Hey chapZ,

 

For info. purposes, my Brother bought a Renault GTA-V6 Alpine from a well respected car dealer in Altrincham, some know who I am on about. Anyway, he paid over the odds for it, got completely duped with the sales pitch and as a result the car is shagged and has been the centre of a legal battle between my boy and the twats in Altrincham for the past 18 months.

 

I have given statements for his solicitor, his wife has given statements about how they nearly killed him and his pregnant Mrs. on the A55 into Wales after they accidently fitted a throttle part round the wrong way!!! This resulted in him having the throttle jam at 100+ mph and still caining it onto the redline, shit his pants and LUCKILY managed to stop the car. They are supposedly specialists!

 

Anyway, 18 months later, ERS engine specialists telling him and his brief that the engine was well on the way out when he bought the car due to corrosion in the block as a result of a lack of proper coolant etc. etc. blah blah!

 

And he has finally got a court date, for November, however the barrister has thrown out all other evidence and they will base the whole case around the ABS car inspection report that he had done before buying the car. FUCK!

 

Now, some of you will say "but if the inspection wasn't 100 percent why did he buy the car in the first place????", simple answer is this...

 

He had a car off these people before, a Honda Prelude which was a good car, head guy of the company threw me and my Brother a major car sales pitch about how he "would take the car back if he wasn't happy with it, I will take a loss if I have to to keep you as a loyal customer!"

 

Absolute bollocks, anyway, told that the car was an every day sports car. Based around the Renault 25 which meant that it's bullet proof! Parts cheap etc. Headlamp cover is over £250 and takes half a day to fix, needs bonding. Also windscreen is £500, same as the headlight, needs proper bonding! Clutch? Engine out jobby, paint job? Cack, as Renault apparently wet sprayed onto the fibre glass! Delorean was based on this car...say no more!

 

Just bought a copy of this months Classic Car mag which has a write-up on buying a used GTA, and hey, what you know? They are not an every day sports car but a very costly car to run.

 

So, what's the whole point behind this? Be careful when taking on the dodgey car dealer...you'll be promised that you will have a sound case etc. My Brother has had to endure nearly two years of pain, financial aswell! He took out a loan for the car which means that he has been paying the monthly payments for the whole of that time. Has had to pay £500 for a barrister to look at his case, also had to pay storage costs for the car at ERS aswell as the engine strip costs...I could go on, and on here!

 

Also, while his car was in a secure lockup compound he had two of his amps nicked out of the car and because it was off the road sick...the insurance company told him that they would not cover the car. So he's lost out!

 

Also the whole court case will now be based around the ABS report, this leaves him very worried to say the least.

 

If you are looking at a 300, Glen(Senna) especially, take care and caution with you! I ended up with a bad 300, looks nice but due to stalling and bad idle is now costing me thousands. Take someone with you, forget car inspections unless they are like the RAC report for 300+ squid. This will hopefully cover you for most things.

 

Sorry to rant on about this, but just trying to get the point across that at the end of the day, the dealer is out to make money.

 

 

Tim

;-)

Hi,

I am surprised your Brother was so easily duped into thinking that a 'Renault GTA' is anything other than a specialist, hand built sportscar, with all the attendent problems.

Alpine hand built the cars at their Dieppe factory, using some Renault electrics, and of course the old 'Douvrin' V6 engine out of the Renault 25.This engine is well known for overheating, head gasket and cooling problems, and in a rear location as in the Alpine, were always going to fair badly.

The car was only called a Renault in the UK, due to the fact that the 'Alpine' name is owned by the old Rootes Group(i.e Peugeot)in this country.

I have always admired these cars (from a safe distance), but they are to 'Specialist' Dealers and Renault garages, what the 300ZX is to Nissan dealerships!

JEZ

Tim,

 

I really feel sorry for your bro, and people wonder why sometimes you have to take things into your own hands.

 

I wish him luck with the courts, I hope the f**ckers get what they deserve!!

 

Vijay

Also like to wish your bro luck.

Dealers are a bunch of creeps in my book ,Say anything just to try to close the sale ,It happend to me in the past about 3 years ago when i bought a 200 sx with a NISSAN main dealer (Better not mention any names on here )but i did get all my money back after a little bit of shouting but i had a clear cut good case (Lets just say i HPI the car and after i bought it DOH as it didnt feel right and turned out not the car he said it was by a long shot) , AND that was a main DEALER.

Makes you think !

 

Anyway Just thought i'd share that with you and hope things turn out okay .

 

Funny how a shiny new sports car (or supercar) can 'dupe' someone

Speaking as a member of the duped clan, I can vouch for how easy it is to throw cash at a dream....only for it to turn to a nightmare

Tim, I hope that this mess gets sorted m8, I really feel for your bro man, upto his ass in debt (which we all are), upto his ass in stress (which we all are), but with no fast car

Keep us all posted on progress on the GTA.. I hope you'all get a result.. sheeshh

 

Kind Regardz

Glen

 

 

Tim,

 

I'm Sorry to hear your brothers story. Its shit when this happens. It sad that someones word means jack shit these days.

 

Good luck to your bros in sorting this matter out.

 

Also respect to de Wales, lived in de Wales for 6 years and its a great place. Got mates in Anglesey, Swansea and Cardiff. Whereabouts in Wales are you and Darren from??

 

Laterz,

 

G.

 

 

Hi George

 

I am in a place called Ammanford ,Its about 20 miles from Swansea .

 

Sombody got to live here

Actually i love it here , but we're behind the times a little in Wales but at least i have the one and only 300 TT around Ammanford/Carmarthenshire ! .

 

[This message has been edited by Darren WalesUK (edited 26-06-2001).]

huh ? Has my last reply got lines through it ? or is it just my computer ?

 

Sure has, I assumed you'd gone in and edited it in some way .....