Rough Trader, I just think one way or another, you have to get the car seen by an independent garage. Carcraft have had more than enough opportunity to fix the problem and, as you say, you are now in a life-sapping circle with them. I would be getting onto Trading Standards, Citizens Advice, anyone who could tell me my rights on this one. It seems to me that Carcraft are unable to fix the problem, you have given them every opportunity and now it is time to get a proper garage to take a look but whatever is needed should be funded by Carcraft, I cannot believe that they can have any kind of defence in this situation. But I am no expert and I have just had my own backside well and truly slapped by Carcraft myself but in the end decided to bite the bullet, just get the car fixed and pay the necessary. Not exactly the fighting spirit that is needed against the cowboys of this world but it's fixed now, learn from the mistake and move on. And if I can get a few digs in against them on forums such as this from time to time and put a few people off from giving them their hard earned cash then I will.

When I had my Starter Motor trouble with the car I bought from Carcraft, I was told by the man there that "by law" they had to be given three opportunities to fix the problem before I could start talking refunds etc.

Well, the warranty was "free" but as the poster above says, it is always hidden in whatever you pay for the car. I do believe people have paid extra for this warranty in the past and if that is the case and it is the same warranty I had then I feel doubly sorry for those people.

The problem is, I DID contact Carcraft and they simply said that as it was over 3 months since I purchased the car, it was out of their hands and that I should contact NAC. Thanks for your feedback anyway. The upshot is that they may have made a few quid out of me this time but they will never get a penny out of me ever again and I will advise everyone I know not to buy a car from Carcraft. So, they saved on this occasion but in the long run, it will cost them ten times more.

Basically, in the case of Carcraft, just don't buy from there. If you insist then just be aware that you are getting little more protection than if you were to buy privately from some guy in the newspaper who you don't even know. The car you can buy privately for £4k will be available from Carcraft for £6k so by buying from the private seller, you have £2k in your pocket for any repairs that you might need to have done in the first three months. If you get by for three months without the need to make a repair to the private sale car then you are ahead of the game because if the car you buy from Carcraft needs any repairs after three months then they will not want to know and you will be liable anyway. Don't fall for their "Two Year Guarantee", it is not worth the paper it is written on. Even in the rare event that the repairs your car needs to have are covered by the guarantee, they only cover the first £300. Just be aware that Carcraft are not in the business of selling quality cars, they are in the business of selling finance which is far more lucrative for them.

Just as an aside to this post. Can anyone answer me this? When you buy a USED car, is there ANYTHING that can go wrong with it that can not be put down to wear & tear? I mean, if you bought a BRAND NEW car, drove it 100 yards off the forecourt and it died then technically, even that could be put down to wear & tear. The car was perfectly fine when it was stood there doing nothing. It was only when you decided to use it that the problem emerged. Of course this is a ridiculous example. Anything sold has to be fit for purpose and a brand new car that breaks down after 100 yards was clearly not fit for purpose. However, in the case of a used car then surely the risk has to be on the side of the vendor? Personally, I feel that so-called "reputable" dealers have to take more responsibility for the products they sell. Carcraft seem to be okay within three months but this seems a strange timescale. I am a low-mileage user so a problem was not picked up until five months. Had I hammered the car when I first bought it then this problem would have materialised sooner (I do not consider 2000 miles to be a lot of miles before a £5.5k car dies). Surely the law needs to be changed with regards to this so that it is more like warranty covers EVERYTHING for 6 months or 6k miles (whichever is LATER), just as is the case with NAC Guarantees and their Servicing requirement.

