To want some urgent help with my car..

[missmove38]

I'll try and bullet point 8 months of stress.

Bought a car from a dealers around 8 months ago. A week after pick up the DPF light came on.

It has played up ever since with as far as I'm concerned it not functioning properly and it ruining other parts of the car.

I've lost work due to it. I've had to refund work due to it, its cost and is still costing me a fortune.

I've rung the finance company who aren't interested.

The dealers are just fobbing me off.

Trading standards tell me to go to the finance co..who aren't interested.

I cannot carry on paying for this car yet due to it being financed and me now living on my own I can't afford to even swap it as have failed that apparently

Can anyone help me?

I've had previous diesel zafiras before, no DPF..I'm not a mechanic? These cars require specific 'requirements' which I think should be pointed out? Buying a pair of shoes is hardly the same outlay or stress is it?!

If there is genuinely an issue with the car, you need to firstly speak to the garage you purchased from and give them the chance to carry out repairs. If this doesn't work, speak to the finance company and explain that you would like to reject the car based on the faults. I recently got a new car on finance which had a leak. It went in for repairs 4 times and each time had something different/worse wrong with it. I spoke with the finance company, they had an independent assessor attend and rejected the car. The finance was then settled on that basis from the garage. It did take some time to sort but I didn't trust the repairs that were being carried out by the garage either.

Generally in the first 6 months they have to prove the fault wasn't there when they sold it, after the first 6 months you need to prove the fault was there. Phone finance company, did you pay any deposit etc on credit card? If you did consumer credit act will cover you for full cost. If not get the dpf removed and the car remapped.

miss I'm not a mechanic either, but am aware that modern diesels are ill suited to town driving and you really should have done the research before parting with several thousand pounds, you are buying a car not a consultation on your lifestyle needs.

You cant expect a second hand car dealer to give you impartial advice on a car purchase. Particularly not about your driving habits. Tbh I'm surprised anyone buys a Zafira after the bad publicity. I realise lots of people have no interest in cars but anything you spend your hard earned cash on deserves researching.
DPFs do need a good run. Most diesel and petrol cars need a good run.

It's been in for numerous repairs, each time another thing going wrong.
I do now know that a DPF is a nightmare reading about it, I'm not alone so not the only person not to do their research.
I drive it a lot and it still plays up, this is my issue.

A lot of harsh comments for the OP - not really deserved IMHO.

Dpf issues can occur for cars that do a lot of short/slow journeys, but they don't seem to apply to all cars.

It's a bit ludicrous that ordinary use of a car (which the OP does) can be regarded as a "legitimate" cause of a very expensive recurring fault.

The advice to take it on the motorway and thrash it is sound - but what about people who don't have a nearby motorway?

Imagine if it was the other way around and your car needed an expensive repair on a regular basis because you took it on the motorway a lot - people would think it ridiculous to tell you not to take the car on the motorway.

It needs a high speed journey (over 2000rpm/approx 70mph for 15 mins) once every couple of weeks or so. You can either do this or keep having the same issue come up again and again.

If the car breaks when it is being driven normally then it isn't fit for purpose. So the fault is with the dealer for not specifying that it needed to be driven in a particular manner.

The advice to take it on the motorway and thrash it is sound - but what about people who don't have a nearby motorway?

THEY SHOULD NOT BUY A DIESEL

As another poster pointed out a few minutes research would have educated OP to the fact that diesels are not for pootling!

She was seduced by the cars low cost (diesels are a toxic brand nowadays) and in a fit of unbelievable naivety choose to trust a used car salesman (WTF)

Who she is now attempting to blame with a fictitious trading offence of "misselling" as if he'd duped her into buying an equity release mortgage

No fraud here just stupidity

Dpfs have been a legal requirement on diesels cars since 2009.... I'm no mechanic and I didn't get any advise from my car salesman but I did a little research and joined an FB group for my particular make and model of car before buying. If you're going to spend thousands of £s on something it's your own responsibility to do your research. As it's too late for that, and the OP seems to have no option to change or return the car, the best thing they can do is follow the advice given on how to maintain the dpf or keep moaning every few months when it goes wrong. It's not a difficult decision, is it?

