Is there a central database of all car repairs that I can query?

We bought a 9 month old Skoda Yeti in Feb from main dealer. Now transpires it has had fairly major repair work and it’s starting to show, passenger side doors and rear side panel filled and resprayed mirror broken but not properly repaired.

Too late to reject car I fear, but I’d like go to the dealer and state that the repair is done correctly (new panels not filler) with evidence that the existing repair was done before they retailed the car otherwise we have little proof of the extend of the existing damage and that it was not done in our custody.

Nope.

No. Unfortunately. If the repair was done through the main dealer network they should have a record of it that they can obtain, but otherwise you have little to no chance unfortunately.

Was it bought from a main dealer?

And, indeed, I think you would struggle against the dealer unless there was a statement made to the effect that “this vehicle has never had any repairs”.

Whilst a vehicle has to be of reasonable quality, I’m not sure to what extent this would include repairs which have been effected if they are simply not cosmetically perfect.

There really is no point wasting your time and energy on this one.

Next time, walk around the car tapping the panels…you’ll be able to hear the filler.

Yes main dealer, paid good money for the ‘peace of mind’ and all the checks they’re supposed to do.

Most annoyingly I noticed the wing mirror issue on the day we collected it (slight wind whistle) but being my Wifes car I did not want to spoil the new car moment plus she didn’t seem concerned.

Suspect that we will need to offload the car much sooner than we’d like.

Well, check and see what their supposed inspection includes. If it has something specific about quality of bodywork, then you may be able to argue it is a misrepresentation, but I strongly suspect it won’t.

It’s worth the conversation at the dealer. It’s worth noting that filler isn’t really an issue in itself. But sinking filler is an issue.

Yes, the paint shows cross hatching where the filler has been sanded I guess.

In addition the whistle from the wing mirror is still there. We have a moderate case here because the glass is a recorded non warranty purchase before we bought the car.

We had the works van roll down the slope and into the carpark where the new cars awaited prepping.
So we had to fix the front end of this car that hadn’t been on the road yet.
As we were working on it we realised that it had already been repaired once already.
So a brand new car , delivery miles and already been in 2 major accidents.

Well, check and see what their supposed inspection includes.

You maybe need to ask yourself how an nearly new car ended up for sale in the first place – who buys brand new cars and sells them again in less than a year?

In this respect its worth paying a bit of attention to who owned it beforehand. Some dealers have car-hire businesses in parallel to their sales business. The ‘nearly new’ cars they sell are often their hire fleet – usually models / trim levels / colours that are difficult to sell. Hiring them out scrubs some value off them to make them more saleable. If they received the car as a trade in from a third party then theres a limit to what they can know from an ‘inspection’ – you own the car and its taken a while to notice theres an issue – what can they notice in a 10-15 minute inspection thats going to include all sorts of mechanical as well as cosmetic checks. In that respect they’ve maybe been less thorough than they could have been. If the car was theirs to begin with then they’ve known and not told you, which is different.

Behind the cover that you remove to access the mirror screws there should be a section of foam wedged in there.
Frequently they get lost if the mirror is removed. That’s where the whistling comes from.

You maybe need to ask yourself how an nearly new car ended up for sale in the first place – who buys brand new cars and sells them again in less than a year?

Quite a lot of reasons for this to happen tbh.
We’ve got rid of a car after 9 months due to it being purchased through finance in s manufacturer discount scheme -actually works out beneficial for us to change every 9 months with a lot of models when you look at initial discount Vs depreciation curve and running costs.
Also, things like management cars are often changed every 6 months.
A used car from neither of the above cases would be an issue for me tbh.

We had a visit to the big BMW dealers up near Leeds, they take all the ex BMW fleet and hire cars in and refurbish them then put them out as approved BMW used cars. They take in thousands of cars a week and spend whatever is needed to get them back up to standard so they have full body shop facilities etc. Any scratched alloys are replaced rather than repaired and the old ones are smashed up and sent away for recycling!

Any scratched alloys are replaced rather than repaired and the old ones are smashed up and sent away for recycling!

This surprises me a lot.

They had crates of them stacked up ready to go away, all neatly smashed with a sledge hammer!

Are you sure they were just scratched ones? BMW had a massive issue with cracked alloys a few years ago. It would make much more sense (logically and financially) if it was those they were replacing and smashing up so they didn’t end up back on the road.

smashed up and sent away for recycling!

best thing for them 🙂

As a matter of an update, the Skoda dealer with authorisation from Skoda UK, is going to fully repair the car at their cost and give us documentation that the original paintwork and corrosion warranties are intact.

My wife much time on the phone sorting this and remained calm throughout so much kudos to her!

As a further update and a bump, got the car back at the weekend and it all looks good. No cost to us.

I think an adequate result all round.

Impressive. Perseverance and scary wives often work

Well done. 🙂