Honest John’s Motoring Agony Column 04-08-2018 Part 2

Click back to Honest John’s Motoring Agonies 04-08-2018 Part 1

Doesn’t add up

We are looking at a car to buy advertised at £4,700. In the small
print of the advert it says all cars are sold with extended 36-month
warranties at £590, so the total invoice price will be £5,290 plus an admin fee of £89. Can the dealer make us have the warranty if the car is advertised at £4,700?

SM, via email

Refer this to the Advertising Standards Authority. If the extra costs are hidden, then the advertisement is misleading. If the advertisement clearly states that the car is only sold with a 36-month warranty at an additional £590 plus an admin fee of £89, then the dealer can charge that and can refuse to sell the car for £4,700. Dealers have a liability for any significant fault that could have been present or developing on the car on date of sale for 6 months from date of sale, so he is attempting to cover himself. But, in fact, an insured warranty cannot cover any fault that could have been present or developing on the date that the warranty was sold or else that would be insurance fraud.

Not on the menu

A thing that always infuriates me with main dealers and expensive cars (never on cheap cars) is that when the car is 2 years old and goes for a service, the fixed price menu becomes meaningless because one is then informed that the brake fluid should be changed and that’s an extra. This recently happened with me with Porsche and I asked them how much water was in the brake fluid. The answer was “we can’t test for it”, so how do they know it needs changing? It’s a con – along with adding windscreen washer fluid when you’ve already topped it up. How do they get any more in? This happened with a Mercedes main dealer recently – and that wasn’t a fixed price service

NLS, Saxmundham 

Brake fluid can be tested for moisture content. Testing for contamination caused by corrosion due to the moisture in the brake fluid is another issue. Service managers are incentivised to suggest additions to the standard service as part of the dealer's income stream. What's really scandalous, though, is that when an owner sensibly asks for a 10,000 mile or annual oil change, this can be quoted at anything between £250 and £400 on Audis and BMWs. That's for a job that should actually cost no more than £50 - £75 using the best fully synthetic oil and an OEM filter. 

Taking on someone’s X 

I may have the opportunity to purchase a 2013 BMW 120d xDrive with leather upholstery. It has been the pride and joy of the owner, full service history and immaculate in all respects. My only concern is that the car has only covered 12k miles in over 4 years. Am I right to worry that the very low miles could lead to expensive  problems later DPF, or other pitfalls with a 2.0 litre diesel and 4-wheel drive? Any guidance would be helpful. If I am being too cautious, and it would seem to be a sensible buy could you give me a ballpark figure that would be fair to the owner in a private sale.

DL, via email

xDrive 4-wheel drive great to drive but is high maintenance. All tyres need to be the same and kept within 3mm of each other in wear or it confuses the system that then interprets the difference as slippage. Low mileage isn't good either, but it depends how those miles were driven. If they were all bimbling about the burbs then bad news. If they were long drives then a lot better. Another question is BMW's dodgy service regime that can mean its cars don't get an oil change for 20,000 miles or even for as long as 3 years. My view remains that every engine needs an oil and filter change at least every year or every 10,000 miles whichever comes first. So be careful with this one.

Smartening up our motorways

We have just returned from a holiday towing a caravan with our Toyota Landcruiser to Abbey Wood in London. We used part of the M25 heading towards Dartford Bridge, which is now a ‘Smart’ motorway. I am not at all convinced of their safety in the event of a breakdown in lane 1 (the former hard shoulder). Could you please offer any advice as to what we should do in the event of a breakdown on such a motorway? There are refuge areas at certain points. but I do not know how frequent they are. It may not be too bad if we could limp along to one of these refuge areas. but what happens in the event of total mechanical failure? I know we should get out of the nearside doors and move away over the barrier if possible. Presumably switch on the hazard flashing lights. The overhead cameras will know we have broken down presumably? If so, how quickly do they respond to close off this lane? Any advice you could offer would be gratefully appreciated.

DM, Preston

There are cameras every 100 metres that spot a breakdown or crash and automatically activate lane closures and 40mph speed limits for more than a mile before the stranded vehicle. They are safer than the hard shoulder. Highways England has just opened a Smart section of the M60 in greater Manchester.

