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

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.

SilverBell

BrokenSpiral wrote: »

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.

Thanks.....I can see the crack or break in the brightest 1st pic now alright:rolleyes:, (like a reinforcing plate near a spring turret is it? sorry dont know those cars). Merc W210s have a spring perch failure problem, seems more common in UK due to salt. wonder is it a related failure?

But the other two I'll take your word for it.:) If its cracks in the rubber of the flex drive near the diff, thats a simple replacement job.

Ah sure, you dont have it any more...heh heh!

BrokenSpiral

SilverBell wrote: »

Thanks.....I can see the crack or break in the brightest 1st pic now alright:rolleyes:, (like a reinforcing plate near a spring turret is it? sorry dont know those cars). Merc W210s have a spring perch failure problem, seems more common in UK due to salt. wonder is it a related failure?

But the other two I'll take your word for it.:) If its cracks in the rubber of the flex drive near the diff, thats a simple replacement job.

Ah sure, you dont have it any more...heh heh!

Yeah I just put those up as a sample of the problems!
Failure of the sub frame around the suspension mounts is really common in the e46, especially the M3, so much so that BMW did a free subframe repair & reinforcement in North America on all E46 cars! There are several cracks through it but not sure boards would be delighted with me uploading another 50 photos!

Didn't know the E Class had that same problem! Good to know!

The rubber has cracks on both sides of every bolt, straightforward fix alright, and seeing as the diff is burst on both sides as well and the gearbox has 2 leaks and needs a rebuild then it would be extra easy seeing as all that would be off the car anyway!! Main point is that even simple stuff that costs a hundred quid to replace wasn't done!

I thought that some of the problems were due to corrosion as it's a uk car originally but some of the damage has to be impact related as parts of the floor of the boot are dented from the underside, meaning that something would have had to go through the diff/drives/exhaust, etc to have hit it and the damage to the right drive and exhaust would support that!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

I viewed this car when it was in the dealers in Kilmainham, its was a obvious wreck and the SMG box was in bits. Was the fact that it made a noise like a crack of thunder when changing gears and felt like the gearbox was trying to escape, and the accordion exhaust not give you an idea. Even my wife spotted that the suspension on the rear was sitting low on one side.

I laughed at the dealer after the testdrive who claimed to think it was in perfect nick or would be when sold, however when I pointed out the problems he told me to piss off.

unkel

coylemj wrote: »

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.

Yup they told me that on a few occasions too. When I insisted it was a civil matter (hence not for the Gardai) and that they were responsible for the ad as soon as I pointed out the "irregularity" with the ad, they edited out the incorrect details. Do insist when you're exchanging emails with them!

Owen

johnos1984 wrote: »

Has nobody bothered to tell her yet?

Tried several times too, but always going the wrong way in Traffic. I put a thread about the car on miniclub.ie with the reg as the title, and the motorcheck report in there too.

Trust me, if you saw how hot she is, you'd be trying to stop her too :pac:

orlando_l

guys im the one that bought this car.what should i do ??

Kristopherus

Get a mechanic to check it and if there's anything wrong , get your money back. Have you a garage receipt? When did you buy it?

Owen

Which car? There's been a few discussed here.

orlando_l

there is something wrong with it the back end is falling out of it!! its the 2003 bmw m3
03D77744!!!

mickdw

orlando_l wrote: »

there is something wrong with it the back end is falling out of it!! its the 2003 bmw m3
03D77744!!!

You should contact the guy who started this thread and gather as much info as possible although Im sure its a different seller at this stage.