Long story short (not really short!)
I purchased a car from a local garage for £3400 November 23. The car came with 3 months AA lite warranty. From the very start, I could smell burning coming from the car after it had been running for a while. Along with this, a very loud humming noise was coming from the engine area, and the heating failed to work. I put a claim in with the AA in Feb, which I understand is longer than I should have waited but my partner had advised that maybe the smell of burning was due to the car sitting around in their garage for a while and just needed a good run around, and well.. life! I have a 6 year old and a 5 month old at the time and life just got in my way.
Anyway, the car got booked in with a local garage recommended by the AA, who confirmed that there was indeed faults with the car - leaking thermostat and then water pump was not circulating hence the smell of burning, loud noise and lack of heating. The AA agreed to partially cover the costs of fixing these which I was happy with, and the work, I was told, would be done the same day.
Upon further inspection, they found that there was sever rusting on the head gasket, cylinder head from the leak which they said had been leaking for quite some time due to how bad the corrosion was, and that they couldn't carry out the work as they couldn't get to the parts they needed to fix due to the rust and corrosion and that a new head gasket would be required. The AA were not willing to cover with so the garage sent me a personal quote which totalled just over £1532 ALONE!
I felt that I shouldn't have to pay that as the works alone on the car due to the faults totalled around £2000 which is almost as much as I purchased the car for and it was evident I was sold a faulty car, which the garage agreed with, and kindly wrote me up a report stating all of the faults and that it had been leaking for some time which indicates it would have been faulty upon purchase. Additionally, they sent me a photo of the corroded area to show how bad it was.
After back and forth from the garage I purchased the car from, they are not willing to take ANY responsibility for this and kept stressing I should have taken it back to them (although I followed the AA warranty that they had explained to me upon sale if there were to be any problems and that if there was a fault with the car upon purchase then I wouldn't have been able to drive the car away from them.
I told them I would be going through a small claims court. I have also been in contact with a motor ombudsman but they are unable to help as the garage is not accredited to them.
A few people said I may be wasting my time and money taking them to a small claims as even if I win, they might not pay, which I will then have to escalate it, costing me more money etc.
It is so upsetting as my car has been in the garage for over 1 month now, I have 2 children, and this has happened to other customers from reading the sales garage reviews ( 2 of which were to do with problems with the head gasket) and they are obviously just getting away with selling faulty cars to people and not taking any accountability.
Can anyone please advise? It is really affecting my mental health due to the time its been dragging on for and I just don't know where or who to turn too.
Thanks in advance!
Hannah