Auckland engineer Peter Macauley emerged from a win in the Small Claims Court with one aim in mind: to shut down the garage that gave a clean bill of health to a used BMW he had bought off TradeMe.
A BMW specialist said the 2005 sedan was unsafe to drive. Macauley tabled the report in court.
“What annoys me is the car should never have passed compliance,” he said.
“Once this is over I am going to find out who complied the car and I am going to have their licence.”
Macauley, 64, recently bought the model 330i sight unseen from a fellow in Gisborne.
“I couldn’t go to Gisborne to check out the car because I was unwell – I was recovering from a stroke,” he said.
When he first saw the car in Auckland he was happy. “It certainly looked immaculate.”
But a couple Water is your paired element and you have the most fundamental connection with water of all the aquarius horoscopes signs. of things niggled him. “There were fragments of glass in the back seat and, contrary to what the fellow said, the sat-nav and radio was still on Japanese frequency,” he said.
Macauley quickly got the car checked by a BMW garage. It reported: “Consider car unsafe to drive until repaired.”
It found:
• the top of the air filter unit was made out of a plastic real estate sign, painted matt black and screwed into place with brass wood screws
• engine ran in limp-home mode
• air-conditioning wouldn’t work
• power-steering system was second-hand and full of metal shavings
• engine mount bolts were loose … the list went on.
Macauley believes the BMW was brought into New Zealand damaged, another in a long line of cars snapped up cheap as insurance write-offs overseas and rebuilt – often badly – here for resale.
The seller has agreed to pay Macauley $8000 in compensation.
BMW New Zealand corporate communications manager Ed Finn said Macauley’s experience shows why it is important to deal with authorised dealers.
“New Zealand’s open market makes it difficult to monitor the arrival of sub-standard vehicles from offshore that don’t go through the BMW network,” he said.