|
Intro / Before December 2003
The next day arrived and back to Carcraft I went. I was slightly shocked when the paperwork came through, it worked out at £98 a month. (About £23 a week) Far more than what was stated. Not only this, there were suddenly about £200 worth of hidden up-front costs, which had not been mentioned. Included tax disc and finance acceptance fees! What?!!? I was too far, and was too excited to have the car. So I signed up anyway, and drove the car away. (Now I wish I hadnt)
Early December 20036000 miles were up already! Its amazing how quickly you can clock them up. My parents use a reputatble garage near them, so I left my car there for them to pick up so that they could do the required service. Unfortunately, the warranty provided by Carcraft in Liason with Nationwide Automobile Cover states that it must be done by a bonefied VAT registered garage. So to avoid any come back, they returned the car, and I got it booked in at my local Fiat Dealers. Stoneacre in Doncaster.
December 18th 2003Car went in for service. Cost £69.99 And Fiat ruined my Christmas party with work. I was due to pick it back up at 4pm (which involved two busses). Drive home, and then get the train back to Leeds where I work for 5pm to get to the venue before 6. I didnt manage to get out of Fiat until 5pm they kept me waiting that long. Then I got stuck in Thursday night christmas shopping traffic so didnt get home till 5:30. Missed my train totally, and missed the next (backup) train after that. So i had no other thing I could have done, I had to drive the car to Leeds which meant I couldnt drink. I`d already paid for the venue. Ended up arriving 30 minutes late due to traffic. Despite
that, that was the least of my trouble.
As
you can see from the images, there are a heck of a lot of ticks
in the red column. (The image was slightly altered as they didnt
come out on the greyscale scan.).
December 19th 2003Spoke to Carcraft about the faults. Basically rung up their customer services and said, My car has had a service, and I`m not happy about the amount of faults found on it. Especially bald tyres. Whats all that about? I`ve only done just a bit over 6000 miles? They shouldnt have gone bald! Was told i`d probably knocked the tracking by hitting the curb. I`ve had the car longer than 3 months, so speak to National Automobile Cover. I spoke to NAC, and they basically said that to take it back to the garage and get them to investigate the leaks further. Was told that the tyres arent covered, neither is the air filter, and the Labour involved in finding out the faults further would also not be covered. Crap.. I thought. Anyway, got the car booked back into fiat. But they couldnt look at it again until January 2nd! In the meantime, I minimised my driving as much as possible. Essential Journeys only. December 21st 2003Got the tyres changed on the car. Personal cost of £60 to me. I didnt want to be driving it illegally and unsafely, cold weather is on the way, dont want to be skidding. December 27th 2003Had a nice christmas, basically on Christmas Eve I drove to my parents house, and left the car parked there throughout so i could have lots to drink and have a good time. Which I did. But when it came to moving my car away from the drive, I was shocked to find It wouldnt start! Luckily it was a good place, my father has done a lot of mechanics. He said, its either the air filter, or the glow/heater plugs. To eliminate the easiest, and as it was stated as needs replacing and not covered by my warranty, we went and bought a new air filter and fitted it. £10 expense to me. It was a very easy job. However it made no difference, she still wouldnt go. In the end, it took an emergency car starter kit to make the engine go. Which is a spray that you spray onto the engine, causing it to pre-fire. Its not good for the engine, and shouldnt be used. Left the engine warming up and my father said that it didnt sound right, we could both hear a strange knocking sound. So I drove the car straight to Fiat. I am not having another unreliable car when it comes to cold weather. It was a cold day and the car had been stood a while. I didnt care, I`d rather not have the car than have another unreliable car. So... Fiat garage is where it stayed and where it is to this very day. January 2nd 2004Back to work, and my daily slog of my 20 minute walk to the train station commences. Now have to get up 30 minutes earlier to ensure I catch my train, and get home 30 minutes later each day. I got a phone call from fiat, Suprisingly early. Apparantly my heater plugs are down and my Turbo is leaking. (So add them to the list of problems found at service). Apparantly they didnt have an account set up with NAC, so that would take a week to set up. I was asked if I wanted my car back. I said no. I was not going to continue to drive the car if key parts of the engine is leaking and that it would be an unreliable start in the mornings.