Op I feel your pain although can't help with the legal side of things.

However I think it's worth mentioning that I too, had never heard of a dpf until I got my current car. The first time the warning light came on, it wouldn't regenerate. Rac towed me to a garage, resulting in a new filter, at the cost of £1000!!

All was fine for 9mths, when it happened again. This time the garage could regen it at the cost of £150. Both times I lost work hours and money and it impacts on the whole family because as a lone parent, my children missed clubs etc.

Less than 3 weeks later the same thing happened again.

At that point the garage realised that they should have been putting a separate dpf fluid in too! They told me that they have a computer programme that tells them what to do for each car at services, etc. And in my cars section it didn't mention it. But when they discussed it with the dealership it became apparent that they had missed it. I had used this garage without problems for a few years. They are well regarded in the local community. They did apologise and I feel they looked after me well since, given that I could argue that I paid £1150 possibly unneccessarily. So I don't think they were trying to make a quick buck, they made a genuine mistake.

That was almost a year ago, and touch wood no problems since. Initially I was just waiting for it to happen again but so far so good. The car felt a lot better to drive too once this fluid had been put in.

I will admit though that I am debating about changing my car as I am changing job which will involve lots of short town based journeys. But I just can't afford to change it and don't want to commit to finance payments each month.

So in a nutshell, check with your garage to see if they have put any dpf fluid in. If they say it doesn't need it, contact the dealership and ask if your car needs it. It could be as simple at that.

I have a zafira, but petrol.
When we were looking at cars we asked about petrol or diesel and was told get a diesel if we were doing mainly long journeys, but if we were mostly doing run-arounds, get petrol.
So we got petrol and it's been fine. We've even had a free service every 6 months for the last 18 months while they replace the heater again. Although I don't generally use the local Vauxhall garage, they've been great over this issue.

THEY SHOULD NOT BUY A DIESEL

Exactly this ^ Diesels are good for certain applications (like being operated at aconstant high speed) and not so good in others, (like stop-start driving). This isn't advanced knowledge or NASA level stuff, it is basic stuff. Like a low slung sports car is no good for off road I got or if you buy a pure electric car is no use of you don't have the means of charging it at home. Carbuying 101.

Even if you didn't know, I'd have thought you'd have spent literally two minutes doing the research on the internet. You haven't been ripped off or missold a car, there isn't anything wrong with it, other than you are using it for a purpose it is ill suited.

When I was buying my present car a couple of the garages talked about whether a diesel was suitable for me because of the DPF issue. Less hassle for them if they sell me the right car and helps build trust.

Thanks for the replies.
For those of you who say diesels are purely for long journeys sorry but that's rubbish. I've had 2 diesel zafiras in the past (obviously no DPF in them) and I drove them round absolutely fine hence my non querying of it when I bought this one?
I have friends who have diesels who do short journeys, the light comes on, they take for a drive..it regenerates job done..I have friends who drive long distance and theirs still plays up..all in all I think they are just generally it's luck of the draw on whether they function ok. However mine has and does have long journeys regularly (sometimes for the sake of it other times not) and it is still breaking down. I do 250 miles per week, roughly half of that is long distance so I think they do need mentioning that they do HAVE to be driven long journeys all the time which is ridiculas.
For those of you who maybe bought one and drove miles then say lost your job and had to travel locally you'd understand my difficulty, then again you seem so much in the know you'd probably just avoid..we're not all the same though.

Thanks for the positive replies of those who understand where I'm coming from. I'm still stuck in the same boat. I'm still driving it round..I'm waiting for it to break down and it's horrible. I've complained to Vauxhall again who are supposedly dealing with it.
Just to add I found out the car has Bluetooth on already (they have clearly ripped me off as I paid for it to be installed)..a great salesman all round really. Unfortunately for them they will wish they'd checked my requirements first as I won't give up pestering them until I get somewhere.

It's not about long journeys!!!! It's about a regular journey at a constant high speed.

