Timing waits for no man

On Saturday, 6th March, I bought a 2001 'Y' reg VW Polo with 1.4 16v engine and 59k miles on it, from a fairly local dealer. I paid £2,700. On the Monday, I 'phoned the dealer to check when the timing...

It’s a stealo

I swapped my 2004 MG Rover for a 2002 FIAT Stilo 1.8 16v Dynamic. The thing is I’ve been completely ripped off. I was told by the seller that there was only a problem with the exhaust and at times the...

All consuming anger

I was interested to read that one of your readers was getting 62.9mpg from his 2002/52 Ford Fiesta diesel. We exchanged our 2002 Fiesta 1.4 diesel for a 2009/58 Fiesta1.4 Zetec TDCi four months ago. Our...

Swiss rolled

On 20th January, our son, who now lives in Switzerland, agreed to purchase a 2006 Land Rover Discovery advertised by a Trade Seller in Auto Trader. A price of £ 14,500 was agreed and a deposit of £500...

Partial Punto

In June 2009 my wife and I purchased a 2007 FIAT Grande Punto for our son from the branch of a national dealer chain in Darlington. The experience was not good and several faults were unresolved by the...

Truly shafted here from paradise

Last week I rented a Ford Mondeo Estate car, picking it up at Luton Airport on Sun 21st and returning it to Stansted airport on Thurs 25th. We had the normal insurance cover provided by the car Rental...

Reversal of fortune

My girlfriend was driving her BMW convertible in Ascot and was waiting stationary at a T junction behind a Land Rover Discovery. The car in front of the Land Rover went to pull out then hesitated half...

Courting disaster

I feel very strongly that you should be more careful about the frequent advice you give your readers to use the Small Claims track of the County Court, because the fact of the matter is that this justice...

Diminishing return

If your garage returned your car after servicing, by special truck, and damaged it, what would you do? The car: a Bentley. The damage: Scraped the entire front wing and part of the driver's door. First...

Tensioner, nervous headache?

I have a Volvo 2004 Volvo V70 estate D5 diesel bought pre-registered from a Volvo dealer in early 2005 with 10 miles on the clock. Always serviced on time by the same dealer. The cambelt tensioner has...