Bought a 2018 w176 A180, not sure whether to keep it or return it?

[anabolicslav]

Hi guys,

Bought A180 2018 w176 as per title, 11k miles on odo for £16.5k through lookers. Overall paint and inside of car looks brand new. Took it to a friend who has his garage and he found couple things.

One sides bottom of threhsold has been sanded and painted and cover for bottom of car painted too, seems like perhaps someone curbed it. Brake disks very worn out, where he said that they are at the state where they would fail MOT and pads relatively fresh, nothing in service history to suggest that pads were replaced, also having fresh brake pads + super worn out discs is very sus he said, if service history confirmed pads being replaced then yes, but it doesn't, some rust underneath but nothing major.

Error code on AC and battery, doesn't seem anything major.

My friend thinks that mileage has been clocked as brake disks are looking too bad for 11k miles, also there is some rust on bolts and some parts under the car, which he thinks is unusual for 5 year old car. (it's from town near sea). He estimates actual mileage near 60-70k

Also mileage on the HPI doesn't add up (they said it's garages typo), I have also attached service history where mileage doesnt quite add up too, which again they said garage typo

RMI MIL'GE	10/01/2023	10,541
RMI MIL'GE	04/10/2022	15,000
RMI MIL'GE	11/02/2022	13,568
RMI MIL'GE	20/10/2021	7,910
RMI MIL'GE	13/03/2021	6,475
RMI MIL'GE	01/09/2020	5,574
RMI MIL'GE	28/03/2019	2,724

Dealership said it's ex motability car, scheme run by government so they think it's impossible, extremely unlikely for someone to clock it. Not sure what to do, they offered two options

1) Full refund minues the mileage on car with £1.5 extra per mile, which will come up to ~£400 loss for me, same if they collect it

2) They paid for my local MB dealership for full diagnostics, advised that any repairs will be covered by them if I decided to keep the car and advised that there was no way it was clocked. I also have 4 year warranty on it for mechanical/electrical parts


So not sure what to do, believe them and get all repairs done and keep it, or return it for peace of mind and look into another one?

 

[grahamcol]

I agree with your friend that the brake discs shouldn't be greatly worn at that mileage of 11k miles. My gut instinct would be to return it as l feel you'll always have lingering doubts. Lots of used cars about anyway.

 

[mancman]

Once you have bought a car and your not happy with it your always gonna be unhappy so my advice is return it.

 

[ajlsl600]

As above. Or negotiate a price reduction, refund that ur happy with and get it sorted to ur stds

 

[Malcolm Johnson]

Return the car, something fishy.

 

[malcolm E53 AMG]

Take it back and get a refund!

MB keep the best cars for their forecourt with a 1 year franchise guarantee - all the rest go to the trade with a very questionable 3rd party warranty

 

[grahamcol]

There you go then. Unanimous for getting a refund so do it !!!!!

 

[anabolicslav]

Thank you guys way too fishy to keep it, going to have to eat the ~£400 loss of returning it, hopefully they wont make anything up once they get the actual car. Atm they just said that I can get full refund, just have to get the car there or pay for the collection (same price pretty much as I went over the miles)

 

[mioba]

11k and the disks are shot - they should last triple that.
The service print-outs alone look dodgy, anyone could whip that up on a computer.

Car services are every so many miles or every year - whichever comes first. The service dates you show cannot correlate to service demand of the car.

Return the car, inform trading standards (dealers need to be more diligent), put it down as a learning curve.

Good luck

 

[anabolicslav]

11k and the disks are shot - they should last triple that.
The service print-outs alone look dodgy, anyone could whip that up on a computer.

Car services are every so many miles or every year - whichever comes first. The service dates you show cannot correlate to service demand of the car.

Return the car, inform trading standards (dealers need to be more diligent), put it down as a learning curve.

Good luck

Yeah I initially thoguht the same, but who knows. Apparently it had service B at 5k miles and then another one at 5k miles if I'm not wrong?

 

[Srdl]

Another vote for return of the car. However, under Consumer Law I don’t think you should pay the £400 as the car had faults and was not as described so you are entitled to a full refund.

 

[grahamcol]

Another vote for return of the car. However, under Consumer Law I don’t think you should pay the £400 as the car had faults and was not as described so you are entitled to a full refund.

Actually l was wondering if the return charge could be avoided. I returned a car a while ago and got a full refund, no deductions.

 

[00slk]

A good scanner will be able to dive deep into the cars true mileage.
Return the car, though it may not be the fault of the dealers, they can get scammed too.