Judder all blanked 

The oil seals and clutch of our 2013 Ford Fiesta Powershift automatic were replaced under warranty two and half years ago and until recently there had not been an issue. However, I drove the car a few weeks ago and noticed that there was judder from the transmission at low speed. It has been back to the Ford dealership who supplied the car and where it is serviced and they have advised that the oil seals and clutch need replacing again at a cost of £957. The dealership has made an outside warranty claim but this has been rejected by Ford as the car is now 5 years old. Needless to say, we are both very unhappy that the problem has returned and in such a short period of time and that Ford is being unhelpful. Is there a known problem with the automatic gearbox? And is it wise to trust the repair to an independent repairer who is able to do the work for almost half the dealership price. This has not endeared us to considering buying another Ford when the car is next renewed.

SD, via email

No surprise there. The clutch packs in the Getrag 6-speed dry clutch DCT fitted to Fiestas, B-Max, Focus, C-Max, etc. from 2013 to 2017 have been failing regularly, to the extent that Ford has now abandoned these transmissions and replaced them with 6-speed torque converter autos in the latest Fiesta model and I think in the EcoSport too. See: /carbycar/ford/fiesta-2013/?section=good / For an independent repair, try a member of http://www.fedauto.co.uk

Unmistakable

My wife and I recently parked one of our two cars on a private car park in Blackpool; one which we have used several times per year over a number of years. After parking I went to the ticket machine and attempted to put my money in for the number of hours parking as usual. It would not let me, but then I noticed that it was asking for my registration number. I put in the number, then the coins and was duly issued a ticket. On putting the ticket in the windscreen I noticed that I had inadvertently put in the registration number for my own car and that day we were driving the car normally used by my wife. I wrote on the ticket, ‘put wrong reg in by mistake’ and then hand wrote the correct registration in, left the ticket on display in the windscreen as per normal and off we went. I returned and drove away within the timescale paid for. A few days later I received a Parking Charge Notice demanding £60 if paid within 14 days by and £100 if later. I wrote a letter of appeal to the company, apologising for having made a mistake and asking them to reconsider. I supplied a copy of the log book for both vehicles registered in my name. HX Car Park management replied to say that in their terms and condition there was a number to ring if a mistake was made to resolve the issue on the day, and I therefore had parked the car outside of their terms and conditions. I am incurring the same penalty as if I had parked and not even bothered to purchase a ticket. I parked, bought and paid for a ticket in good faith, then made a mistake with the input. It should not incur the same penalty as if I had not bothered to pay. I accept that the company has incurred costs due to my mistake and am prepared to offer reasonable recompense of say £20 to cover these costs. They have offered to extend the £60 option for a further two weeks if I choose to pay, or I can go to arbitration with the independent appeals service and, if I lose, the full charge of £100 would be incurred. There are also a number of threats regarding court action and debt recovery services. As they had a fall back system of contacting their head office when I made the mistake, am I wrong in feeling aggrieved by this and not reading all of their terms and conditions in the rain, or should I just bite the bullet and pay up, despite being an honest citizen who actually paid to park my wife's car and have a ticket to show for it.

TL, via email

It’s a venal automated system that recorded the reg you put into the machine, then checked it against the car as it left. No humans involved. Just pay. It's daylight robbery but has the force of the Supreme Court ruling behind it in Beavis v Parking Eye, November 2015. A Private Members Bill is currently with Parliament to outlaw such practices that are obviously calculated to catch people out and exploit them, but, as things stand, by the letter of the law, you have no way out.

Asking for more

My recent experience of total loss claims and their outcome does not match your reassurance headed “Rough Justice”. I agree the theory, but it is the means of getting to the actual payout that I question. The process boils down to:- On opening negotiations, it soon becomes clear that the insurer’s claims department relies upon the 3 published guides of CAP; Glass’s; Parker’s. All rely on data of prices obtained at the car auction sites: notoriously capricious and far from retail sales. Parkers admits that it then applies its own ‘clever’ algorithms to arrive at its published guide prices. I assume the others do likewise. It seems no attempt is made by the guides to check these prices against those actually paid in the retail market matching the detailed circumstances of actual transactions. If you then punt the market and find you cannot buy a vehicle matching the deceased condition and circumstances then you run into the brick wall. If you go back to the claims department, they will tell you that your next point of appeal is the Financial Ombudsman Service who, they tell you, will do no more than take the average of the guides and determine accordingly. If you are still not satisfied, it’s off to the courts, which is expensive, messy and long-winded. I gather that the FOS will not go out to check the market, nor enter into any meaningful detailed investigation of the actual case under review. It is just takes the average of the 3 guides: all quick and dirty. From recent reports and I think a BBC Watchdog item, the FOS is very short of staff. It has a huge backlog of cases, so  appoints whoever it can get and pushes them into the adjudicating process very quickly. The FOS is keen to reduce the case backlog, which staff are instructed to do as quickly as possible. If you take on staff ill-trained and lacking aptitude for the sector to which they are appointed and instructed to apply rigid rules rather than adjudicate fairly between the parties according to actual facts, then assuredly “Rough Justice” will result. In my case, I could not find on offer any car matching my spec/circumstances that I could buy for the offer made, so ended up getting a 6 month older car.