I purchased a 54 reg (registered Dec 2004) Focus from Carcraft at the end of April. Within a couple of months, the starter motor had gone. Because it was within three months Carcraft replaced it for me (I did start a thread on this board at the time but gave them thumbs up because I could not complain at the time about how they dealt with me.) However, since that thread, within two weeks of having the new starter motor fitted, it had gone again. I was not happy to take it back to Carcraft as I wanted it to be seen by an independent garage. They took out the broken starter and replaced it with a new one. They told me at the time that the starter fitted was a cheap foreign imported one. Anyway, this cost me a couple of hundred but I was happier to pay this than take it back to Carcraft only for them to fit another rubbish one that could have died again within a fornight. Yesterday, I noticed a noise whenever I depressed the clutch. I took it to my own garage this morning and they said it was the flywheel and this is a bigger job (around £700) and told me to get it sorted with my guarantee. (My garage was not happy to work with the Guarantee company however because of the agro they have getting paid from these people). Now, I have a two year Guarantee with NAC (Carcraft's own Guarantee company although they try to make out it is a completely different company). I took the car to their approved garage (Nationwide Garage) and they called the NAC for me. They were told that the maximum payout on any one claim was just £300. When I checked the booklet, this is indeed stated. So, I had a £700 repair job on my hands, £400 of which is my own responsibility. I had no choice but to ask them to proceed. I received a call from the garage a few minutes ago informing me that they had called the NAC after stripping the car down and obtaining a proper diagnosis and had been told that because the flywheel had been worn, it was not covered. So, I am now in a position where I have to foot the entire £700 bill myself. As I said, I bought the car at the end of April (24th April, I think) and I have literally done just around 2k miles and this is the second thing that has gone wrong with it during that time. I rang NAC myself and was met with a typically arrogant man who was not going to give an inch. The flywheel IS covered in the guarantee but not wear & tear so I asked what exactly would it cover and being sarcastic said, "if it snapped in half?" to which he responded "yes, basically". I will never ever buy a car from Carcraft again and please don't be fooled by their "Two year Guarantee". It covers basically nothing and even if it does cover anything that goes wrong, it is only the first £300 (which just about covers the bill for a mechanic lifting the bonnet and telling you what the problem is). It does not make me feel any better when I ring Carcraft and the delightful lady there says, "Well, it is a FREE guarantee"!!! Something just doesn't sit right with me though that I can buy a £5.5k car and within five months of having it, having driven just 2,000 miles, two seperate things have gone wrong with it and Carcraft and NAC can simply shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, it WAS a second hand car, things can go wrong with them and we cannot see into the future and say what exactly will happen with it." Especially when you are sold the car, one of the selling points was a "Two Year Parts & Labour Guarantee". Whilst it is unfortunate that most people will only visit this board and see this message when it is too late, just in case you are passing and you're reading this, my message is clear. No matter how desperate you are, no matter how attractive the sales blurb, no matter how tempted you are, I would strongly, strongly advise you NOT to purchase a car from Carcraft. My own experience has shown me that they are happy to charge top dollar for cars which can break down after minimal usage and basically say "tough" when you go back to them.

Received a phone call from Carcraft this afternoon around 4.30pm telling me my car was ready. It had needed a new starter motor and something to do with the alternator belt & tensioner. I was a little surprised that they didn't volunteer some kind of written note of the work that had been done until I insisted on it and the chap looked a little taken aback when I did insist on it but there you go. I have just driven the car back from there (which involved a short motorway stretch) and nothing has fell off, so, touch wood, all seems to have been sorted. I must admit, I went into this situation on Monday expecting a hellish experience but with the problem reported on Monday and my car back with me on Thursday with a courtesy car in the interim, I can only say that my experience has been A1. I'm sure sometimes things do go wrong and it must be immensely frustrating for those people and I am not defending Carcraft at all but I was going to report on here "warts and all" my own experience and that is what I have done. In fact, the whole experience has taught me a valuable lesson. The courtesy car they gave me was a bog-standard 55 plate Corsa - I will NEVER buy a Corsa! A shopping trolley powered by a hairdryer.