I rung Carcraft straight up. This was ridiculous, more faults found. I asked to speak to the manager, Mr Tony Dunstell. Apparantly he was on the phone and would be a while and I was not able to hold on for him. The Customer Service girl also got rather rude with me, as she`d obviously seen my earlier complaint on file. Amazingly though, Mr Dunstell did call back. I found his attitude disgusting towards me. Basically he tried hitting me with some marketing crap and admitted that Cars are not serviced before they are delivered to customers. I`m sure I was told the contrary when I accepted the car.. Anyways. He was also going on about I`ve had the car 5 months (closer to 4), and that I had done an excessive amount of mileage of 7500. I thought that was strange, I hadnt done that much. Yes I had gone over the 6000, I`ll admit that, but not by much, certinately not in the region of 7500. Basically his attitude was, that the garage had to proove the fault was present when i 'took delivery of the vehicle'. I didnt take delivery of the vehicle! I had to go collect it! I threatened him with trading standards, because I refuse to accept that all these faults have occured during my time of owning the car. He informed me that they had a good reputation with Trading Standards! Well they wont now! He`d obviously had plenty of time to prepare his speeech, and therefore I didnt find the phone call productive one bit. I was shocked by their aftercare service. He didnt want to know me, he tried to blame me for the problems, and I felt deeply rejected by them. Anyway I was curious as to why he thought i`d done 7500 Mileage. I checked my paperwork and In my opinion Carcraft had LIED about the mileage that was on the car to NAC. Meaning my warranty was void They severely understated the mileage by over 600 and round it way down to 43000. When infact it was nearer 43700 when I 'took delivery of the vehicle' I had an MOT certificate to proove them wrong thankfully but still, that mileage was understated as to what was on it when i purchased the car. Basically this means that the mileage can not now be prooven, and they should honour my warranty contract anyway. I will fight them all the way. I may have gone slightly over 6000 miles, but now theres no way to proove it. I think thats Carcraft stabbing themselves in the foot once again!
January 3rd 2004Got some advice from friends and family, and people who work with cars. They agreed that theres no way all the faults could have happened during the time i`ve owned the vehicle. There are just too many, especially for a 4 year old car. The heater plugs especially, its most probably certain that these had gone before, as it was only when the weather had got cold i started having problems. Spoke to trading standards, they werent able to give advice over the phone, but sent me out a pack, which advised writing official letters of complaints off to Carcraft and other parties involved. I did some other investigation work and basically asked the Fiat garage if they could proove anything, I sent them a load of details of MOT checks and stuff like that. They said they`d work on it. January 7th 2004Fiat rung me to say that they were not going to cover the turbo. Infact the only thing they would cover would be the leaking rear break cylinder. They then faxed me through some information to confirm that. SEE REPORT HERE I instantly got on the phone to NAC to query why the turbo wasnt covered. I was told that it had not broken. Hmmm.. its leaking.. its failed.. its broken... But apparanlty it still "turboed" and the car was still functional, so it would not be covered. So i said "Oh? So I`m supposed to drive a car round with a Turbo thats leaking oil all over the engine, until it totally fails taking the engine out with it, and be stuck somewhere on the M1 hundreds of miles away from home?" I was told "That would be driver neglect sir" I wasnt accepting that. And I told him at NAC, and apparantly he was the manager when I asked to speak to them. THIS IS A COPY OF THE PAGE THAT SPECIFICALLY STATES THAT THE TURBO IS COVERED FROM NACs OWN BOOK I seemd to spend the whole day at work sorting out this car and not doing any work, faxing stuff off here and there and receiving faxes from fiat. I had to fax NAC my MOT certificate and service invoices, and they failed to call me to confirm receipt, despite the fact I asked them to. Which is why I called them, and had the argument above. I also rung carcraft to ask them to provide me with a copy of the 120 Point check that was done on my car prior to me receiving it. After some severe confusion, and a whisper in the customer service staffs ear, I was told it was an internal document and it couldnt be given out. This is a highly advertised feature of buying the car, yet carcraft are also unable to state exactly what checks they perform on the car. I find it obvious that my car was not checked properly. If it was, they only checked the parts which are covered by the NAC warranty, meaning that the other 3/4`s of faults that can go wrong with the car are My Responsibility I am so glad I did not purchase any extended warranty or extended insurance from Carcraft. To me, it just feels like a rip off.
