2nd hand car from dealer - bad vibrations in peddles - advice please

[Nitecom]

Hi all,

 

I've just recently bought a used Focus RS 09 plate for £19,500 from a ford dealership around 4 weeks ago.

 

I requested that an MOT be performed before I picked up the car, which it was, no issues were found. After a week and a half of driving it I get a vibration coming through the pedals, after taking it back to the dealership and them having a look at it, they confirm that it has a bent driveshaft and a buckled alloy wheel.

 

Now, surely this should have been detected in the MOT test previously? Do I have any grounds here to claim a refund on the car? I'm really not happy it was sold to me in this state, that and the fact it's been two weeks and the parts have still not arrived.

 

Just to add, the dealership have said they will cover all costs for the parts and fitting etc as it is still under warranty, but this whole fiasco has made me lose all confidence in the dealership and it makes me worry what else they may have missed on the car.

 

Cheers

Dave

[renegadeimp]

Soga says repair > replace > refund. You need to give the dealer the opportunity to rectify the problem

[oddjobbob]

Errr.......surely the problem would have been there from the very beginning?

 

I would take their offer of repair with open arms before they try and say you must have kerbed the wheel and bent the driveshaft and caused the damage.

 

If the driveshaft was bent when you got the car the problem would have been there.

[sailor sam]

Bent drive shaft AND buckled wheel?? Obviously impact damage (as Oddjob says probably kerbing). Not sure why you would of felt this through the pedals though, I would of thought you would of detected it through the steering and felt a vibration through the car at speed.

 

Has someone else driven the car without you being in it since you had it perhaps?

[heliosuk]

It would be hard to detect on an mot as the system does not rotate fast enough to pick up things such as you describe. What's questionable though is the bent drive shaft. The likelihood of this is very, very remote but not unknown. Lower control arm, knuckle and strut would deform before the shaft which sort of suggests a heavier impact. The fact you feel vibration through the pedals also suggests a broken engine mount and as they are of the hydraulic type on this car would not necessarily be apparent to the naked eye.

 

Suggest you do a full HPI check for accident damage first and consider your options from the results.

 

However, you should also check for known vibration issues through the pedal box such as through the RS forum before jumping to conclusions as it's also not unknown for certain other unrelated to drive train issues to cause what you experience.

 

Key is to gather the evidence so you have a sound basis to complain about before jumping to conclusions and just steaming in with I want a refund.