cars. She talked about how she could have died and how her baby was in the back seat. The girl didn't get her money back because she chose to buy it without having a private mechanic check it out for safety, and she had the choice to buy or not to buy after inspecting it and she was also given a receipt saying sold as seen. Although that is America. Different rules over here.

It's a good thing that you got a refund!!! Do you really want to take this any further now that you got your money back? If so, Why?

r3nu4l

needadvi wrote: »

It's a good thing that you got a refund!!! Do you really want to take this any further now that you got your money back? If so, Why?

Oh you know, to perhaps stop a dealer from selling a car that's unroadworthy, thus committing a criminal offence and putting the lives of the driver, passengers and other road users in danger. No other reason really.

I accept that there are some completely selfish ****ers out there who only care about themselves and once they have their money back everything's 'okay' but there are also people with a wider social conscience too.

tallaghtmick

needadvi wrote: »

The Guardai? I was watching Judge Judy, a girl bought a car that went on fire and she wanted her money back from the dealer, as she did her research and found out that he had a record for selling dangerous cars. She talked about how she could have died and how her baby was in the back seat. The girl didn't get her money back because she chose to buy it without having a private mechanic check it out for safety, and she had the choice to buy or not to buy after inspecting it and she was also given a receipt saying sold as seen. Although that is America. Different rules over here.

It's a good thing that you got a refund!!! Do you really want to take this any further now that you got your money back? If so, Why?

Imagine the OP didnt do anything about it and in the news a family where killed in this car I doubt any person could handle that.

BrokenSpiral

needadvi - how can you even ask that?????

We're talking about a car that is unsafe and they are knowingly selling it on and putting someone's life in danger!

And yes there are a few known faults with the M3, but this is more serious than that!
I could upload another 50 photos for the other problems but I think the point is made...it's a lemon!

Have spoken with SIMI and my local Garda station.
SIMI are looking into it but I will not hear back on what action, if any, they take.

The Gardai would love to help but can't! The reason being that they cannot prove the garage intentionally did something wrong......

I spoke with my insurance company to see if they could pass the reg along to other insurance companies and flag the vehicle as defective but they can't!

Shocking that in Ireland we lack a system to deal with this kind of thing, I would have thought that somewhere there would be a register of defective vehicles or something!

needadvi

I didn't say that what the dealer was doing was morally correct. Just saying, some of them are so bad they would even refuse to refund you without a court hearing. I got sold a car years ago, twas in bits, so I don't agree with these practises.

I was just saying it was good that you got a refund.

johnos1984

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

Shocking that in Ireland we lack a system to deal with this kind of thing, I would have thought that somewhere there would be a register of defective vehicles or something!

PM Motorcheck and he may be able to help with highlighting it on the car backround checking system. He's done it in the past in fairness.

Someone should really report the ad to donedeal as well and not make it an easy sell for the dealer..............

BrokenSpiral

Thanks Johnos, is Motorcheck the username on here?

johnos1984

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

Thanks Johnos, is Motorcheck the username on here?

Ya, that's his username.

He should be able to flag it on the system (I think)

Muckie

Jesus frighten stuff OP. Keep going with this, don't let this shower
pass this car onto someone else, because this mightn't be the only
car they done it too.

It'd be great if they could be shamed, what would it
take, someone to die in their cars. Even then they'd be looking for "loopholes" to get thru.

EPM

mickdw wrote: »

Its not a blue mini convertible is it? Have not seen that particular death trap pop up for awhile.

That's going around Cork. Same blonde driving it all the while...

johnos1984

EPM wrote: »

That's going around Cork. Same blonde driving it all the while...

Has nobody bothered to tell her yet?

listermint

I believe some of our members viewed this car previously with a view to buy.

There were some very telling signs that all was not right with it from the get go.


(bmwdriver.net)

EPM

johnos1984 wrote: »

Has nobody bothered to tell her yet?

Quite hard to do when the times I've seen it it's been travelling against me in the opposite direction. I'll try a dukes of hazard move next time:D:p

sealgaire

This it?

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2448898

johnos1984

EPM wrote: »

Quite hard to do when the times I've seen it it's been travelling against me in the opposite direction. I'll try a dukes of hazard move next time:D:p

Could end up with a nice date out of it too if you play it right

johnos1984

sealgaire wrote: »

This it?

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2448898

It's the only one....

andyseadog

sealgaire wrote: »

This it?

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2448898

is it just camera angle or does it appear that the passenger side rear corner (wheel arch is nearly over the wheel) is sitting much lower than the driver side rear arch (looks to be an inch or two above the tyre).

sealgaire

johnos1984 wrote: »

It's the only one....

Cleaver man . . . .

Murt10

Prime Time recently done a programme on rogue taxi drivers and dodgy NCT's.

A phone call to them, and from them to the SIMI and the Gardai, should produce results. I'm sure the garage, the NCT crowd and SIMI would love to contribute to any future programme, or possibly appear in court if someone is killed by that piece of junk.

