well, its a bit of a long story.

My son bought this car in October 2015. Within 4 days it had lost all power on hills, was belching black smoke and gear box was knocking. He rang the garage and told them he wanted his money back. They refused and told him to call the recovery on his warranty. But the warranty insisted it was a pre existing fault and wouldn't take the car. Again, the garage he bought it from refused to do anything. The car was undriveable as it could barely pull away from the kerb, and so after several months of trying to resolve this, my son went to the small claims court. He had 2 estimates from local garages of emission problems. gear box and clutch problems which were estimates around at least £1500.( He bought the car for £3000.)

When he got to court in May, The judge wouldn't allow the estimates as they weren't agreed by the garage. And ordered that a mutually agreed estimate should take place. Unfortunately; the garage refused to discuss any other garage and insisted they have the car back. My sons solicitor thought that this would be quicker in the long run so in July 2016 we paid £100 to have the car taken back to the garage.

Firstly they told us there was nothing wrong with the car, then they said my son had to pay for a new battery and coil spring {which he did as the coil spring wasn't part of the original complaint). The garage then said its mechanic would be away for 3 weeks and they would let us know when it had been looked at. Despite my son ringing regularly, the garage did not contact us again until January, yes, January 2017. This time they claimed to have written to my son in Sept and October to tell him his car was ready but he received no such letters.

They included a bill for £2600 which included £1600 storage fees. They also said that it had had a new MOT in September but when we checked online the MOT was dated January 21st.

There were labour charges of £600, plus a few other bits but no charge on the bill for clutch or flywheel parts. And it also said if we didn't pay the bill in 5 days he would sell it to recoup his losses. We were horrified.

We refused to pay the storage charges as we had never been told about them and ended up having strong words with the owner who was very belligerent and said he could do what he likesd as we owed him the money.

My son offered to pay the labour charges as all he wanted was to get his car back after 15 months.

Again they refused and then we had a letter from them, stating that as a gesture of 'goodwill' they were removing the storage charges BUT were now adding on the cost of flywheeel and clutch kit, which they are now claiming had seized as the car had been left on damp ground by my son before they had it back....

This second bill came to £1700.

The owner wrote on the bottom of the bill in BIG letters that he would not enter into anymore discussion and unless we paid the bill in 2 days, he was selling the car for what he could get and then would come after my son for the rest of the money.

I'm sorry that it has taken you so long to read this!!

And that is why I asked whether these parts could seize. We think that we will have to go back to court again and just needed to get some information on his claims. It has been a nightmare!