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“Betrayed our trust - steer clear”

written by DanONeill on 11/10/2013

We paid the full fee for a full inspection of a 2003 VW Beetle. As we were proposing to buy it from a London garage we thought it wise to employ a company we trusted to give the car a complete once over.

We paid, and duly the AA (or so we thought) came along and did the inspection (again so we thought).

Barring a couple of minor quirks, usual for a car of that age, it was given a clean bill of health, so we went ahead and bought it.

Two days later we were on the side of the road with an engine fault.

We called our the AA roadside assistance and he pointed out the insulation tape on the feed pipe to the fuel injection system; this bodge job was responsible for triggering a Lambda fault in the fuel management system. He spotted it in literally two seconds. We wondered why the AA inspector hadn't seen it.

We complained

They came back saying the engine hadn't been looked at as it would require 'dismantling' to see it. All it really requires is the foam engine cover (standard on ALL modern cars) to be slipped of. We timed it and this take 3 seconds - only a fool would class this as dismantling.

Long and short is that other faults soon developed and it transpired that they hadn't done a real inspection at all.

They broke trust.

We tried to contact the AA and they put us to the company they had OUTSOURCED to (this was NOT mentioned on their website) Dekra whom we had to contact. We've written three letters so far and they've simply ignored us.

It was a simple proposition: we wanted a trusted name to use their experience to advise us on an car buy. We paid the money and expected the expertise. Instead, they took the money and did nothing.

Nine members of our family (one of which has been a member since 1968) have now gone with the RAC.

Please learn from our mistake and avoid them.

It makes me angry still to think about the £180 we lost but even angrier for the betrayal of trust.

AVOID.