Dealing with main dealers (advice on who's to blame)

Winegum1

Hi all, wasn't sure what to write as heading.

I'd love some advice please.

So we bought a secondhand car at the start of March. 181 hyundai.

There was issues with a window and some missing clips from the roof both fixed. The ignition was acting funny about 1 week in and not working 1 in 20 times but then be fine again for a while. The car went back to the main dealer last week and they said it was a problem with the gear box that was affecting the ignition and they would order a part and bring us back which happened today.

We get a phone call a few hours later saying all your electrics are chewed by rodents it's going to cost you thousands. We said we don't have rodents, we're in a brand new estate with a tom cat and cameras on our drive that activate with any movement. Basically they're saying it looks fresh and we'll have to call the insurance company.

Are they just covering tracks on selling us a car 5 months ago that had issues they didn't spot ?

Any advice at all from anyone would be fantastic. We're up to 90 with it.

Thanks

kirving

Realistically you'd have to prove that the damage was older than 5 months to argue your case. A cat and a security camera don't prove anything unfortunately, a rodent could have come in anytime, anywhere.

What specifically was the issue with the window? Electrical?

The only suggesting is the following.

A) Have a private assessor/engineer root cause the ignition issue to the damaged wiring.

B) Check the car's ECU for logs of ignition or other odd electrical issues. It will save the milage/date/time at which the error was logged.

C) Hope that the mileage at which the errors began appearing was before you bought the car.

Winegum1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026253#Comment_121026253

Thanks a million for your reply. Very helpful especially the last part. The window had kind of popped out of its frame on 1 corner so they had to fix it. The ignition was acting up after 1 week but was very random like it would not start on the first go but start on the 2nd and not happen again for weeks.

That's why I feel it was damaged when we bought it but now I'm not sure we cam prove that.

I just looked up an interesting article about lots of cars using soya base wire covering and hyundai and other car companies getting sued not sure how they fared out though but seems a common problem with soya wires.

I think we're screwed even though I really feel it was damaged when we bought it.

I'm gutted tbh as we spent our savings on the car and would hate my husband's insurance to blow through the roof next year.

Thanks again : )

mk7r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121026253#Comment_121026253

Unfortunately most ecus don't store mileage, date or time info with fault codes

Flinty997

Seems like it's been a problem for a while. Eco change too far.

https://extra.ie/2021/11/27/news/car-owners-warned-to-check-engines-for-rats

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121027097#Comment_121027097

If the ignition issue started 1 week after purchase, I'd say you have an excellent case assuming you reported it at that time.

Worst case, going in front of a judge and if you can show you reported the issue after 1 week of ownership, they would have to rule in your favour.

Ecu should record fault date although it likely cleared by dealer.

mk7r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121027326#Comment_121027326

They don't though unfortunately

Winegum1

It wasn't reported unfortunately. We might have videos on a phone of us trying to get a recording of it happening so we could show it to the dealer but we couldn't catch it again as it was so random when it happened like it could be weeks again before it happened.

So foolishly we let it slide for a while

Atlantic Dawn

Unlikely but is there a chance the previous owner would have reported the issues when trading it in and that would help your case? Perhaps there's contact details in some of the documentation.

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121029633#Comment_121029633

As in you know for sure that the OPcs car will not store a fault code with mileage? Her is how my own car (not a Hyundai) stores fault codes.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121029633#Comment_121029633

My audi from 2008 stores mileages and date and number of instances of a fault occurring.

mk7r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042132#Comment_121042132

Yes some modules on some cars will give a date and mileage but its rare and generally wildly inaccurate (most modules don't have a concept of date or time as they don't contain a clock just their own internal timer) You will see hundreds of posts if you search vcds forums for example with people asking why their date says 01/01/2047 and the mileage doesn't math their cars odometer.

kirving

Issues like that are more to do with the software architecture of the car than anything else, an ignition fault as experienced by the OP would most likely be stored in a central ECU.

I suspect that wildly incorrect dates are more to do with people messing about with VCDS and resetting things, 32/64bit or hex/decimal conversion in aftermarket software, than a clock drifting by 20+ years. In any case, mileage is very often stored too, so it's absolutely worth a check.

If the dealer wanted to protect themselves, they should have provided a log (if available) showing that the first occurrence of a potentially related fault code was after the car was sold. Lacking a clear fault with lower milage than the OP bought the car, it's a tough argument for the OP to make.

GSBellew

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042426#Comment_121042426

VW Group cars always think in Km's regardless of what the Odometer reads in, so I would say most confusion there is when the mileage numbers don't match.

Problem is the garage would erase faults as a matter of course.

OP you mention it is a new build estate, how new are are there sections still being developed?

New builds can disturb rodent's who were previously hidden away in the land before development.

Flinty997

Its a known issue if you Google it. Not just new estates. Though that probably is also a factor.

colm_mcm

Would be worth getting an opinion of an auto electrician. Main dealers will likely want to replace a wiring loom by the book instead of doing a repair.

Not to say you should accept responsibility for this, but spending thousands on the recommended repair may not be the only avenue if they don’t cover it.

Flinty997

Especially if the dealer don't cover any of it anyway.

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042426#Comment_121042426

The vast majority ive seen, mostly vag stuff have a km readout that matches dash to within a few hundred miles with dates correct too for faults. To confidently state that such info is never recorded is pretty crazy really.

mk7r

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121043913#Comment_121043913

In probably 95% of cars and modules it's not recorded. I look at them every single day...it's not part of the obd spec so it's not included generally

kirving

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042713#Comment_121042713

Good point - especially given the (miniscule) potential from fire, a main dealer is not interested in a repair. They'll likely just want to swap out the entire loom.

Winegum1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042565#Comment_121042565

The estate almost 3 years old. There are about 16 houses in each row and loads have got ring door bells. There are also 6 cats on our row we own 1. Nobody has spotted rats yet.

Winegum1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121042713#Comment_121042713

Thanks, we might have to. Another mechanic I met was saying that even if the faults were "wiped" in the garage it records the mileage somewhere since the wipe. So that could be something we could look into too.

My guess is its a huge problem and what's to say there aren't rats roaming around their courtyards every night having a feast on all of their eco car tasty soy wiring 🤷‍♀️