Hi guys, im the recent and proud owner of a 96 Magna TE, white completley stock, auto, 160k. Upon seeing this car on the trading post I bought the vehicle 5-6 hours later, after about a 2-3 hour drive. Now the car looks great, its clean and appears to be well taken care of, i was assured it was recently serviced, things were replaced ect. I could not find a mechanic who could come with me to check out the vehicle but i was relieved with the 3 year warranty covering the most important parts of the car.

This was a stupid idea, lol. After reading through the history of the car, I saw the last noted service was around 20,000kms ago, so i decided to have it serviced just incase they hadnt recently serviced it like they said. The mechanic who checked out my car is a friend and works at Kmart Tyre and Auto. Basically i was told to take the car back because theres a noise coming from the timing case, transmission is not shifting properly, major oil leaks, rotors are glazed and need to have work when i replace the pads, need two new tyres, and a wheel alignment. Most of that is fine, you expect that with a car of its age, but the timing case noise i was told could be fatal for Maggie, and possibly cause the engine to go BOOM!!

So i started to read over my warranty booklet that i was given with the car, now is where things get really bad. Turns out im not covered for ****, The car needs to have been sold for OVER $3000, i bought the car for $5000, but he wrote it down as $3000 to save me money on the transferring ownership of vehicle costs. Which means im one cent under doesnt it? Not to mention i would have messed up my warranty as i was told i need to have it serviced every 10,000km to keep my warranty valid, turns out in the book i need to have it serviced every 5000km. The sly mother ******. :doubt:

Anyway i will let you know what happens with claiming warranty but things dont look good. I might have to sell her as im broke and just got fired =/.

Photos:

Just take it back and tell them what happened. They could turn around and apoligise and fix it up, or they may have done a dodgy. Also i think you're given a 7 day grace period where you can take it back if you change your mind.

whatever you do don't leave it any longer.

The warranty book says to contact them before the dealership. So im going to print off the invoice kmart T&A gave me and hope that im covered.

DODGY 2nd hand dealer by the sounds of it.

2nd hand dealer warranties aren't worth squat.... they not nearly like a factory warranty... pretty much useless.

That he wrote down a diff price than u paid... (plus if u can stick to ur guns on what else he sed that was wrong ... like warranty needing 10k service etc)... would be good grounds for complaint... check for LMVT Ombudsman or somesuch. Would be standing my ground for full refund if i was u.

how did you pay..cash cheque etc...must be some way of proving how much they got.

how did you pay..cash cheque etc...must be some way of proving how much they got. just tell em you did not pick up on the fact that the invoiced you for the lower amount.

Alot of dealers do dodgys on price.

Eg. when i traded my old car in on my new car, paid 12k drive away with trade in, $500 they gave me for it (Was barely worth that lol), but then said i paid $15k for the car and got 3grand trade in, apparently saves them money on tax or something i dunno how it works.

DODGY 2nd hand dealer by the sounds of it.

2nd hand dealer warranties aren't worth squat.... they not nearly like a factory warranty... pretty much useless.

Yeah I got a 1yr "warranty" free with my used 94 Barina from the dealer. Reading the terms and conditions, the warranty wouldn't cover anything under $800, nor would it cover the engine. After reading it, I thought "so WTF does it cover?". Luckily I had no problems.

Paid via, cash and card..This warranty seems to be 'alright' assuming you stick to all the rules and regulations. Will call them up on monday and see what they say about my warranty.

On a funnier note, my housemates mrs will not change her gear knob as she is worried it will affect her 3rd party warranty on the car.

IMO the gear knob is worth more than the warranty itself :)

Just an update, called the warranty place and they have referred me to a mechanic who will inspect the car to assess whats wrong and then send there invoice to the warranty people who will then assess whether or not im covered.

Well good luck mate, all the best.

Yeah good luck. Hope it all works out :thumbsup:

Just an update, called the warranty place and they have referred me to a mechanic who will inspect the car to assess whats wrong and then send there invoice to the warranty people who will then assess whether or not im covered.
Make sure you get a 2nd opinion from your mechanic in writing.
After this referred mechanic takes a look if there are any differences refer him to what your mechanic wrote down.
No doubt this referred mechanic will be in cahoots with the warranty place and probably deny there's anything wrong with the vehicle, or state that what's wrong isn't covered.

Make sure you get a 2nd opinion from your mechanic in writing.
After this referred mechanic takes a look if there are any differences refer him to what your mechanic wrote down.
No doubt this referred mechanic will be in cahoots with the warranty place and probably deny there's anything wrong with the vehicle, or state that what's wrong isn't covered.

Well i drove to west gosford and met up with the mechanic whos inspecting my car, basically he told me nothing sounded wrong with it. Which is right because once my cars warmed up already theres no noise from the engine. So i have to go back another day and leave my car there overnight so they can hear the noise when they start her up in the morning which is when you can hear it the most. Thats all to do with the timing case thing, the other things, eg, tyres, transmission, ect ect are not covered under warranty at all. However he did say the transmission should be fixed by my next major service. Ontop of that the timing case noise may or may not be covered by the warranty =/.

He did seem very genuine tho, told me that the warranty place is usually very good with these matters and its the car dealers that promise everything thats not really covered in the warranty.

Hmmm, did you get it checked out before you bought it? Or take it for a test drive?

That's a fair few problems for a $5000 TE. I wouldn't pay over $4000 for something with that history, even if it is from a dealer. :confused:

Sorry to hear the bad news, hope it all works out and you A, Either get your money back.... or B, get it fixed for free...:D

Go back to the dealer and see if you can do a swap on another car or somthing? Maybe a cheaper one, that way you get some cash till you get another job... Double bummer.:doubt:

...i bought the car for $5000, but he wrote it down as $3000 to save me money on the transferring ownership of vehicle costs.

That's illegal, and can get you in trouble....

I'd recommend getting a mechanic to inspect your next car BEFORE you buy it.... to allow you to identify any such issues.

Cheers,
Martin.

i got done with an old nissan pulsar i bought a while back that had all the same problems. when i rocked up and asked the dealer about it he said he doesnt have to do anything about it and then i mentioned "department of fair trading" and it was fixed within the week. call them straight away and action a case against the dealer in case he tries to do the dodgey on you again.

man i hate seeing people having to go through this sort of stuff all the time

Hmmm, did you get it checked out before you bought it? Or take it for a test drive?

That's a fair few problems for a $5000 TE. I wouldn't pay over $4000 for something with that history, even if it is from a dealer. :confused:

I drove it all the way home, but i diddnt start the engine up as it was sort of a bit complicated to get it out of the car yard and i thought it best to let him do it before i smash into another car or screw the car up before i even got it lol.


Mpot: i only had the money on the day, which is why i bought it then. I did try and bring a mechanic with me but there was no one available on such short notice. basically i couldnt access all of my money for like another week and diddnt want to risk the car selling.

the noise you are getting is probably just the standard 3.0 V6 noisy valve gear. They are notorious for it. I have one that does it. Has done for 4 years.