Rip off cars - epic rescue and dreadful cow of a woman included

[Guest Renault20tx]

Spotted an older couple today, broken down in a KA in Shipley - right between the two streams of traffic at lights. Wound the window down, and asked if I could assist........

Parked up at ASDA, got a coal board jacket and boots on, grabbed my toolkit and headed down. 

They had the bonnet up, and a young lass with them. She was trying to take it well, but had just bought her first car, driven it for half an hour, and then this.......in her own words, "I feel I want to cry"

 

So me not being a mechanic, I made the checks, spotting a huge blow on the exhaust down pipe along the way. Having checked the filler caps were all clean, I proudly pronounced OMG NOT HGF (thats exactly what it turned out to be   ). 

I phoned the firm she had bought it off, "Trade cars Cleckheaton" - noting "No warranty given or implied on the receipt which she had been asked to SIGN (wtf?)

"Ring the mobile number on the receipt" the receptionist coes at me - so I did

Got the run around from a degenerate tosser claiming not to have anything to do with them, he finally claimed a manager would ring me back within 30 mins - I'm still waiting 10+hrs later

 

We got it started, and into the local garage where my mate is a mechanic. OMGHGF promptly dIagnosed!

So the nice couple went off with granddaughter in tow, the air reeking of disappointment and anti climax!

 

I thought it would be a good idea to ring Cleckheaton trade cars again and be bloody rude to them!

"Ring the mobile number on the receipt" she says again

"None of that, you've fobbed me off once already today!" I respond

"EXCUUUUUUSSSEEEEE ME!" She barks

"Listen to me, you've sold this girl a car that's a crock of shit, and bearing in mind it's her first car, having conked out after 30 mins, its been a disappointment to say the least"

"Don't you swear at me!" (did I? I never swear at ladies)

"I'll speak to YOU any way I choose"

"No you won't, I'm putting the phone down!"

 

We then get a call from the Grandfather - by coincidence he phoned right after me and got told to go to hell, her thinking it was me again hahaha

He then phoned back sometime later, saying he'd spoken to "A ghastly woman.....who's agreed to exchange the KA for another car, but will not budge on a refund!"

 

A closer inspection of the car found it absolutely reeking of weed, piles of rubbish in all foot-wells, and Mould under the rear mats!

 

A thoroughly nice family, Cleckheaton well and truly saw them coming - anybody else ever dealt with them / got a story to tell / an axe to grind?

 

 

 

[Bear]

Too many. I'll leave it at "even shonky solicitors in the Borders used to shit themselves when it turned out someone had me on side & helping", but being able to (legally) scare the crap out of traders/businesses that way took a lot of bad, expensive experiences.

 

Not kidding though. One of them was messing a friend about on conveyancing, and was shaking when I accompanied them to get the deal closed with no further messing about. And I am not an intimidating sort of person; word travels a lot faster if you hit people in the wallet (or ability to legally trade) rather than the face, IYSWIM.

[Bear]

And for that reason above. Yelp!, and Google+ reviews, are your friends.

[Guest Renault20tx]

I suppose that bottom of the market places usually sell their crap cars to people of their own kind in all fairness. Pretty appalling to have taken £490 off her for that KA though - By the looks of it, my guess would be that it had been parked at the bottom of someone's drive for Weed smoking / takeaway scoffing for the more recent years of its life. Very little rust for a KA in fairness!

[fred]

Never bought feck all off any trader - I didnt know

But I guess easy to say if your into shite like this

[Bear]

They really don't, though. That's the thing. When we sold dreck at Ian's place, first of all you got people like me - nutters who spotted something obscure and just bought it. I expect most shiters fit that bill, we'll drive past somewhere and go "Oh, a Laguna V6 with misty windows, I bet that's cheap" and ignore any trading standards stuff. Traders would do well to understand that market and pitch to people like us.

 

But the low prices often tempted reasonably affluent families who were on the hunt for a first car - I've been there too, and my dad is not the sharpest tool in the box when it comes to cars. I was too inexperienced to realise my second car was a clocked, damaged heap of shit, and of course the trader was delighted to take my 'dangerous' pristine Chevette in for it. Oh, the trade is totally out to take advantage of people who haven't had time to get cynical. I always made an effort to sell possibly unappealing, but GOOD cars to buyers like these - if a know-it-all boy racer came in to haggle over a Nova SRi, caveat emptor, but if some keen kid with that frightened rabbit look came in, they'd be steered to say, a Mitsubishi Colt or a clean, giffer-spec Fiesta with the offer to swap the trims for something sexier.