I also composed an official letter of complaint to NAC, Carcraft, and GE Capital who financed the car. HAVE A READ OF THE LETTER SENT TO CARCRAFT HERE The letters to NAC and GE Capital was similar. I was also advised to cancel my Direct Debit. Whilever the car was stood unusable, I`m still paying for it, with Road tax (which i had to put on it this month), Insurance and payment. I advised GE Capital that I was stopping my direct debit. They were all faxed the letter this day and received a Recorded Delivery copy the next. After todays ordeal, I felt physically and emotionally drained. I dont like arguing with people over the phone who dont give a shit about me. I dont like all this one bit, its what inspired me to create this web log, so I could vent my frustration out on the keyboard. I dont care if anyone reads this or not, its worth it to me. A friend invited me up tonight aswell, which would have been nice, but I didnt have a car to drive there.
January 9th 2004Have had no come back from Carcraft, or anyone. Its asthough they dont care. I`m suprised. Maybe they`ll reply in the post. Who knows. Anyway, Fiat took their time, but they finally provided me with an estimate of the costs involved in resolving all the porblems with my car. READ IT AND WEEP Yes thats right ONE THOUSAND AND TWENTY POUNDS (£1020) to fix a car I have only had for 4 months!!!!! I know its dealership prices, but wooooooo! It didnt come as much of a shock to be honest. I knew the turbo would be about £600. The warranty will only cover the rear break cylinder, thats only £100 of that cost! And they havnt even given authorisation to do that yet!!!!!
January 11th 2004Its now over two weeks since I`ve even seen my car. It was raining one day, and i had left my unbrella in the boot. So my 20 minute walk to the train station was really wet. I`m starting to feel really depressed, I miss driving. I cant be bothered with busses, nor should I have to be. I need to go shopping, but I really just cant be bothered with the hassle when i`ve been used to been able to do it easier. I havnt been out, or been anywhere since christmas. I was supposed to have been going to my girlfriends in London this weekend, but I had no car and the train was too expensive to book at short notice. I already missed out on a trip to Ipswich over new years because I didnt have the car. It is really depressing me. I want my car back, and i want it working properly. I really really hope I can go to London next weekend so I wont be stuck in again like this weekend. All it will take is Carcraft or NAC to give Fiat the authorisation to repair the car and it`ll take them a day, two at the most. I hope I get some response to my letters soon. Its looking like I`ll have to get some legal advice come this time next week if I am no further. I am sure there is consumer protection against this sort of stuff. I feel asthough the car was misadvertised for a start.
January 14th 2004Well suprise suprise, guess which company responded first to my letters that I sent out? GE Capital! The people who stand to loose money! I cancelled my direct debit with them you see. Yesturday I had a standard letter in regards to it being cancelled with a new direct debit form. Basically I ignored it in anticipation of a letter directed soley at me and the new situation. And I get in from work to READ THIS and PAGE 2 . Not
good enough, it really isnt! Quoting me stuff from trading standards?
Gee! Also, I decided to write to Mr Noel Mckee. He is the Chief Executive of Carcraft. I was actually given his email address when I emailed carcraft some days ago (from a new email address!) asking for it. I decided to take a nice approach to my email to him, in a bid to win his sympathy. Working in a large organisation myself, I know what difference it can make to procedures and protocol if someone with a bit of weight speaks. If I can get this guy on side, then i`ve won basically. So READ MY EMAIL HERE and see what you think. It may do no good at all, he could be just as bad as the rest. But it doesnt hurt to try. Thats the way I work, I`ll go at a problem at all angles, despite the fact GE Capital are `investigating` I`m still going to do everything else I can to get other people `investigating` too. I will update with any reply i may or may not get!
