New car issues. Help needed please.

[royoftherovers]

42 minutes ago, Moleman said:

John, you are entirely correct, however, proving that maybe more difficult. The OP has already had the issue raised with Lexus UK. Unless they agree and help, not much to be done to push the dealer further. They have offered his money back. Legal requirement. 

If you take the legal route and prove they sold the car knowing the fault, likely best outcome, they apologise and offer your money back. A court would probably find that acceptable. How much would that cost?

Move on and find another car, this could end up taking a large amount of time and effort, for little or no different outcome.

Find another car, plenty out there. 

Morning Maurice and thank you for your contribution. Rest assured that I am more than well aware of what you have said. The O.P. has intimated that he wants/needs transport and I have advised him to meet with the Dealer Principal to explain his position. If that does not prove fruitful,I advised him to seek professional advice. An initial meeting might be available without incurring cost.

I do attempt to address such facts as are made available by an O.P. and not interpret a question.

[Mr Vlad]

What I find strange is that a 2010 is250 has truly rusted suspension bolts/nuts that a main dealer can't solve. My 2007 car this August as part of its service had full alignment and all nuts were undoable. That 2010 car I have to assume must have lived in a salty atmosphere and I'd have walked away from it.

Yes Peter you Need a car. If that's basically for once a week then in the meantime use a taxi or get a lift. Get your hard earned back and find another car elsewhere. 

And to do a favour to us all who is the dealer? This info is very important to future possible customers. 

[Brian R]

Too many car related unknowns and personally I would advise the dealer you will be returning it for a full refund and on a given date and you expect confirmation monies will be paid into your account that same date.  While you still have the car view and shortlist to one any other you might fancy. If you get your timings right, then hopefully you can minimise the inconvenience.

I have to also say in all my years I have never seen/heard of track rod ends that cannot be removed/adjusted, these are all but considered "consumables". More likely there is something else amiss and you really should take full advantage of the consumer rights law(s) and ditch the car now!

[Linas.P]

41 minutes ago, Mr Vlad said:

What I find strange is that a 2010 is250 has truly rusted suspension bolts/nuts that a main dealer can't solve. My 2007 car this August as part of its service had full alignment and all nuts were undoable. That 2010 car I have to assume must have lived in a salty atmosphere and I'd have walked away from it.

Yes Peter you Need a car. If that's basically for once a week then in the meantime use a taxi or get a lift. Get your hard earned back and find another car elsewhere. 

And to do a favour to us all who is the dealer? This info is very important to future possible customers. 

It is 2012...

It depends really, lower mileage cars usually have worse rust problems in those areas. The other big reason is - letting idiots to do the alignment. This is the reason why mine got rusted, they were always fine until one time I took it to local wheel alignment shop which was *******. Basically, they needlessly heated the tire-rod ends with the torch until they got red hot... sure they got the adjustment done that year, but next year they were rusted into one solid piece of metal. Overheating the metal makes it susceptible to rusting and it as well burns off any grease on the threads which prevents them from rusting, so that may be the reason.

The proper way of doing it would be heat it only to undo the tie-rod, then remove it completely and thoughtfully clean it from rust and junk and then apply thread grease so it is protected again. But if they heated the metal, burned off the grease and just left it "dry", then next year whole thing will be one solid piece of rust. 

[Mr Vlad]

Oooops my bad on the year of the car. And yes Linas you're bang on the money where heating a 'rusted' nut off. I had a similar issue when I did the front suspension gaitors on mine. Bottom nut was eventually heated to hot and a very long bar used to slacken them. I gave all subsequent nuts a good going over (cleaned and greased).

[Pete-r]

Morning all, I stayed off here until I had a proper update but after a rather bitter wrangle and some crossed wires my car has been fixed.

after the original disagreement over the return vs repair, I got prices from Lexus for the parts at another dealer and consulted other garages who said there was no way you would need to change the steering rack and you simply remove the seized parts in one go.

Lexus uk were utterly useless in helping, saying that the first month is dealer support.

My points to them which they chose to ignore was that there was a big LEXUS logo on the building, and I don’t care who the dealer is, they represent the brand. So one of 2 things happened. They missed it in the AUC and should be fixing it, apologising and praying I don’t sue them, or they fix it under warranty.

They pointed me again back to the dealer for any fault in the first month, but they got alarmed when I pointed out their 12 month warranty is actually 11+1 dealer so a financial mis-sale following a chat with tradings standards.

Lexus couldn’t answer basic questions like warranty claim value limits or even when the warranty runs until. Everything was pointed back at the dealer.

The dealer took it back and gave me a loan car and have replaced the parts and aligned the car and put mats in, but it’s been really stressful and I’m glad it’s over for now.

 

So the main points were/are:

Car collected and wouldn’t drive straight, reported the following day. Car had mats in the dealer video but none in the car and I was told there wouldn’t be any as I’d already signed the handover. I was pretty p’d at that attitude and asked what if the alloys had been swapped to steels?

Car was taken to my nearest dealer who agreed it was all over the place but couldn’t align it to tolerance, said they would not continue to work on it after a few attempts.

Selling dealer dodged my calls for a few hours then said they won’t fix as too expensive, and want to refund me. They ask me to drive the car (that won’t drive straight) 90 mins to them to drop off and then get a train home on a work day. I refuse a refund as I like the car and I’m told if I like it why not just live with it. ‘Think about what you are saying’ is my response.

I push with escalation to the DP and they ask to collect car but won’t offer a loan, and ask me to leave the spare key and v5 in it, again I say no because I fear they will force the refund against my will, and explain I can’t be without a car.

I escalate with Lexus and the dealer over the next few weeks but get conflicting information about the warranty, who is responsible and they basically blame each other for the issues.

Overall I rang Lexus uk 27 times during the period and had no calls back despite endless promises of a return call.

Dealer agrees a loan and collects the car and it’s quickly fixed once they see it doesn’t need a rack change. They also put mats in as per the way the car was represented for sale.

The process takes around 5 weeks of me driving a potentially dangerous car.

I have spoken to some motoring press outlets and they are interested in running the story so I don’t want to name the dealer yet.

Overall, a shocking experience.

[Pete-r]

Sorry also forgot, while the car was being fixed they asked me to sign a new handover and new exchange document with new dates.

I asked why and was told because they had begun the process of repatriating the car, against my wishes and without my knowledge.

They have now ‘lost’ the original handover sheet which contains my personal information, and are asking me to sign new versions for what they call audit purposes which are wrongly dated and blank. When I pointed out that could be considered fraud and that I’m a chartered auditor the phone went a little quiet...

[Mr Vlad]

WOWZ what an ordeal. Well done you in persevering the incompetence of the dealer. Just proves that even at dealers the technicians are not fully conversant on what they are working on. You go enjoying your car and again well done.