Yes, that sounds like a very reasonable plan of action. To be fair however, I have just received a call from Carcraft (yes, they called me, I didn't need to chase) and they have told me what the problem is, that the new parts have been ordered today and work should commence on Friday. To murky the waters somewhat, I am actually going on a family holiday to Wales on the 2nd August so I really wanted the car back before then and I have told them this and was told today that it should be ready well before then (I would expect the work to be finished within 3 working days at a maximum really). I am hoping to get the car back with a few days to spare before I go away so that I can get it independently checked before taking it on holiday (I am likely to be doing over 500 miles during the week in Wales and I will be sweating until I get my confidence in the car back). Of course, all of this is talk right now and I will only be fully satisfied when I get the car back (hopefully next Tuesday at the latest) and it is independently checked over and found to be in satisfactory condition. However, I must say that yesterday's complete communication back-out aside, I cannot complain too much about the service so far but I can only give a true assessment when the whole episode is over one way or the other. As I said in my original post, I have had to stamp my feet a bit and have had to be quite assertive with them otherwise, they would not have given me the courtesy car and they would have had my car sitting idle until the 28th July. But so far, the episode doesn't seem quite the horror story others have experienced with Carcraft circa 2006-2007 so maybe they are shaping themselves a bit these days because they know their reputation is in the gutter. I'll keep everyone posted on the outcome of this.

Bought a car from Carcraft exactly three months ago (was quite amusing reading the other threads on here about the sales bombardment other users have experienced when buying from these people and after having your head battered for five hours, you really do just want to get out of there... but I digress). On Sunday, the engine suddenly started making a strange grinding and hammering noise which did not sound at all healthy. Obviously, I had to wait until Monday to ring the NAC (the Warranty Carcraft give you). When I got through to them, they told me that due to the short period of time that I had owned the car, I should really go back through Carcraft. Little alarms bells were ringing already but I did as I was told. I told them the problem, that the car was pretty much undriveable due to this horrendous (and worrying) noise. They told me the earliest they could book me in was the 28th July. Now bear in mind, I was calling on the 20th July and this is just to LOOK at the car, repairs would obviously take any return of the vehicle beyond that date. I told them that eight days just to get the car booked in was unacceptable and after much stamping of feet, a few phonecalls to various departments and I was given authority to take the car to one of their "Approved Repairers", Nationwide Garage straight away. They told me that they were instructing Nationwide to do a "diagnostics" and then report back to Carcraft with the findings and they would decide what to do once the problem (and, I presume cost to fix etc) was known. So, I took the car there and a few hours later, I receive a call from Carcraft saying that the car was being taken back to Carcraft's garage. Obviously, I am now going a bit berserk because I had already been told that they couldn't do anything for eight days and I stamped my feet a bit more and they kindly agreed to give me a courtesy car. However, they would not tell me what was wrong with MY car. I spoke to the man at the Nationwide Garage and he told me that because Carcraft were paying the bill for the diagnostic, he could not tell me what was wrong with my car. This was all yesterday and today, the car was taken to Carcraft and I had to go back to Nationwide to pick up the courtesy car. Again, no one would tell me anything about my car. I rang Carcraft when I got home and was told some absolute cock and bull by Carcraft that they cannot tell me what is wrong with my car because they have not received the report from Nationwide (thirty years ago, this might have been a valid excuse but in these days of faxes, emails, telephones and other methods of digital distribution, this is by far the most laughable thing I have heard). After much more stamping of feet, the nice lady at Carcraft Customer Services said that I should think myself lucky - most customers don't receive a courtesy car. Funnily enough, I had not thought of it in that way. This glass is definitely half-empty. She told me she would ring me back today or, if she had no further news, then it would be tomorrow. I'm not holding my breath. However, a few points spring to mind here:- 1) As the owner of the vehicle, is it not my right to know of any findings made by Nationwide Garage, regardless of who paid for the report? 2) If Carcraft have taken the car back without knowing the findings from Nationwide then what was the point of instructing Nationwide to perform the diagnostic? (My feeling is that either Nationwide didn't perform the diagnostic and they just did all this to shut me up yesterday OR the findings were so bad that I have been driving myself and my familiy around in a potential death trap for the last three months). 3) If I can never know what was in that report, how can I ever know and be fully satisfied in my mind that the car has been fixed properly? I can hardly take it to an independent garage and say, "can you check the car, something has been fixed, but I don't know what, but I want to know if they have fixed it properly". I must say that there seem to be an awful lot of conflicts of interests here and none are in my favour.