Buying a car can be really stressful. It can be hard to know if car salesmen are being honest or not.

In today’s story, one family has a nightmare experience while buying a car. When they realize how problematic the car is, they are determined to get a refund, but it’s not easy.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

No money back? We’ll see about that

A few years ago when my kids were 3 and 7, we were looking for a new car for my wife.

After scouring auto trader (we are in the UK), we saw a Mazda Xedos 6, decent mileage, couple of owners, in a small traders down south.

It was about an hour away so we hopped in my car and went to look at it.

Everything seemed to go really well.

We arrived at the site, which had some decent looking cars and it was a nice and tidy place so didn’t ring any alarm bells.

We were greeted by one of two Romanian brothers who seemed knowledgable, and pretty free of the hard sell.

I had a look round the car, very little rust, oil looked clean, tidy inside with not too much wear, the only two things I found was the head unit panel was not in place correctly, and one of the brackets by the engine had a bit of a dent in it, but it was a non-functional bracket and it didn’t appear to have a prang so OK.

Took it for a test drive and it was OK, my wife liked it so we paid part cash, part card.

Now there’s a problem.

A few days later after sorting the insurance, we went and collected it.

By the time we got home my wife got out and immediately said “There’s something wrong with this car”.

I took it for a drive and yes it had low power, sounded terrible and didn’t feel safe.

I immediately rang them and they were pleasant enough, and said bring it back and they would have their garage look at it (the same garage that had MOT’d it barely two weeks earlier).

He had his garage look at the car.

I said I didn’t want to bring it back and would pay out of my pocket to get it assessed by my garage.

They didn’t like this but I didn’t give them a choice.

After a couple of days of being at my local garage who we have used for years and trust, even though they are a bit pricey, we got the report.

It ran to two pages which I will summarise using the comment the mechanic gave us when we picked it up.

“Mechanically this is the worst car I have ever seen, how it passed an MOT is beyond me, you wouldnt have seen it on a visual inspection, but this is a nail.”

oh dear.

The car dealer still sounded nice.

So I rang the dealer and sent them the report.

Again pleasant enough, said bring it back and we can discuss it, and sort out the refund.

Cue the MC.

They were quite disappointed when they heard what the dealer had to say.

So the following Saturday, now 1.5 weeks since we bought it, we all trooped back down there, and walked into their little portocabin office.

The two brothers were sat their with faces like slapped arses.

“I will tell you now Sir, you will not be getting a refund today, not until our garage has checked it.”

My wife and I looked at each other and our hearts sank.

He and his wife were on the same page.

What followed was an hour of back and forth, with me explaining that we were within our rights to a full refund within 30 days of purchase (now this is true for goods in the UK, but I had no idea if this applied to vehicles).

After an hour my wife and I stepped outside, the kids were getting bored and fractious.

“What are we going to do?” Says my wife

“Well I’m not leaving without a refund.” I said.

“Agreed”

The argument went on and on.

And that was it.

We went back into that office, we argued back and forth, revisited the same point over and over while the kids moaned, cried, begged to leave. but we sat there, and we argued, very calmly, very matter of factly, without getting angry or raising our voices.

At a couple of points, one brother left to serve people who had walked into the yard, and at one point he came in with another couple who were interested in a car.

They heard us talking.

The brothers were not happy.

I slyly shook my head at the couple, and they backtracked and left.

One of the brothers was raging behind his eyes.

They threatened to call the police.

I begged them to do it so we could clear this up and leave.

They didn’t.

The brothers were listening to their conversation.

After, and I am not exaggerating, 5 hours of this, my wife and I stepped out and were stood just outside the office door.

“Look we can’t stay here my longer, the kids are hungry and tired and mental.” My wife says.

I saw the door open barely an inch.

“Ok, take my car and go and feed them. I’m not leaving. I think I’ll just call the police and get this sorted, but if I have to stay here until tomorrow morning we are getting our money back.” I said

I noticed the door close again.

His wife isn’t sure what he’s up to.

“Really?” She said.

“Just give it a minute, lets go back in a sec”

“OK” she says looking irritated.

We go back in and one brother is counting out cash on the table.

At this point its early evening.

Finally, a refund!

“Sir the deal we will do is, we will give you a full refund, if you don’t mention this car on any review site. It was X in cash and X on a card yes?”

Less than five minutes later we were back in our car leaving the nail behind, cash in hand and card refunded.

We had found a pub that does food and were heading there rapidly.

The kids were OK now they knew food was near.

They were so happy with how things turned out!

With everything sorted my wife and i looked at each other for a second and cheered, wooped, hollered, banged the steering wheel (making the little lad cry bless him).

We could not believe that after 5 hours of back and forth, crying kids, beligerent salesmen, we had WON.

We had flipping well won!

This sort of thing never happened to us, and yet there we were. We felt like the kings of the world and no-one would ever mess with us.

What a huge, frustrating mess! This shows that persistence really does pay off.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

The kids were very patient.

This sounds like a good idea.

They definitely deserved to get a refund.

This person shares a theory about what might’ve happened.

Another person hopes OP still left a bad review.

Here’s a suggestion about how to write a negative review without breaking the agreement with the car dealer.

Looks like a negative review is in order!

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.