I bought a used car from a seemingly reputable dealer in December 2019. It was a 2012 Subaru WRX STI, it was fairly priced and the mileage was low for it's age (52k miles).
In early March, driving home, the car started making a funny noise whenever the engine went above 2000 revs. My brother in law mechanic said that's engine trouble (possibly bottom end or the crankshaft) and to get in touch with the dealer.
The car came with a 12 month warranty, and the crankshaft was listed as a covered item. What I discovered was that there was a limit of £500 per claim under the warranty, which wouldn't cover this (as the part alone cost more that that). The dealer was unwilling to help, and stopped responding to my emails. (The excuse was because of lockdown, despite their website saying they were open for servicing and repairs for keyworkers, of which I'm one).
I did some googling and contacted the citizens advice bureau. They advised that as the car was on finance, to go to them and see what they could do to help.
The finance company were great, they sent an independent engineer out to inspect the car, who believed that the problem was there when I bought the car (they think the oil pump had a problem and hadn't provided enough oil to the engine).
The finance company sided with me and got the dealer to take the car back to look at rectifying the problem. This was now at the start of June.
Around September, they told me they'd found metal filings in the engine and that the car would need a new engine, and wanted me to pay a third of the cost (around £3.5k) - the rest being split between the dealer and the finance company. After more dealings with the finance company, the garage and the finance company agreed to pay for the work between them.
Which brings me to this week, I've finally had a call to say the car is ready to collect. However, the MoT has now expired on the car and they want me to pay for that. I asked for this and they refused, advising that I could take the car to another garage for it. Fair enough, but the Subaru does attract a bit of attention, and driving 3 hours from the garage to one nearer home without an MoT isn't really an attractive option (especially as I work for the police).
Do you think I'm being unreasonable in wanting them to provide that for me for free?
My grounds being I've owned the car for 12 months, only driven it for 3 of those and it's been at the dealers for 6.5 months.
I've incurred extra expenses due to this car being off the road, mainly that I had to buy another car (just so I could continue going to work), and the length of time they've taken to repair the car does seem excessive.
The same with the warranty, 6 of the 12 months cover has been useless as the car had been off road and actually with the dealer.
Citizens advice mentioned that I might be able to make a claim for consequential losses. If this is the case, should I collect the car first and then look at doing that? Or just put it down to experience and move on?
Any advice appreciated