advise needed

Sesshoumaru

I was in the market for a secondhand saloon car and I saw a nice one advertised in carzone down in Cork. So last week I travelled to cork from Dublin to take a look at the car. It had a problem where the drivers door would not open from the outside, but it would open from the inside. I asked the dealer would he fix this before I came to collect it the following week and he said he would. So anyway I collected my car on Wednesday, only problem was that the door would now no longer open from the inside either. The dealer wasn't there at the time, only his secretary. When I rang the dealer he told me that he had a mechanic look at it and he couldn't fix it in time because it would take the replacement part a couple of days to arrive. But he assured me it was simple to fix and he gave 100 euro off the price we had agreed.

Now when I got the car back to Dublin the first mechanic I asked to look at the car said he would have to break the lock on the drivers door as it was now impossible to remove the interior trim to access the locking mechanism. A replacement lock is €190 from an Audi dealer. That price doesn't include the labour cost of breaking my lock in the first place or fixing the original problem with the door I'm just wondering is it worthwhile trying to get this money from the dealer I bought the car from? or did I shoot myself in the foot when I accepted the car as it was?

bazz26

Sesshoumaru wrote:

I was in the market for a secondhand saloon car and I saw a nice one advertised in carzone down in Cork. So last week I travelled to cork from Dublin to take a look at the car. It had a problem where the drivers door would not open from the outside, but it would open from the inside. I asked the dealer would he fix this before I came to collect it the following week and he said he would. So anyway I collected my car on Wednesday, only problem was that the door would now no longer open from the inside either. The dealer wasn't there at the time, only his secretary. When I rang the dealer he told me that he had a mechanic look at it and he couldn't fix it in time because it would take the replacement part a couple of days to arrive. But he assured me it was simple to fix and he gave 100 euro off the price we had agreed.

Now when I got the car back to Dublin the first mechanic I asked to look at the car said he would have to break the lock on the drivers door as it was now impossible to remove the interior trim to access the locking mechanism. A replacement lock is €190 from an Audi dealer. That price doesn't include the labour cost of breaking my lock in the first place or fixing the original problem with the door I'm just wondering is it worthwhile trying to get this money from the dealer I bought the car from? or did I shoot myself in the foot when I accepted the car as it was?

I'm not sure what your rights are in this situation but it sounds to me like the dealer had the lock looked at and knew it would cost more to replace but tried to pull a fast one by knocking €100 off the price knowing that you probably would not travel back to Dublin empty handed.

Personally I think the fact that you accepted the €100 discount in the understanding that you would sort the lock yourself might not help your case but I could be totally wrong here.

I know this is of no help to you now but the lesson to be learnt here is don't hand over your money if there are issues spotted with car on the day of collection. Even if it costs you a trip half way round the country better that than buying a potential lemon. I would not have believed the dealer that it was a €100 fix either, if it was that simple he probably would have done replaced it already rather than face the embaresment of trying to show a customer a car with a broken lock.

If the dealer values your future custom he would probably pay for the lock minus the €100 he already gave you back.

rebel.ranter

I hope you didn't buy it from a certain garage near Musgrave Park

Sesshoumaru

rebel.ranter wrote:

I hope you didn't buy it from a certain garage near Musgrave Park

I'm not really familiar with Cork. How many stadiums are there in cork? It might have been near a stadium.

Darragh29

Sesshoumaru wrote:

I was in the market for a secondhand saloon car and I saw a nice one advertised in carzone down in Cork. So last week I travelled to cork from Dublin to take a look at the car. It had a problem where the drivers door would not open from the outside, but it would open from the inside. I asked the dealer would he fix this before I came to collect it the following week and he said he would. So anyway I collected my car on Wednesday, only problem was that the door would now no longer open from the inside either. The dealer wasn't there at the time, only his secretary. When I rang the dealer he told me that he had a mechanic look at it and he couldn't fix it in time because it would take the replacement part a couple of days to arrive. But he assured me it was simple to fix and he gave 100 euro off the price we had agreed.

Now when I got the car back to Dublin the first mechanic I asked to look at the car said he would have to break the lock on the drivers door as it was now impossible to remove the interior trim to access the locking mechanism. A replacement lock is €190 from an Audi dealer. That price doesn't include the labour cost of breaking my lock in the first place or fixing the original problem with the door I'm just wondering is it worthwhile trying to get this money from the dealer I bought the car from? or did I shoot myself in the foot when I accepted the car as it was?

I'm a bit confused here after reading this, to be honest, after reading this thread I think part of the problem might be your mechanic in Dublin. I could be wrong here, but I've never heard of having to break a lock on a door to get the door trim off. Also, if the door won't open, this sounds more like a problem with the opening mechanism inside the door and not the lock itself.

Could you describe in some detail what exactly the problem is with the door and opening it, both from the inside and the outside?

Darragh29

Just another bit of advice, I think it's very unprofessional of a car dealer to have a car with a problem like this on a forecourt, never mind giving you a discount of 100 Euro to take it away with the problem and sort it out yourself. AFAIK, People buy from a dealer so that apparently they have "peace of mind", which you don't expect and are not entitled to, from a private sale. I think you made a major mistake doing business on these terms, it's up to him to have the car in full working order before you take custody of it, if he can't manage this simple task, he shouldn't be selling cars in my opinion.

I've never heard of this happening before to be honest, he sounds like a complete cowboy.

Sesshoumaru

There is no resistance on the door handle(inside and outside) when you try to open the door. So basically the cable that links the handle to the locking mechanism has come off. Now since the door doesn't open at all it would be very difficult to remove the interior trim on the door without destroying it. In the end I found a mechanic who had a much better way of opening the door. When you open the rear door on the drivers side there is a wide enough gap that you can see the steel D ring that is bolted into the b column of the car. This is what the door latches onto. He will cut this for me and then he be able to open the door. Apparently its a common enough problem on Audi's and VW cars. I was just very annoyed this dealers mechanic disabled the inside handle as well. I look very undignified getting in and out of the car