You either don't say, and/or don't know, why it won't start.

Could be cam belt work related, might not be, could be expensive, could be so cheap and easy to fix any decent garage would fix in five minutes.

Need that answered to go further I think.

Thanks to you both. Apologies I'd taken out some material information in order to shorten my question.

I'd like to test the water with my argument on Lucy's £1,000 or less point first though, if I may.

I don't think the price itself carries much weight (I paid pretty much "book" price), as it is merely a market value determined by other factors, age, spec, mileage, condition.

This was an '02, basic model with 50k miles in good condition. Given that it's only 9 years old (you can get breakdown insurance fairly cheaply up to 15 years old) with such low mileage, how could the notional "reasonable person" consider it to be of satisfactory quality if it only survived 3 months/4,000 miles?

Dealing with the SlidingPillar's point, I don't know what the problem is, but the chap from the breakdown company speculated that the head gasket had gone. This, apparently, should mean that it would restart though, unless it resulted in other damage. My wife was on a busy single-carriageway A-road at rush hour when she got an initial loss of power (and a lot of exhaust smoke) and tried to continue on to find somewhere to pull in, but the first layby was occupied by a lorry and she didn't make it as far as the next, so that is a possibility.

It would be nice to know exactly what the problem is, but it's now sitting on our driveway and won't go anywhere under its on steam, so simply finding out what is wrong will involve further cost. We've already spent far more on it than we'd intended so I feel loathed to spend more money on it if I'm able to hold the seller to account.

Please can you confirm that you are essentially advising that I do get some independent (of the seller, servicing garage and me) opinion that:

1. it is/isn't the cambelt that's the problem?
2. and if possible what the actual problem is and how much it might cost to rectify.

If it involves me in cost demonstrating that it is an issue that the seller should deal with, can I recover those costs? I'd just understood that the onus was on him.

Edited by humptydumpty on 09/05/2011 at 17:22

It's a nine year old car with no service history. Assuming you were told this at the time I don't think you could have had any reasonable expectations of it more than getting it home and tootling about in it for a week or two.Anything above that is a bonus

If you buy a car at this level you should do so on the basis of accepting the loss and you should always have decent breakdown insurance with relay and homestart, particularly if they are to be used by loved ones..

You can have a great deal of fun and save a great deal of money running cars at this level but don't expect the dealer to compensate you for every fault.

You may be offended by the title but If you need to read up then the bible is James Rppert's excellent Bangernomics.

www.bangernomics.com

Thanks all for the responses. I've been given the details of someone honest/reliable that can look at the car and advise on how best to cut my losses.