 

Any trader who sells a young, non-car savvy driver a car which is going to shit the bed 30 minutes or even 3 days later is a bastard. Quite aside from it being a shit thing to do anyway, putting what could be a lone, vulnerable driver in way of harm, with no foresight to predict when or where that car might conk out, is an irresponsible shit. It could be a busy motorway and a dickhead racing down a hard shoulder. It could be missing an appointment and losing faith in driving being a good experience. It could be much, much worse.

 

As car experts, we take it upon ourselves to ensure our friends, family, social network - hell I dare say anyone we encounter - has a safe, reliable vehicle unless we know for certain they can handle what they've taken on. Making sure a friend gets told a tail-light isn't working when they drive off. Pointing out the smell of antifreeze on the exhaust and showing them how to check coolant. Whatever. I'd be surprised if any one of us would hand over the keys to a car that might be dangerous to an inexperienced owner without thoroughly explaining what they had to do to keep it safe.

[Guest Renault20tx]

Well 

 

 

Any trader who sells a young, non-car savvy driver a car which is going to shit the bed 30 minutes or even 3 days later is a bastard.  

 

That's quite right RichardK, 

My first car was a Corsa 1.2 bought for £800. It had its faults, a noisy timing chain being the worst

But it was safe and didn't break down. I got 5,000 miles out of it, then sold it for £150 when the timing chain and water pump needed doing. Not the greatest used car deal of all time, but I knocked hell out of it over those 5,000 miles, driving for the sake of driving, and then went and bought myself a car.

What these bastards did was something next level - scum of the earth, they saw her coming!

[Junkman]

What ever happened to the good old test drive?

[Guest Renault20tx]

According to the signed document..........already done (it wasn't) Utter bastards IMO, got every base covered. Low prices attracted a middle class family, same old story........

[Slartibartfast]

There's not enough shiters around to base a business on, I'd wager. And sales is about getting the deal in any way you can, no place for ethics. Car sales probably more than anything else. It shouldn't be this way but it is.

 

Thinking back to my experiences of buying cars from "traders" (and I use the term loosely), I've been sold a mondy with a dying fuel pump, a Tourneo with a dead clutch (that guy knew I had a long drive ahead of me), and a Megane with dangerous brakes. Thinking back on it even my third first car (long story), a diesel mk1 Focus of which I was very fond, was sold to me with the front brake stuck on.

 

There just seems to be an understanding that if you don't notice a fault then it's your hard luck.

[Bear]

What ever happened to the good old test drive?

 

Why do you think novice drivers get stung with this crap? It's not just because owning crap cars teaches you how they work - it doesn't. But under 25? "Sorry, we can't let you have a test drive unless you can get a covernote". "Under 25? Yes, day cover will be more than the car costs with a four-figure excess" "Under 25? Oh, sorry, the fully comp insurance on your car doesn't have third party extension".

 

Plenty of reasons to not let a young driver take the car for a run, and I'd bet most of us could drive a car with howling bearings, overheating, bad clutch (or no clutch) in a way that masked most of those issues, because we've had to do it at 3am in January in full panic mode hoping the wheel doesn't fall off etc. - traders are zen masters of this stuff. I reckon we'd have at least two a month which had to be brought back to the yard with clutchless changes, hoping a cable would fix them.

[fred]

I can't say much about the place on a public forum as I enjoy not lying on the floor having a sledgehammer swinging into my ribcage, but I'm baffled as to how anyone could buy from anything from that place thinking it would be any kind of half-decent car with any warranty whatsoever. The business mentioned is basically a glorified compound full of part-ex fodder none of the local traders want to touch (which in Kirklees is a very low bar to entry) and most of the cars are sub-£300 and all completely unprepped.

 

It is quite a baffling little business model as the prices are all too high for actual trade, so they sell their stuff directly to the public without warranty which sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I've heard from a few people that they're quite up front about what they're doing, but I've heard from others that they aren't, so I don't know what to believe to be honest. However I would say that regardless of what they say (or don't), you'd have to be pretty easily-led to believe that they would sell you a Corsa or whatever for under £200 and be remotely interested if it blew up down the road.

They do - My Niece did , told her time and time again - want a car phone me I'll come with you, but kids as being kids always know better - and aye bought a Lemon , THEN come back to me and whined

Bah!

[Bren]

I can't say much about the place on a public forum as I enjoy not lying on the floor having a sledgehammer swinging into my ribcage, but I'm baffled as to how anyone could buy from anything from that place thinking it would be any kind of half-decent car with any warranty whatsoever. The business mentioned is basically a glorified compound full of part-ex fodder none of the local traders want to touch (which in Kirklees is a very low bar to entry) and most of the cars are sub-£300 and all completely unprepped.

