Another moan, but mercifully, I'll make this one short.
As alluded to a post or two ago, I was recently coerced by circumstance into buying another car. My purchase-window was narrow as I was 'on the clock', having rented a car from Hertz expressly for this purpose. Given the time available, I opted for getting something from a dealer, as opposed to delving into the murky depths of the private-seller's market
The saying about, "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is", I now see in a different light. I decided on a dealer based on price. I had also decided on a price, at least one I would not go above, but circumstance (always a bitch!) & exorbitant car-insurance quotes made it clear that I'd either have to fork out more on insurance or buy a newer used car. No mention of 'quality' here, all insurance companies are interested in is a car's year of manufacture & engine size.
I went intending to buy a 2011 Ford Focus 1.6L from the dealer (aka, villain) in question, but after some horrifying insurance quotes, ended up buying a gutless 2014 Skoda Fabia 1.2L, for about 50% more than I had planned spending. And not just any Fabia, this as it turns out, is one of the lowest-spec Fabia that Skoda manufacture - not sure of the model-name, but this one has no glove-box door, just a hole in the dash & no mirror(s) in the sun-visors - two things I had never seen in any car, let alone one that I owned.
But this I was assured was in perfect condition, had been serviced, and was being supplied with a new NCT - so the 'luxuries' just mentioned, I reckoned I could live with(out). In truth, it looked respectable, and given my urgent need for a car, I signed on the proverbial dotted line. Not before taking it for a test-drive of course. I specifically requested that I do this solo, something the dealer didn't have a problem with - whether this was down to COVID19 or the percentage of gray hairs I sport, I know not! It drove ok, and nothing stood out as being a deal-breaker. One thing I noticed was that the fan-blower only worked at level 4, the highest setting - an easy fix, or so I figured. The dealer even agreed to deliver the car, free of charge, which was cool. But things were about to heat up.
On dropping the car off at my house, the dealer was gone in the blink of an eye. I had resolved to get a receipt of payment from him, the transaction for which I had done online by way of a money-transfer, the same day I'd given him a €100 deposit - but totally forgot! I was more interested in checking out my new toy!
That interest turned to annoyance not long after. Almost immediately, I discovered that the passenger & driver's electric windows would not open. I quickly contacted him, and made known my findings. He 'played dumb' but told me that if I dropped it back to him, he'd check it out and provide me with a replacement car while it was being repaired. Guessing that the problem was down to water damage to the door-switches concerned, I instead decided to investigate the matter myself. Turned out I was correct, and on both doors. The drivers side was particularly bad (see pics) but with some isopropyl alcohol, I soon had them working again, temporarily at least. After a quick trawl through Ebay, I had replacements ordered, costing a little over €10 - I could live with that. The Blower-fan problem turned out to be a slightly more expensive fix - €14 including P&P for the resistor module that had blown - but it was here that problems started to be compounded!
Seeing as I didn't want to wait months for fan-blower parts from China, I ordered the resistor-module from the UK instead. But in order to be certain that I was ordering the right part, it was first necessary to extract it - this meant removing the passenger airbag in order to get at it. The big mistake I made was, after ascertaining the correct part to order, I did not reconnect the airbag - instead, I drove around for a week with it disconnected. After replacing the fan-blower part, on starting the car , I was greeted with an airbag-error icon on the dash! I had figured on computer code-errors being generated, but hey! I had an EBD2 dongle - I'd just clear them! Or not, as it turned out. An Internet search revealed that my EBD2 dongle has only access to engine error-codes. When I run a scan, I am informed that all is well, there are no errors detected. After more searching the net, I soon discovered the problem - and problems usually cost money to rectify.
Due to the ever-increasing number of 'features' found in cars today, manufacturers have long deemed it necessary to assign different categories to each. Airbag faults for example don't fall into the engine-category. And the more categories that an EBD2 dongle can access, the more expensive the item - naturally, I had bought the cheapest dongle available, capable of scanning only engine faults. In practice, what this meant was that I could either go to a dealer to get the airbag error-code reset, or I could try and do it myself - and I've chosen the latter option, though it might prove more expensive, at least I'll learn from the experience. To that end, I've ordered a 'real' VCDS dongle through Aliexpress, capable of reading all VW/Skoda/Audi/Seat fault-codes, and a whole lot more!
But I still haven't even got to the point of this post - so much for it being brief! What prompted this little missive was of what transpired earlier today. Recall, I was eager to procure from said Car-dealer, a receipt for the amount that I had paid for the car. After contacting him nearly two weeks ago about it, I was informed that he was not at home, but if I would text him my address, he would post one out to me. Well into the second week of waiting for it, I phoned him today - no answer. While I was composing a text to him, I received a call from his number. On answering the call, I was greeted to a full 2 minutes of 'snap-crackle-pop' - no voice, just random noises, as if crinkling paper, rapping the phone against something etc. After listening to this for as long as I could, without receiving a response, I hung up, texted him, politely inquiring as to why he still had not forwarded me the receipt of purchase as promised. After waiting several more hours, with still no response to my text, I tried phoning him again. This time, I received an immediate, "your call cannot be completed" message - as if my number was after being blocked! That was all the motivation I needed - despite the late hour, I resolved to drive the 50+Km to his place of business to confront him in person.
Arriving there, I put through another call, which was also ignored. Turned out he wasn't at his car-lot either. After walking around and examining a couple of dozen cars of his, I made my way to the nearest house on the off-chance that he might live there. He didn't - but the really nice guy that did, knew who I was looking for, and more importantly, where our villain resided. Just up the same road as it happened! As I drove up to his house, he was collecting something from his lorry. He seemed startled at my unexpected appearance, and none too pleased to see me.
The first words out of his mouth were, "Well, what's wrong with it", meaning the car. For someone selling cars with a 3-month warranty, it's not what you'd expect to hear as an opening line, or at least I didn't! After telling him I was only there for the receipt, he perked up somewhat. I ended up getting the receipt but little else for my long drive.
But I'm convinced that his reluctance to provide me with a receipt had nothing to do with the state of the car - after all, he seemed quite willing to repair the window problem and provide me with a replacement car. It's much more likely to be down to having to declare (or not!) the car-sale to the tax-man - no receipt, no paper-trail to taxable-income.
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