Also, on the ad., I don't see advertiser stating that he is in the trade. Is this not an offence in itself? "Robert" is selling it as a private seller thereby giving the next purchaser very little comeback.

You should ring the Director of Consumer Affairs and complain

johnos1984

andyseadog wrote: »

is it just camera angle or does it appear that the passenger side rear corner (wheel arch is nearly over the wheel) is sitting much lower than the driver side rear arch (looks to be an inch or two above the tyre).

It's parked on a slope so nothing unusual there

johnos1984

sealgaire wrote: »

Cleaver man . . . .

In fairness I'm going to expect this thread will have to be kept very clean of anything which would incriminate anyone posting or boards.

Hence posting links may not be the best idea.

There is only one car like it on DD so it doesn't take a genius to find it

sealgaire

You'd be abel to find it so. . .


I was on to him there, once I quizzed him about it being sold private and not through his garage he claimed it was sold!

Murt10

full post further down

johnos1984

sealgaire wrote: »

I was on to him there, once I quizzed him about it being sold private and not through his garage he claimed it was sold!

Did you ask about the crash damage?

Murt10

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

I then got my mechanic to inspect the car and it turns out that the car had been in an unrecorded accident and had serious safety concerns, cracks in the body, broken suspension, bad electrics that are a fire hazard, the list goes on.

Is the car an import?

If so, was it an insurance write off abroad, bought, "fixed", and imported here?

BTW, I was watching a programme on BBC or ITV a couple of years ago on car write offs in the UK. It turns out that it is the insurance companies themselves that are to blame. Rather than completely scrapping a write off for parts, and destroying the cars paperwork, they allow the wrecks to be sold into the trade for a pittance. They are then bought, and fixed or ringed, and sold on, often at auction to some other unsuspecting punter.

Usually, the parts used for the ringing, are taken from cars, stolen to order for this purpose, so the insurance company has to pay out again to that owner for the loss of his car.

They can sometimes take the VIN?? plates off the wreck, attach it to the stolen car, along with the old reg plates, and away they go. Provided the buyer doesn't carefully check everything out.

Very profitable business for all involved!!

It may have been on the same programme, I can't remember, but Roger Cook of the Cook report actually bought two write offs, got some mechanical experts from the field to do a "cut and shut" on them. This is basically to weld two different crashed cars together.

He then sold the cut and shut car at auction. When the person who bought it, a car dealer, went to pay, Cook explained who he was and told them about the programme he was making. He asked the dealer to treat the car as he originally intended to. The dealer agreed. A young couple then bought the car from the dealer in his garage. Again, just before they completed the deal, he again interrupted and explained what he was doing.

At the end of the show, he then took the car and crashed it at a relatively low speed. The car broke in two. The occupants would have been killed or severly injured. Shocking programme.

BrokenSpiral

listermint wrote: »

I believe some of our members viewed this car previously with a view to buy.

There were some very telling signs that all was not right with it from the get go.


(bmwdriver.net)

Thanks Listermint, I am far better educated on the pitfalls of a used M3 now, thankfully your members spotted the signs that I did not!

And I think there are a lot more people out there like me that would put trust in a garage! Lesson learned!

Worth flagging the car up on your forum also perhaps? In case someone else goes to look at it!

BrokenSpiral

sealgaire wrote: »

This it?

http://cars.donedeal.ie/for-sale/cars/2448898

Yes that is it!
And the reason that the passenger side is sitting lower on the rear is that the spring is broken on that side, despite me bringing it back to be replaced and then told second time that it had been replaced and in fact it had not!

BrokenSpiral

Murt10 wrote: »

Is the car an import?

If so, was it an insurance write off abroad, bought, "fixed", and imported here?

BTW, I was watching a programme on BBC or ITV a couple of years ago on car write offs in the UK. It turns out that it is the insurance companies themselves that are to blame. Rather than completely scrapping a write off for parts, and destroying the cars paperwork, they allow the wrecks to be sold into the trade for a pittance. They are then bought, and fixed or ringed, and sold on, often at auction to some other unsuspecting punter.

Usually, the parts used for the ringing, are taken from cars, stolen to order for this purpose, so the insurance company has to pay out again to that owner for the loss of his car.

They can sometimes take the VIN?? plates off the wreck, attach it to the stolen car, along with the old reg plates, and away they go. Provided the buyer doesn't carefully check everything out.

Very profitable business for all involved!!

It may have been on the same programme, I can't remember, but Roger Cook of the Cook report actually bought two write offs, got some mechanical experts from the field to do a "cut and shut" on them. This is basically to weld two different crashed cars together.

He then sold the cut and shut car at auction. When the person who bought it, a car dealer, went to pay, Cook explained who he was and told them about the programme he was making. He asked the dealer to treat the car as he originally intended to. The dealer agreed. A young couple then bought the car from the dealer in his garage. Again, just before they completed the deal, he again interrupted and explained what he was doing.

