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Lots of problems/faults with a new Toyota Yaris, dealership unhelpful, unbiased advice needed please

Hello Honest John, we bought a new (16) Toyota Yaris Design, to replace a 13yr old (03) Yaris T Spirit, through Drive the Deal, the process went perfectly, car seemed perfect initially. First we noticed it felt very bumpy when driving, tyres seem fine, pressure ok, local Toyota dealership says its normal for the model, then for no good reason we got a power steering warning and the car stopped working, we fixing it by turning the engine off and on again, local dealer couldn't find any problem or that there ever had been a problem, now we have an intermittent bad smell that's difficult to describe; fusty, damp, rubber maybe very unpleasant it happens when the cars been parked either overnight (always in a dry garage), or sometimes just half an hour in a car park, I've tried opening/closing the vents & turning the ac on/off and can't find a pattern, I've also noticed the long pipe exhaust pipe?, underneath the car has very noticeable rust spots all over it, is this normal for the age of the car? I'm going to have to go back to the local dealership but I'm not sure I trust what they say, we had less problems in the 13 years we had the last Yaris than the 6 months we've had this one, have we been sold a lemon? And what should we do?
Many Thanks
Karen

Asked on 8 October 2016 by Karen Crawshaw

Answered by Honest John
Your legal case is against the dealer from whom you obtained the car, not the local dealer. Your contract was with the dealer from whom you bought the car. The fusty smell and the rust spots on the exhaust lead me to suspect that the car was stored in a compound that flooded, probably up to a level of about a foot. That would also explain the power steering problem. Water probably got into the steering rack. Take the car back to the dealer you bought it from and complain.
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