MM, via email

'CAP' ('Current Auction Prices') and Glass's are both trade price guides. BCA's and Manheim's composite auction prices are not “capricious” (your word); they are extremely accurate and up-to date to the day, based on a system devised by Alan Cole many years ago. Parkers is a consumer price guide, not a trade guide. 'Market Price' is not dealer price because a dealer price includes preparation of the car and an implied 6 months warranty thus providing a degree of betterment. There is nothing to prevent the public buying at BCA auctions or Manheim auctions, which is where all the cars purchased by webuyanycar and wewantanycar are sold and which are generally in the sort of condition a car would be before it was subject to the incident that made it a total loss. Or you could buy privately, giving the vendor slightly more than webuy or wewant would pay, but slightly less than the price the car would make at auction. If you want ‘return to invoice’ for a written-off car you need to take out additional GAP insurance.

Attention seeker

My son has drawn my attention to one of your columns in the Daily Telegraph in which a man reported his Skoda Fabia petrol-fuelled car as having started to over-rev. Mine, new last December, has just written itself off by doing just that. Is this a fault that needs looking into? The car had been parked on the third floor of the multi-story car park at the Ashley Centre, Epsom. Having shopped in M&S I took the shopping in one of their trolleys to the car, but then found that the other M&S trolleys were stacked in such a way that I could not reclaim my £1 coin from my trolley. This distracted me, so I forgot to pay for my parking token on that floor. I got into my car and drove it down to ground floor level. Arriving at the departure gate, the gate didn’t open, and only then did I remember I hadn’t paid. There were no other cars checking out, so I reversed, and drove over to the left to park my car in a section marked “Private Parking” while I went to pay at the ground floor machine by the office. Having done that, I returned to the car, fastened my seatbelt and switched on. Then I started a multiple backward and forward manoeuvre to turn the car about and get it positioned so I could drive out and re-enter the departure lanes, bounded as they are by concrete curbs about seven inches high. After a few backward and forward movements, carefully carried out as there were several cars parked in there, I noted the engine revs sounded unusual, in that they were quite high even when I had my foot on the brake while changing the auto gear from forward to reverse. Having paid my parking token, I knew there was a time limit after which it would not open the barrier at the exit, so there was pressure to get the car into the departure lanes before the payment on the token expired. I still had at least one more shuttle to do to get the car properly turned round. I put it in forward gear and whoosh! It shot forward at speed, taking me over first one, then two, of the concrete inter-lane pavements. Heading towards a concrete pillar, I slammed on the brake and put the car into reverse. It leapt backwards, reversing its rear nearside corner into another concrete pillar. Heading forward again, it finally stopped wedged with front wheels on one curb, rear wheels on another, straddling at 90 degrees to the way it should have been facing in one of the lanes by which cars drive out of the car park. The car park attendants were there in a trice. Having checked I was alright, one placed cones to stop other cars entering that departure lane, while another put sand down in the car park’s entry lane (which I had crossed before reversing) to allay the effects of the water and oil spilled from the car’s radiator and sump. When the AA man arrived at about a quarter to seven, he started the car’s engine on numerous occasions to get the car to move from its position across the lane, with the view that it didn’t matter what damage it would do to the engine running it without oil or coolant, on the basis that the damage looked to be so severe the car would be a write-off. It was such a hassle to get it in position and then attach it to the AA van’s towing trolley, it was after nine o’clock before we drove off. The AA man had been instructed to take the car to a garage in New Malden, where it was left overnight. The following day my insurers, LV, arranged for the car to be taken to Russell Parry ARC Ltd/Fix Auto of Chessington. Russell Parry telephoned me this morning, 12^th June, to tell me that  LV had declared the car a write-off. I have yet to hear from LV.

AB, Epsom

If you left foot brake an automatic while manoeuvring this can never happen because you always remain 100% in control all of the time and can stop the car within inches. Loss of control from manoeuvring automatics using only the right foot kills about 20 people a year in the UK alone in addition to the huge amount of damage it causes.

Click back to Honest John’s Motoring Agonies 04-08-2018 Part 1