Bought a VW Polo September from a Trader, head gasket already blown after 350 miles.

[herbidge]

I bought a 1999 VW Polo 1.6 'Open Air' from a Trader for £1350 in September this year, advertised in Autotrader. I had just sold my car as my financial situation was such that I needed to down-size my expenses.

I have driven only approx. 300 miles in the car, 120 of which were on the day of purchase to get home. Last week whilst picking up my girlfriend from town, the car started misfiring badly, and so we chugged the 2 mile journey home. Fearing the worst I decided it best to not drive it anymore until a mechanic could get out to look at it, the earliest he could see it was yesterday.

First off he checked and swapped the spark plugs which seemed to do the trick and the engine stopped misfiring for about 3 mins. The plugs were being coated in water and/or oil, so after a compression test to all the cylinders, cylinder numbers 2 and 3 were still misfiring.

He checked all the usual bits and pieces, HT leads, Distributor, Water Pump, hoses etc etc, until finally after managing to remove the coolant bottle top (was overtightened) he discovered thick brown/copper gunk and severely correded particles caked around the inside of the bottle. He performed a 'sniffer' test to test for the presence of oil in the coolant tank, and sure enough the blue dye turned green.

He confirmed head gasket failure, and he showed me the thick mayo sludge under the oil cap.

So the cost of repair? Well, the mechanic quoted between £500-£600 to replace gasket, skim head and flush the cooling system BUT he stressed that once this job is underway, it is 'possible' that further, more severe damage may be found resulting in a cost of close to the £1350 I paid for the car.

So, I guess my question is this:

Do I have any legal right to request a replacement/repair/refund from the trader or is this wishful thinking? I am currently not working, and I simply don't have the money to pay for the repair, which could potentially double if it's discovered that the engine is cooked also.

I have since noticed that the dials on the dash are not sitting true behind the plastic screen, and there is also a very small dried up fly in there too. Perhaps my 74000 mile polo is a 174000 mile polo.

The car came with almost a years MOT, and had a new cambelt but hardly no history (last 2 MOTs) I did an HPI search all ok, the oil in the dispstick seemed okay but I didn't check the coolant bottle.

Having seen the crap inside the coolant bottle and the mayo gunk in the oil, and now the speedo issue, I feel that I've learnt a very harsh lesson indeed. A repair bill as expensive as what I paid for the car in just six weeks.

Is there anything I can do or do I just take this one on the chin?

Thanks for reading.

[gwc1000]

Hi. As you have a suspicion about the mileage, the first thing to do would be to check the car's history of MoTs at MOT Information - Introduction This will only give details since the introduction of the new style MoT, however if the car has been "recalibrated" in the past two or three years it should be plain to see. I see that you had the last two MoTs but it would be worth checking to see if there is an extra one somewhere showing a different mileage.
When you say "trader", what type of set up are we talking about?

[raydetinu]

You have the right to reject the car, under SOGA, as not fit for purpose and faulty. have you informed the dealer of the problem yet with HG and mileage?
If you do get a positive response the write to the dealer informing that you reject it and you want a full refund under SOGA and give him 7 days to respond or you will go to court.

[herbidge]

Thanks for the replies. The trader advertised the car in the Autotrader online website, and is part of a two-man partnership which he runs from his home. He told me that all their cars are sourced from the local VW dealer where he lives and has been in the trade for a few years.

Oh and he runs the business from his home which is where the car was bought (he had about 4 cars on his driveway when I viewed the Polo).
I have a receipt for the purchase with his Ltd company name, and on the receipt he wrote 'Trade Sale'

As I only had the damage confirmed 24 hours ago, I have yet to contact him about the car, I was waiting for advice before doing so.

Thanks for the input, this is really helping ease my concerns.

[herbidge]

And I did a check on the VOSA website, the last two MOT's appear to verify the mileage on the certificates. The clock has definitely been tampered with though, the fly trapped behind the glass must have been there for quite a while, it's dried out and white!!

[herbidge]

**Update**

I just spoke with the dealer who informed me that he is prepared to have the head gasket fixed at the garage he uses locally (apparently they do all his cars). He seemed quite put out actually, and that I would have to accept a repair and nothing else.

He gave me the details of the garage to get the car into for repair, but unfortunately, it's almost 200 miles away from me. He said he was not responsible for paying for the tow from Devon to Berkshire.

So, I'll have to probably pay a few hundred pounds for the tow and then for a train to collect the car when it is fixed.

Is this reasonable? Obviously I'm pleased that he offered a repair but it's going to cost me half the amount of the repair to get the car to the garage.

He also said that as he has offered to repair the car, that I cannot reject it under SOGA.

In legal terms, is this all I am able to do to resolve this?