Returned car after 12 hours!

[mark44]

Just had to return a 2013 golf gti to a main dealer.

Turned out it was an ex-smokers car, which dealer must have aired out before my test drive. Got delivered to my house after work, took it back first thing next day! Absolutely stunk. Cars you can trust is thier moto - MY ****!

I exchanged it under the vw approved guarantee, but it cost me another £5k as the only alternative was a year old.

First time ever had to take a car back in 25 years of used car buying.

Very expensive lesson learned

 

[Richard1973]

The thing is, the dealer has more than likely knocked the valuation of the car because of the smoking when it was traded in, but rather than sort it properly they have tried to air it and make a bigger profit.

Sent from my SM-T365 using Tapatalk

 

[-AJC-]

You lost £5k on a car that could have been professionally cleaned for a fraction of that??

 

[ash59fifty-uk]

You lost £5k on a car that could have been professionally cleaned for a fraction of that??

I second this, it's really not hard to get rid of smoke inside a vehicle

If you can get rid of asbestos fibres in a room to a point of less than 0.1 fibres per cm cubed then you can get rid of a smoke smell- anywhere!

 

[Doodle]

You lost £5k on a car that could have been professionally cleaned for a fraction of that??

No, he paid an extra £5k and got a newer car out of it.

 

[markjay]

My understanding is that he traded a 4 years old car for a 1 year old car, hence the £5k difference. Do not exactly 'lost'.

 

[brucemillar]

Smelly cars do not always clean up to a non-smelly standard. Fag smoke and damp dog being among some of the worst culprits. You can't un-smell them.

But I don't think the OP lost money he has traded up?

 

[Alex225]

My other half's SL350 had been a smokers car, something that wasn't entirely apparent when testing it with the roof down!

Steam clean of the carpets, proper clean of the plastics and leather = no smoke smells.

Does sound like the dealership tried to pull a fast one though and probably never anticipated that someone would return the car for it. I'm not sure though, if it was me if I'd have given them a chance to get it smell free, assuming there were no cigarette burns in the car.

 

[geraldrobins]

I second this, it's really not hard to get rid of smoke inside a vehicle

If you can get rid of asbestos fibres in a room to a point of less than 0.1 fibres per cm cubed then you can get rid of a smoke smell- anywhere!

deleted

 

[ash59fifty-uk]

Asbestos doesn't smell though and what if fibres had entered soft furnishings or carpets? Tobacco smell is very difficult to get rid of in my experience

You'd chuck furnishings and carpets if any had touched them

Good thorough steam clean, shampoo, fabreeze and a few goes with a hoover and some elbow grease will rid any smoke smell

 

[-AJC-]

No, he paid an extra £5k and got a newer car out of it.

Ok that's fair enough.

 

[219]

Smelly cars do not always clean up to a non-smelly standard. Fag smoke and damp dog being among some of the worst culprits. You can't un-smell them.

But I don't think the OP lost money he has traded up?

When I bought my 190E 2.6 a bout 10 years ago , the previous owners had a large dog which had shed hair everywhere .

Due to wear on the bolster of the drivers seat , I had searched for , and found , another car with the same interior trim , so ended up removing and recovering both front seats - while the seats were out of the car , I completely filled the vacuum cleaner with dog hairs from the carpets - then shampoo'd them ; removed the back seat and shampoo'd it , as well as the new covers going into the front seats - a good weekend's work , but what a difference !

And no further problems with dog smells .

I did also have to replace the heater matrix , which was why I got the car cheap , and that was a dash out job over another day - so all in all I had pretty much the full interior out and back into that car .

 

[219]

I also remember going to look at a W126 on a used car lot - the car looked nice , but when I opened the drivers door , the smell of stale cigar smoke just about knocked me over - I just closed the door and walked away .

 

[foxy52]

I also remember going to look at a W126 on a used car lot - the car looked nice , but when I opened the drivers door , the smell of stale cigar smoke just about knocked me over - I just closed the door and walked away .

..Cautionary tale.. most drivers smoked at one time especially for cars built 30 plus years ago.... I still do I hate to admit it.. but never ever in my cars....its funny my dear old Dad smoked all his life ..but if he walked into a room,got in a car with someone elses brand of fags he would always say .. pppprrroooahhh !!! whats that smell ??!! it stinks ..!! foxy52

 

[219]

My dad , alas , was also a heavy smoker , gave up on the advice of his doctor ( our next door neighbour , so plenty of reminders ) and went back to it a number of times . Sadly , his third myocardial infarction finally was the end of it .

Having witnessed that during my childhood/youth , and been with him , holding his hand , at the very end , I've only ever smoked two cigarettes in my entire life - both times when I was very drunk !

 

[jaymanek]

We use this stuff, its great

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PJ1TV0/

 

[219]

We use this stuff, its great

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PJ1TV0/

Maybe that'll work on my socks and shoes

 

[mark44]

Smelly cars do not always clean up to a non-smelly standard. Fag smoke and damp dog being among some of the worst culprits. You can't un-smell them.

But I don't think the OP lost money he has traded up?

This is the rub. There are two schools of thought with regards to odor removal:

1) With enough effort and skill, the smell can be removed
2) You can improve it, but you will never get the smell out 100%

I have no doubt it would have been possible to be improved upon, but there was always going to be the worry of having to convince yourself the remaining 10% isn't really there or you will just 'get used to it'

As it's primarily my wife's car who along with my daughter have considerably lower smell thresholds than me, doing the whole try this - try that thing replacing one smell with another, or introduce dubious ozone machines etc, just wasn't a very appealing route when you have just forked out a big chunk of change.

Honestly, this alone was enough, but there were two additional factors that made it a boomerang. Before I took delivery, the 19" laser cut wheels were sent off for refurb by the dealer. They did an kak-handed awful job.

That and the attached image. 10MPG over the last 100 miles . I struggle to get remotely near that in the C63, and this is an efficient 2L turbo we are talking about.

Good riddance to a proper bad-un.

TBH, I would never normally buy such a new car as the replacement, but my wife is happy with it and I had earmarked the budget for a higher spec model.

This one smells too - thankfully its that new car smell

 

[Teflonso]

I used to work a lot in Sweden where the roads are wide, deserted and wooded on both sides. The big risk is elk, which run out to cross the road just when you are tanking along at a healthy speed.

An elk is best describe as like a horse but on stilts, so when you hit one the legs disappear and the body comes through the windscreen. If it doesn't actually kill you the interior gets liberally coated with Elk outsides and insides.

They reckon that you can never, ever get the smell out of the car even if you treat it to completely new upholstery. But on balance I'd prefer the smell of elk to the festering hum of soaked-in, stale tobacco.

.

 

[a111r]

I used to work a lot in Sweden where the roads are wide, deserted and wooded on both sides. The big risk is elk, which run out to cross the road just when you are tanking along at a healthy speed.

An elk is best describe as like a horse but on stilts, so when you hit one the legs disappear and the body comes through the windscreen. If it doesn't actually kill you the interior gets liberally coated with Elk outsides and insides.

They reckon that you can never, ever get the smell out of the car even if you treat it to completely new upholstery. But on balance I'd prefer the smell of elk to the festering hum of soaked-in, stale tobacco.

.

Would destroy the A & B posts, and roof, anyhow?

Merc ELK.