 

It is quite a baffling little business model as the prices are all too high for actual trade, so they sell their stuff directly to the public without warranty which sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. I've heard from a few people that they're quite up front about what they're doing, but I've heard from others that they aren't, so I don't know what to believe to be honest. However I would say that regardless of what they say (or don't), you'd have to be pretty easily-led to believe that they would sell you a Corsa or whatever for under £200 and be remotely interested if it blew up down the road.

This place sounds fucking perfect - autoshite day out anyone?

 

There's no such thing as a dodgy seller - only a susceptible buyer.

[Bear]

You know what? I'd offer to look over a car for anyone. I've owned a lot, bought and traded and worked on many more.

 

I still bought a shitheap of an MGF because I trusted the (ex) friend selling it. Sometimes luck just bites you in the arse. Hell, my E-class is technically a write off if i can't fix the gearbox with a fluid & filter change. All the expertise in the world is useless if you're distracted/rushed and don't apply it.

[scaryoldcortina]

Sounds a lot like a car pitch I know in sunderland - One of the things I do to make up for the lack of actual work is go with people who are viewing cars to check stuff over and make sure they aren't buying a lemon, and I end up at this little pitch in southwick quite a lot because their cars are very cheap.

 

 

And very shit. No test drives because everything is so squashed together you are lucky if you can get a door open, you have to pay for it then come back later when it's been shuffled outside. I've never let anyone get that far.

[Guest Renault20tx]

As I remember it there was also a rather infamous clutch "specialist" up Cleckheaton way, it featured on undercover camera tv shows........

[fred]

This place sounds fucking perfect - autoshite day out anyone?

 

There's no such thing as a dodgy seller - only a susceptible buyer.

Sounds like a fun MASS Shiters day out ! Good god poor fecker wont know whats hit him

[Guest Renault20tx]

Best way to deal with these sorts of places is to get a JCB down in the dead of night to dig a massive pit in front of their entrance way, then get a lorry load of stinking slurry off a farmer and fill up said hole to the brim. Should give that foul woman something to get stuck into digging it out again hahaha

 

We only talk about these sorts of revenge though. Just occasionally you read about people actually carrying it out, and I take my hat off to them!

[Bren]

If there were no outlets such as these there would be no shite for any of us.

[Guest Renault20tx]

Fair comment, but they should never have sold any of their cars to someone like that. If it was one of our kind, its another ball game.

 

If there were no outlets such as these there would be no shite for any of us.

[Bear]

Best way to deal with these sorts of places is to get a JCB down in the dead of night to dig a massive pit in front of their entrance way, then get a lorry load of stinking slurry off a farmer and fill up said hole to the brim. Should give that foul woman something to get stuck into digging it out again hahaha

 

We only talk about these sorts of revenge though. Just occasionally you read about people actually carrying it out, and I take my hat off to them!

 

So, I've told this story before, but let's condense it. It is not the only story, but it's the only one I'm prepared to retell and one of the few that doesn't involve summer-stored rotting shrimp or well-aged stilton cheese.

 

1999, I gots a black Capri 1.6LS with 2.0 block and RS 13" 7 spokes. It is the dog's bollocks. I love it. It has inner wings that would have KGF straightening the dents and waxing lyrical about how it had been waxed liberally, literally. I also have CHPD. Cue Dickhead McLyingshit, who says "I have an X1/9, you love X1/9s, you should swap your Capri".

 

Now, I am not thick. I am not expecting a mint X1/9. It's patched and filled like someone's making an effort to hold back the rot. I do the deal largely on the strength of a test drive and a reasonable glance around, plus an MOT certificate that the ink hasn't dried on yet it's so recent. Get it home, indicators aren't right. Get it on the lift, underside is about 2" shutz, 15% fibreglass, and the rest was paint. There's a 2" long hole above the inner offside lower arm mount.

 

Do some due diligence. Approach the chap first "oh, no, no swaps back, I sold the Capri mate". Hmm. I shall find out how valid this MOT is then, before deciding who I'm about to make very, very unhappy. Duplicate certificate obtained, I tell them the score on the car, reckon a Capri of that spec would cost me £800 to a grand, and my time sorting this shit is worth a bit. "Tell you what. If you find someone to buy my X1/9 for parts by this weekend, I won't have time to talk to VOSA." "How much?" "A grand. Cash." "For a rotten B..." "Yes, Better get on it then, hadn't you."

