Cambelt gone on car owned for 5 days

Daddy k

Distinguished Member
Joined
Jul 19, 2004
Messages
9,033
Reaction score
1,049
Points
1,555
Location
coventry
Needed to quickly replace the mrs 3 door c3 convertible as I got brain damage at hospital in January she has to now do all the driving.

As I'm also out of work due to said brain damage finances are tight!

Anyhow we picked up a 2004 5 door renault Megane 1.6 auto from a garage last Monday.
Oh £1500 80k miles. Says fsh
I get there and the sh isn't complete and no proof Cambelt was done at the required 4 years or 70k.
I me think it and all the salesmen say its been done let me look for receipt, anyway various excuses come up, such as the owner is a professor he's trustworthy he told me himself be had it done. I said gime his number i call and ask which garage done it. Then another salesman says they just got it straight from the dealers.

Anyway we get promised its been done, I asked for £200 off to get Cambelt done right away but again promised its been done.

Now during this debate between me and the 3 sales guys I'm basically being laughed at like I'm being over paranoid by the salesguys, my mrs and her dad who was there.

I said to the mrs and her dad well if you trust them and your happy its upto you. They decide they trust them and take the car, they even go as far as saying trust me its been done, get it checked if you don't believe us, if it hasn't been done, ill do it for £150. But it's been done I can tell by the engine noise. Now I wanted to say you can't tell by the engine noise but I'd already been made to feel rude etc by asking so many questions and wanting to walk away.

Anyhow last night as the mrs was driving up the hill the Cambelt failed. She pulled over rang me, I thought perhaps coil pack had gone, so said call AA if it is coil pack there's a new one in the boot (common problem)

AA says cambelts gone.

All I've wanted to do is shout told you so! However I will be on a sex ban so I won't say that.

The cars an auto I believe this may reduce damage.

Were ringing garage today to see of they're prepared to repair or refund.
Car was purchased using debit card so also have option of trying a chargeback if they'd dont play ball.

Will keep updated. Never know they may be a good garage ;)
 
Fingers crossed for you. Going by what they said though I doubt they will help. But I could be wrong.
 
Sure it will all go ok for you, you have not had a reasonable use out of it.
Also wish you all the best in your recovery.
 
If it hasn't been done and they told you it had been, then it's misrepresentation. They made a false statement of fact that induced you into signing the contract. You should be able to rip the contract and get your money back.
 
If it hasn't been done and they told you it had been, then it's misrepresentation. They made a false statement of fact that induced you into signing the contract. You should be able to rip the contract and get your money back.

If and only if it is written down somewhere , but even if it is I suspect the dealer will have the option to repair it ...
 
I thought any car bought from a garage had to come with a 3 month warranty?
 
paulyoung666 said:
If and only if it is written down somewhere , but even if it is I suspect the dealer will have the option to repair it ...

sales of goods/consumer protection also states anything verbally stated by the dealer.
 
Well rang them up. They want us to get out recovery service I get it to their garage. And they said they will fix it.
But it's not fixed until its fixed so let's see.

A car sold for £1500 that may need a new engine at a cost of what £500? If they get a cheap one and cheap labour? Doesn't make too much sense.

Ill keep you guys updated. If they repair or give money back without having to get nasty then good on them.
 
sales of goods/consumer protection also states anything verbally stated by the dealer.

Then it would be there word against yours , good luck proving that , still hope you get sorted though , I had the same thing happen about 15 years ago , the dealer said the cam belt should have been changed before I got it but it wasn't , they repaired it with no issue ...
 
Renaults snap there cambelts at 80k all the time and there's no way by listening to an engine that you can tell if its been replaced. I'd ask for my money back or a replacement car as theyll cut corners trying to fix it. Auto or manual doesn't matter, best case scenario its just bent a few valves. Worse case its smashed the pistons and damaged the block and head.
 
paulyoung666 said:
Then it would be there word against yours , good luck proving that , still hope you get sorted though , I had the same thing happen about 15 years ago , the dealer said the cam belt should have been changed before I got it but it wasn't , they repaired it with no issue ...

Yeah luckily it still has to be fit for purpose and a car lasting 5 days/150 miles isn't so lol
There was 3 of us there and still have the advert stating fsh too.

They seem to be dealing with it but in these situations I'm always expecting a fight
 
Garage have car back today for them to look at
 
Garage have car back today for them to look at

i suggest they shouldnt get it back to you in a day or so , if it was me i would be wanting the head skimmed ( or at least documented proof that it is flat ) even though it hasn't overheated :smashin:
 
i suggest they shouldnt get it back to you in a day or so , if it was me i would be wanting the head skimmed ( or at least documented proof that it is flat ) even though it hasn't overheated :smashin:

It's snapped the cam belt, not a blown head gasket. May well be completely knackered unfortunately.
 
It's snapped the cam belt, not a blown head gasket. May well be completely knackered unfortunately.

quite true , some cars do not destroy everything when the cam belt goes , only a stripdown can tell , when mine went it only needed new valves , maybe i was lucky ...
 
They're putting another engine in it. So we will see what this is like. I've got a friend who has his own garage who is gona check the engine change after too
 
They're putting another engine in it. So we will see what this is like. I've got a friend who has his own garage who is gona check the engine change after too

Good luck - hope you get it all sorted. :)
 
That means its an interference engine and not a case of fitting a new timing belt then.
 
These days garages don't bother trying to repair engines, they just fit a new one...no excuse for it really, perfectly fine to replace bent valves.
 
It's probably cheaper (and arguably requires less skill ;) ) just to lift out and replace with a secondhand engine. Not sure if it's been mentioned, but is the 'new' engine going to have a new cambelt? As it's secondhand then the mileage probably won't be known so it could be due for a change. Of course on a £1,500 car they won't have made much profit in the first place, so this is a total loss leader for them. So I'd guess that they'd want to do the repair as cheaply as possible, but not replacing the belt would be a bit silly IMHO.

Meant to add that I had a cambelt jump a tooth which made the car run badly. I pulled over and it stalled, but wouldn't restart. The belt snapped while I was turning it over, but I was lucky that I got away with just putting a new belt on it (there was about 50/50 chance of valve damaged apparently). After that I always put a new belt on any 'new' car I got (I could do the old Ford CVH belt in under half an hour due to all the practice, since my mates had cars with the same engine and guess who ended up doing it? ;) ).
 
Last edited:
Yeah the new engine apparently has 38k on it. I've said I want paperwork and of course it is having new cambelt put on it. It's hopefully only gotta last us a few months once our finances level out a bit (off work due to brain damage)
 
Fingers crossed it all works out. :thumbsup: To be fair at that end of the market there isn't a great deal of profit so it's good that you've been able to get them to sort it out. I know that some will say that they had no choice, I've heard of plenty of similar situations where the garage try their best to wriggle out of it. Or at the least take an age to sort it out.

In a way it's probably worked out better that it happened so soon after purchase since in six months time it might have been a different matter.

Hopefully it'll see you alright until you get back on an even keel again. :smashin:
 
Yeah obviously the garage took a gamble on when it would fail.
At the price it was if we would of got a month or 2 out of it I think we would have struggled.
However laid it on about verbal misrepresentation etc etc. they apologised and its being fixed.

Now hopefully its done for end of week as its a pain with no car and a child to get to nursery, and I've had to cancel a rehab session at hospital too as its just unrealistic for me to get there on public transport.
 

The latest video from AVForums

TV Buying Guide - Which TV Is Best For You?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Back
Top Bottom