Jonathan P

Car refunded, take care to make checks

I wouldn't like to speculate on Chris and his team at CarConnect UK, so I'll give the facts about my experience and you can make your own mind. Bought a lovely A3 1.8 from them. Right price, they had it MOT'd and did an oil service on the car before my collection. Perfect. Three days into ownership I had the 'Check Engine Oil' light come on on the motorway. As soon as I could pulled over and let it sit for 15 mins. Dip stick was at the bottom. Topped it up and got home. Checked under the car, it was leaking oil (just had oil service), removed the plastic cover on top of the engine, the top of the block was swimming in oil. The leak under the car was tiny, and looked like something coming from around the sump. Car Connect offered to sort the leak out. Being as it looked like the plug, and they are a two hour drive away, we agreed at my cost to get my local garage to investigate. I had a new Plug and seal put on the car. Meanwhile, the Oil level was constantly dropping, and the back of the car covered in black oily flecks. I believe the car was consuming oil, and suffering from the consumption problem quite widely documented on that engine, unrelated to the leak. I thought I had resolved the leak, so we agreed to get Audi to do a consumption test on the car and take it from there. At this stage I had had two weeks of worrying about the car, and the alarming feeling you get when you find something wrong with a new purchase.. The leak was still present in the sump area a day after the replacement of the seal. Obviously I can't get a consumption test done whilst it has a leak, it could blow any chance of Audi picking up the bill. My garage thought the sump pan must have a hairline, or be porous, and as such it would be more costly. I took the car back to Car Connect to have a sump pan fitted to the car. They agreed to sort this and I was grateful. Incidentally the oil hadn't reappeared at the top of the engine, so this was either a careless mechanic, or somebody had topped up the oil and spilt it. Neither were reassuring all things considered. Two days later they told me the sump pan was fine, and that they had replaced the sump plug seal as it was knackered. (My garage are super trustworthy I've used them for years, they wouldn't have lied to me). I asked them before I make the journey to collect the car to check underneath that there is no oil dripping. The owners response was to offer me the option of a refund. He either wanted out of it, or saw me as a worried costumer (which I was), and it was too much. It was a huge shame, but this was an opportunity to end this and start looking again. We kept the deal open, while they kept the car and they had it booked in at Audi for a consumption test. If the outcome was that there was the fault, and it would get sorted, I thought I would stay in the picture. Fast forward to the day it was booked in at Audi. The CC owner called me and asked how much I'd topped up the oil? I let him know it used about 1 3/4 litres over nearly a thousand miles. He said, that's funny, because, the Audi technician said the car was OVER filled, by about a litre and a half. It's my understanding that you can't over fill an engine by that much without doing serious damage, and also I KNOW that when the car went back to them, the oil was no higher than the top of the midway 'dappled' line on the dip stick. He also said Audi had replaced the sump plug/seal for a proper Audi one (I understood that was fixed anyway), and that they had given the car a clean 'health check'. When I enquired with my Audi dealer they said they wouldn't look or comment on the engine without doing their consumption test. I asked him what they said about the oil over the rear bumper. He said they didn't say anything about it. He offered to deliver the car back to me, happy it was fine. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was happy to refund me for the car still. I jumped at the chance to get my money back, I'd really lost confidence and the whole thing was really confusing and stressful. We did the refund a few days later, and I was relieved that my money came through after three working days. I'm so grateful to them for this. Incidentally, enquiring about my road tax, I asked them if they were selling the car. They told me they were still doing investigations into it! So, full Audi health check, and good enough to deliver back to me, but still not for sale!! At least they weren't trying to put anyone else through it straight away. Maybe I'm wrong and they're right. I just got a bad feeling, and although they may not have known about the consumption issue (remains to be proven), they sold me a car with oil poured all over it, and an oil leak, and offered a refund. I must say, that at least I got my money back, so they have the integrity and conscience to recognise that, which goes a long long way. I'm really grateful to Chris for doing that, thank you! I don't doubt they sell great cars all the time, but as these things go, I implore you to take a professional, or third party with you to inspect the mechanical side of the car. Ultimately I got my money back, so you're safe on that front. I hope this isn't an unfair review, and I wish them the best in their future trading.