 

[brandwooddixon]

A check on V5 will show who the previous owner was. Motability cars are leased so expect it to be a company name.
I would guess that the real mileage is about 18,000 miles or more.
Brake disc wear depends on how its driven, it's possible that the previous driver has ridden the brakes, but who knows.
MB mileage is recorded in several places internally and so can be checked using the right kit.
A car from a seaside town will have a bit more surface rust due to the salty and damp air.

Still if you're really unhappy, take it back.

 

[anabolicslav]

Another vote for return of the car. However, under Consumer Law I don’t think you should pay the £400 as the car had faults and was not as described so you are entitled to a full refund.

I tried to avoid paying for “extra mileage” if I return the car or get them collect it for free, or deliver it to local garage of their chain and they refused it, I even got to manager and he refused it too, didn’t care if I go to small claims or leave bad reviews etc.. might be worth trying to do it through their complaints team

A check on V5 will show who the previous owner was. Motability cars are leased so expect it to be a company name.
I would guess that the real mileage is about 18,000 miles or more.
Brake disc wear depends on how its driven, it's possible that the previous driver has ridden the brakes, but who knows.
MB mileage is recorded in several places internally and so can be checked using the right kit.
A car from a seaside town will have a bit more surface rust due to the salty and damp air.

Still if you're really unhappy, take it back.

That’s a good call, I am still waiting for v5 which should arrive today or tomorrow, will try to check previous owners. If it was with motability the whole time as they stated (only 1 owner), then I don’t see why would they clock the mileage as they get like 60k for 3 years or 100k for 5, where 20k miles a year is too much for someone to drive, unless they were not allowed to use it for personal use so clocked down whatever they drove extra.

I was also thinking whether the dealership could swap wheels from another car and fit into this one? As overall condition of this car inside and outside is excellent, except under the car where there is corrosion all over the place, but as mechanic said not too bad to cause any trouble for next 5-6 years or so.

I will take it to local MB for diagnostics tomorrow out of curiosity as they said that they will pay for it and I can decide whether I keep the car or return for full refund(minus extra mileage or collection fee), will see what they say tomorrow and will return it after

 

[peterws1957]

I suspect that someone misread the mileage and recorded it as 10541 when it should have been 16541, which would tie in with the previous annual mileage. I say this because the same thing happened to me on one MOT which I didn't notice, so there is a mileage discrepancy of 600 miles in the car's history.

 

[anabolicslav]

A good scanner will be able to dive deep into the cars true mileage.
Return the car, though it may not be the fault of the dealers, they can get scammed too.

Is there anything in particular to look for? My friend used two scanners, which he said are top of the range and couldn’t find much apart of battery and aircon error that occurred recently, also said that with petrol cars it’s almost impossible to find clocked mileage if they sorted all error codes, apparently with diesel cars you can tell from internal components whether someone clocked a mileage. He said there is a part that is very unlikely to be replaced and it shows estimated mileage

 

[peterws1957]

A check on V5 will show who the previous owner was. Motability cars are leased so expect it to be a company name.
I would guess that the real mileage is about 18,000 miles or more.
Brake disc wear depends on how its driven, it's possible that the previous driver has ridden the brakes, but who knows.
MB mileage is recorded in several places internally and so can be checked using the right kit.
A car from a seaside town will have a bit more surface rust due to the salty and damp air.

Still if you're really unhappy, take it back.

^ This exactly . Ridden brakes seem not uncommon on Mobilty cars as does rust on cars from a seaside area. Take it back since I doubt you will be happy keeping it.

 

[anabolicslav]

I suspect that someone misread the mileage and recorded it as 10541 when it should have been 16541, which would tie in with the previous annual mileage. I say this because the same thing happened to me on one MOT which I didn't notice, so there is a mileage discrepancy of 600 miles in the car's history.

Well the odo was 11,400 when I got it and it was advertised at 11,400, so quite confused, I think the 13k and 15k mileage might be a typo where they’ve read as kilometres instead of miles as dashboard shows both, so I didnt worry much about this discrepancy. But when mechanic told me that state of the car is near 60k or perhaps even more mileage I was a bit shocked haha

 

[Blobcat]

A check on V5 will show who the previous owner was. Motability cars are leased so expect it to be a company name.
I would guess that the real mileage is about 18,000 miles or more.
Brake disc wear depends on how its driven, it's possible that the previous driver has ridden the brakes, but who knows.
MB mileage is recorded in several places internally and so can be checked using the right kit.
A car from a seaside town will have a bit more surface rust due to the salty and damp air.

Still if you're really unhappy, take it back.

V5’s don’t show much now due to GDP regs
Just number of previous owners