At the end of the show, he then took the car and crashed it at a relatively low speed. The car broke in two. The occupants would have been killed or severly injured. Shocking programme.

Yeah UK import, not recorded here or in the UK but some of the damage could only be caused form an accident. Best guess is that it left the road at some point and it came down onto something as most of the damage looks to be vertical through the car rather than from the rear or a side etc, if that makes sense!

People should also understand that when the do a history check that only checks if there has been an insurance claim against the car, not if there has been any accident. If someone had an accident and patched it up it is very unlikely to be on any of the car check websites!

DonJose

Has the car been fully resprayed as it looks like an odd shade of silver for a BMW.

BrokenSpiral

DonJose wrote: »

Has the car been fully resprayed as it looks like an odd shade of silver for a BMW.

Bits of it have been resprayed such as the passenger side arches, passenger front quarter, rear bumper. Not sure about the rest. But bits of it have not been sprayed. One of the first thing my mechanic spotted was the grain of the paint being in different directions and not finished properly in certain areas.

It's titan silver btw.

zzantara

The problem here is that the Guy is not comitting any offence by OFFERING the car for sale.
He will be comitting deception WHEN HE SELLS THE CAR .
Unfortunately some unsuspecting punter will have bought the car before an offence is comitted.
The Gardai will not get involves as it is a civil matter and not a criminal offence.
There is some action you can take :
If the Garage is a member of the SIMI (they will tell you over the 'phone) you can ask them to get involved, if he sells the car after an approach he is really making things worse as he cannot say that he was not aware of the problems with the car.
You can report him to done deal + carzone as a dealer pretending to be a private seller.
If he does sell the car contact the new owner to warn them that they may have bought a potential death trap.

Gumbo

Donedeal told me to report it to the Gardai.

coylemj

kceire wrote: »

Donedeal told me to report it to the Gardai.

That's their answer to everything, it's a polite PFO if you ask me. I ran a check on a car I was interested in, the check revealed outstanding finance, reported it to Donedeal. Reply: report it to the Gardai.

zzantara

When I suggested reporting him to Done Deal is was that he was saying he was a private seller and not a dealer and you can prove it ??
Done Deal have no function in getting involved because as I posted before / No legal offence is comitted by OFFERING the Car for sale in whatever condition it is in, the offence is ONLY COMITTED WHEN HE SELLS THE CAR and deceives the purchaser as to it's condition.
No one can take any action until he makes a sale (by deception )

BrokenSpiral

Actions So far:

Reported car to Gardai
Reported garage to Simi
Reported seller to Donedeal.ie
Reported car to Motorcheck
Emailed Primetime to see if they are doing anything about rogue garages as this would be a good example.

I think that is a good start!
If any of you are active on other forums please pass the word along, particularly if you see someone posting "I just saw a great deal on an M3".....

johnos1984

zzantara wrote: »

When I suggested reporting him to Done Deal is was that he was saying he was a private seller and not a dealer and you can prove it ??
Done Deal have no function in getting involved because as I posted before / No legal offence is comitted by OFFERING the Car for sale in whatever condition it is in, the offence is ONLY COMITTED WHEN HE SELLS THE CAR and deceives the purchaser as to it's condition.
No one can take any action until he makes a sale (by deception )

In fairness to DD they have removed ad's before that didn't detail previous crash history and returned them when the seller out lines that it has been crashed.

IIRC they done it with an M3 with a distinctive interior

SilverBell

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

It's a Silver 2003 BMW M3 SMG.

And yes the problems are huge money to fix.

Either part of the back of the car is from another vehicle or they just did a terrible job welding it back together and a terrible repainting it! The car isn't worth the cost of the replacement parts for the mechanical problems, never mind the body repair and labour costs!

For example, just part of the mechanical repairs required, it needs a new diff (1800 +vat + Labour), Gearbox Rebuild (1k-2k?), Top End Engine rebuild (massive labour cost and unknown parts cost), New Vanos (again a couple of grand), 2 Springs, SMG Clutch or Hydraulic Unit, and the list goes on.

I went to a crash repair place I know, widely considered to be the best in the business, and they told me they wouldn't touch the repair as they'd have to strip the entire back of the car before they could even quote me as with damage such as that visible they couldn't guess as to the potential chassis damage etc and being an M3 you don;t really want one that has been repaired! If it was a simple case of welding up the back end properly it would have been still been more than 6 grand!

I'll try and upload a couple of pics now too if that helps!

I suppose the message here is that even if you are buying from a dealer you need to be very very careful and get the AA or your mechanic to inspect the car! There is even a place now, in Tallaght I believe, where you can rent a lift for an hour and get a look at the underside of the car yourself!

Hiya,

What is the damage exactly in those pics you posted?
Are there bad welds, bangs or dents, or poor repairs.....?
Cheers
G

BrokenSpiral

Hi Silverbell,

The pics show the crack in the subframe on the passenger side, the poor weld that is cracked on the drivers side and the front of the diff which is out of focus but the dark lines are splits.