January 17th 2004Well Its the weekend again, and just like last weekend, its another weekend of boredom, I have no motivation to go anywhere, I cant be bothered with the busses. Anyway, as stated in my last entry I did post the letter off to GE Capital and I also faxed them a copy so they had a copy on the same day. I also received a sort of response from the Chief Executive of Carcraft, though it reads like a very standardised letter. It could have been even sent automatically. Anyways, have a READ OF IT HERE This morning I FINALLY got a response from NAC, the warranty people. And without trying to defame them in a way, it was PATHETIC!! READ IT And try not to laugh too hard. Theyve gone and stabbed themselves in the foot. So these seals arent a sudden occurance? Oh in that case it must have gone, or at least been going when I bought the car. Its up to Carcraft to proove it wasnt. Oh dear Carcraft, no wonder you havnt bothered to respond to my letter. I`ve now been researching up on taking action. Basicaly it is looking like I am going to be suing carcraft for the cost of all repairs to the car, plus the inconvenience, stress etc. I`m looking at about £3000 - £5000 to get off them. On Monday I will send Carcraft a final notice, and wait till the end of the week, I will also reply to NACs letter and send them a final notice too. I`m taking donations to allow me to emmergrate from this country, just email them using paypal to my email address. Thank You! GE Capital have also called me again today, different person just chasing up my late direct debit payment. They asked if I was settling the account. I really couldnt be bothered with her and almost just hung up So had the usual fight and didnt get anywhere. However, I am going to re-instate the direct debit with them as a gesture of goodwill, despite the fact they havnt done anything, and as I said. Its not a problem because I`ll be claiming the money back anyway when i take you to court! So that ended that conversation quickly! hehehe! THIS
IS MY LETTER BACK TO NAC. They will receive a faxed copy of these on monday and a posted one on Tuesday.
January 20th 2004However, this is the big update. I had an email from Carcraft waiting for me. READ IT HERE. It looks asthough they did respond when I originally emailed the Chief Exec, however I didnt get it, I believe it probably was classed as spam and was thrown. I get about 100+ spams a day to my email address so theres some strict filtering. It was probably the marketing mumbo at the bottom. Anyway, that same marketing mumbo at the bottom made me mis-read a very important part of the email. Thats right, they offered me £500 to the repairs of the car. I didnt see this originally and replied back with THIS EMAIL. Anyway, it was too late it had gone, but I dont regret sending it, maybe it would have been toned down a little. So I quickly followed it up with THIS EMAIL TO CLARIFY
January 22nd 20041 Day to go, until I start filing law suits. Yesturday I received a totally and utterly pathetic letter from carcraft, which of course YOU CAN READ HERE I think they want taking to court! But that didnt make me laugh as much as the letter from GE Capital I received this morning, READ IT HERE. 8000 Miles? Whos been driving my car whilst its been at Fiat? It certinately hadnt done any where near 8000 miles since I last drove it back in 2003? Oh, I didnt supply the warranty contact details? Yes I did! I forwarded all the paper work to them which had it on. I am so not going to be their customer soon. They charge ridiculous interest rates and charges anyway. Then I had another letter demanding I pay the money owed to them. But I sent them a direct debit form a while ago saying take out this months money. Hmmm. I`ll let them call me again, not wasting my phone bill to sort out THEIR problem. Anyway, its now 24 hours until I`m logging onto courtservice.gov.uk to begin lodging legal proceedings. As I`m a nice person, I`ve issued Carcraft with this FINAL EMAIL Hoping they may reconsider their gesture of goodwill To be honest, i`m just getting bored now, i just want my car back and fixed.
January 23rd 2004Well...... I`ve done it! I`ve won!
Obviously I havent got any compensation for anything, but everything will be sorted! So hopefully i`ll have my car back soon! Fiat just need to get it re-booked in to get everything sorted! I also got it all confirmed, Ian promptly sent me an email SO READ THE FINALE HERE!
January 27th 2004
February 05th 2004
February 07th 2004
February 19th 2004
February 24th 2004
February 28th 2004
March 6th 2004I HAVE MY CAR BACK!!!!!!!!
THE END
May
7th 2004
|
On
August 8th, I purchased a car from Carcraft in Sheffield. Carcraft
are a massive car superstore selling hundreds of different types of
vehicles to suit everyones needs. A lovely car it was. But bad feeling
started immedietly. I actually chose and accepted the car on August
7th and put down £1500 cash there and then. The rest went on finance,
which I had to return the next day to set up. I stated that I could
only afford £16 / £17 a week and thats what was agreed. Naturally
I was excited about a new car it was going to make a huge difference
in comparison to the old banger I had been driving around. I chose
a 99 registration Turbo Diesel Fiat Punto. I wanted a diesel, it was
an ideal car, and it could move!