 

Sent big intimidating dude up to check car over. Dude offers £700 cash. I say it'll do for now and get him to sign a receipt clearly stating the £300 is due. Go to collect my £300, drive away in a £695 Scirocco, leaving a £120 auto one I'd bought as emergency transport.

 

Fairly sure the guy selling the car had an arrangement with the garage, Fairly sure the garage knew damn well what shitheap that car was, and will have nailed the seller's balls to the hydraulic press for selling it on without waiting for the 'minor' and 'corrosion' periods to run out for VOSA's interest in it. And I am absolutely certain that word got about that this is how I deal with people that rip me off. That X1/9 sat outside his workshop for ages, a nice reminder to be very careful who you do phoned-in MOTs for.

[Cavcraft]

It's all very well selling 'trade' cars but to deliberately rip off a young kid is bang out of order. Yes, I'm sure she should have known better but haven't we probably all enjoyed the throes of youth/excitement/first time buyer and rushed into something? 

Had he car been clearly advertised with known faults and the receipt matched the description, then it would have been fair enough, but to do someone over because it's a 'trade sale' is to be frank, bloody disgraceful.

 

The company name rings a bell, almost certain I've heard a few things about them. Did they also used to sell car parts too?

[LabRat]

Wouldn't buy a toy car off the bastards, let alone a real one!

 

Went to look at a 156 sportwagon that they had up for a bag, with a "full mot, did it as we got it mate". If had crunchy floors, knocked like a good on full lock and poured thick blue smoke out on start up.

 

No chance of a proper test drive as they had it round the back of the unit and couldn't be arsed to move the other cars out of the way.

 

Walked away to find 2 of their employees* stood in front of my mondeo trying to put a bloody tow rope on it. Sent them away with a flea in their ear and got a load of abuse off them in return.

 

Keep well away folks!

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Parky]

Definitely one for the local paper I think. Sad looking girl in front of her Ka with the bonnet up always makes good copy. People need to know about places like this and apart from Solicitors a good slagging in the local rag usually brings forth cash based apologies.

 

Facebook, Twitter, get the tale out there. Companies like this don't deserve to be in business quite frankly.

[chaseracer]

I'd say "trading standards", but if Kirklees is anything like round here they will exist only in theory and as a phone number.

[Bren]

Fair comment, but they should never have sold any of their cars to someone like that. If it was one of our kind, its another ball game.

My comments was decidedly tongue in cheek.

[colino]

While I despise anyone in any business doing someone over, car trading is one of the most regulated businesses in the UK and buyers really have to wake up if these bottom feeders are ever to be permanently put out of business.

It has been illegal for YEARS to sell to anyone a car with "sold as seen" or "no returns" or any other fakery.  Equally for decades under SOGA, a car from a trader has to have free title, be fit for purpose, as described and of satisfactory quality (although price, age and mileage have to be taken into consideration).

Since the start of October, even more legislation is now in place to protect consumers.  Look up and print off a copy of the Consumers Rights Act 2015 (it took nanoseconds to be renamed CRAP) which goes even further than the old SOGA and pass on to the gormless who rush to hand over their hard earned cash but then become feeble mutes when they realise they've bought a wrong'un.

I absolutely agree the rogues must be chased out of any business, but consumers who throw money at their second biggest ever purchase blindfold, then wring their hands, do nothing and claim they've been done over really need to think more and act less.

[castros_bro]

I would suggest the buyer take action using this if she can't get a reasonable exchange car quickly.

 

https://www.gov.uk/make-money-claim-online

 

 

Which would be £35 for a £500 claim.  I have found it has the effect of making the other side take notice and usually things are settled quickly without even getting to the point of paying the £35 fee. Supply all the paperwork, photos of car, engine, garage, estimate of repair,list of phone calls, bank statement etc. Any claim you need to justify the money you want so include cost per phone call, per photocopy page, per stamp, do not claim for anything you cannot justify with a receipt  like " stress related work absence"   Find one person who is responsible to list on the papers, explain what you are doing and asking for their details, post on their faceache page, if they have one, asking for the person's details and explaining what you are doing and why.  I have used this to get £35 back from Orange by listing their UK CEO at their official company address on the papers.

[colino]

Frankly I blame people ranging from Ester Ranting to Dom, friend of the conshoooomer for this.  This is the 21st Century, you don't need to lay out one penny to get your money back from crooks like this, and they know it.  Go in with an even temper, point out your rights, how they have transgressed them, hand over the keys and tell them you want all of your money back.  It really is that simple.

[dave21478]

As Colino said above, it doesnt matter what they write on their receipts, its illegal to have someone sign away their basic rights. An afternoon with google or half an hour with a decent solicitor should see her with a full refund.