Orange bird I've been told I need to do at least 20 min journeys with no break at 50mph or more..200/2500 revs. Unless you live near or drive down a motorway/dual carriageway every day it's impossible to do that? I got stuck in traffic again tonight..I reached 6mph for a total of 10 mins which doesn't help but is awful that the car can't cope with Normal journeys

I totally agree with OP. I paid a lot of money for my car, which I then, according to my garage, had to leave 'idling' in my driveway, in order to 'recharge the battery'. Wtaf?? If I spend £18k on a car, I expect the bloody thing to work properly

Why won't they that's madness..all they care about is selling the cars really don't they?!

Seems the DPF is a common nightmare as I said..all good and well finding out after the event but useless until you find yourself with the problem

Sorry but as a lawyer I think there is no chance of a claim for mis selling etc.

Did you buy the car from a main dealer? Vauxhall main dealers are generally pretty fair and reasonable imo.

My bf has a diesel Vauxhall, he used to drive about 20 miles daily at 60-70+, more recently he changed jobs and now his commute is all under 30mph. Hence he now has to periodically chuck some filter cleaning fluid in it and give it a blast up the dual carriageway at 70ish to clear it. That seems to do the trick every time.

Have you not tried using some of the cleaner fluid? And making sure you do a few short bursts of high speed, with plenty of revs?

If you can't or won't do this, you need to get shot of the car and get a petrol version more suited to your needs. Your best option I think is to see what you can negotiate with the garage. Just don't start talking about misselling because i don't think that's applicable.

At worst you've been overcharged for the Bluetooth but even that's questionable - presumably you checked the spec of the car you were buying to see what was included? Most newish cars come with Bluetooth as standard I think.

I had this with a car. It constantly came on. Worst when in 6th gear. I drive 60 mile motorway commutes 3 times a week and followed all the advice. It never changed. When it came on the engine limiter would activate and keep me at around 38miles per hour. Bloody dangerous on a motorway.

No amount of tweaking or fixing or changing my driving worked. We part exchanged it and got a petrol car.

Velvet then surely that tells me that the car doesn't function as it should? I do around 3 trips of 50 miles each trip a week and it still
Plays up?
I didn't know about any liquid you are supposed to put in..isn't that the garages job? If they've put it in it isn't helping..if it hasn't then why not.
I do feel I've been mis sold. The sales man knew I did very short trips..if he knew the cars as they are he would have known it wouldn't be suitable for me. As for the Bluetooth again if he knew the spec of the car he'd know it already had it..I did ask at the time if it had it and was told no..my fault?! At the end of the day they are there to do a job and assist you in buying the correct vehicle not just make a quick buck..however that doesn't seem the case.

Sorry, the garage obligation is to sell you a roadworthy car, I cannot see how it would go beyond that! You are expected as a purchaser to do your own research, garages will help you with spec of a specific car, or if you go in and say look out have X to spend, what are my options, but they are not advisers, they're salesmen. There's no duty upon them to offer you a car which precisely fits your needs, especially when they may not be aware what those needs are.

The point about driving is not distance it's speed that clears the filter. Do you do any hard accelerating, over revving etc in that 50 mile journey, are you getting it up to 70 or beyond and maintaining that for a period of time? That's what you need to do, that and add the fluid. That isn't the garages job any more than filling car with fuel and petrol. My bfs Vauxhall car has lifetime warranty but he still takes the above steps to maintain it himself.

If of course you've used the fluid, and the hard accelerating/ driving over 70 again least once every couple of weeks, and there's still a problem, the car may be faulty. If you haven't done that, then we can't say. And if there is no fault your best option is still to try and negotiate with the garage (are they a main dealer?)

Did you not check the car you were buying? Whether it was new or second hand surely you checked the spec beforehand? Or in the paperwork that accompanied it when you got it? If you have paid for something that was standard to the car the time to have raised that was when you first got the car really...

Agreed..roadworthy..not something that breaks down every other week. Incidentally the breaking down I'll add is an immediate cutting out of the engine regardless of speed..3 times it's been on very dangerous parts of roads..ironically while I'm trying to regenerate it at 50mph and above. I've had breakdown vans stop and move me from my location..not ideal with other people's young children in the back.

I gave a specific wants list when I bought it..Bluetooth being paramount. When you ask them and they say it doesn't have it then what do you do? I did check but due to so many models and being v busy I took his word.