Just thought I’d share our experience and how a remarkable bit of luck resulted in us finding out we had bought an accident damaged DS7.
In march we purchased a 2 year old ds7 opera, which ticked all the boxes and only had just under 7,000 miles on the clock. The only negative was that it had 4 previous owners, however I stupidly was convinced by the dealer that it had come in via part exchange and was likely to have been passed between family members, hence the high ownership (note to self, go on instincts and not what the dealer says!!)
Fast forward a week of ownership and the thing would not come out of french, voice recognition was not working and the system refused to save any changes. I posted on here for any ideas but still had a niggle in the back of my mind, when I found some posts from another member about the same model and year as mine - specifically mentioning damage to the roof. My paranoid self went into overdrive, and I reached out via a PM to this member and asked if the registration of my car rung any bells. To my surprise, he had owned and rejected the car I’d bought due to some serious roof damage, poor repairs and potential water ingress I to the airbags. The member was so helpful and provided me with pictures of the damage which gave me enough evidence to reject the car for a full refund.
So in summary, if it wasn’t for this forum I could have been driving my family around in a potentially unsafe car and faced a whole heap of problems longer term. Thankfully I now have my money back and bought a DS approved used car (same age and spec) with the reassurance of a 2 year warranty. I’m loving the car, but just in case the other one reappears in the market again - AVOID a 1.6 E-Tense opera 4x4 going by the registration KS72 RCO!
Hi both - I’ve just read your post and I have actually just bought the car a week ago! I feel.like an utter fool is there any help or advice you can give me at all?
I wasn’t told about the water leak, voice recognition not working but have been told the roof repairs were completed and all looked fine from what I could tell and the car passed an AA inspection and HPI check.
The vehicle keeps defaulting to french and have been told it just needs to go to the dealer for an update.
Is there any advice or help you can give me at all?
Hi Mike, I’ve just sent you a DM, I would be very surprised if the damage has been repaired, as the car has been rejected back to the last 2 selling dealers and would not think either would have invested in significant and costly repairs to send to auction.
I had the car last year for 3 months, and all seemed good. After a month I had it into DS Leicester for a software update. They were unable to do it due to the damage of the Ariel, had water in it. I instructed them to look into it, and replace unfortunately or fortunately they found serious damage to the car under the roof; including airbags, roof, moulding, rear tailgate, and other. I did eventually manage to receive a refund from Motorpoint Derby, though they tried very hard to wriggle out of all responsibility. I hope you manage to get a full refund. Stick to your guns. That car is dangerously damaged and should not be allowed to be sold.
Good luck with the return and refund. I think this maybe a case to bring to the attention of the Ombudsman, especially with the evidence from the forum.
Just a note for others, if a car is damaged and an insurance claim IS NOT made it is never recorded as damaged.
Thanks so much for all the quick responses - especially from Richard and Chris.
I’ve started the rejection process with the dealer and the finance company but with some additional information given to me today by the previous unfortunate owners I hope it should be a quick shut and dry case to get the car returned.
Such a shame someone has bodged this vehicle in the past as it’s a beautiful car. Despite doing my own HPi, having an auto trader HPi and the AA inspection it goes to show how far some garages will go to unload a troublesome car.
I’ll aim to keep the forum updated but next port of call is trading standards and the dealer is calling me Monday to discuss further.
I just thought I’d share an update - I have managed to reject the vehicle with the dealer - although he did everything to make it as difficult as possible.
They’ve refunded the majority of my deposit (long story short will get the reminder once the dealer gets it back from the finance company) and the process has started to unwind the finance.
keep your eyes peeled as it will most likely appear for sale again in the near future.
Thank you once again to the original poster of this topic as your additional info and evidence helped massively understand the history of the car but also the issues that were present when the dealer bought it into stock.
Keep those eyes peeled for KS72 RCO - beautiful car but riddled with issues and unfortunately sub standard repairs
Glad you managed to get it sorted and pleased to have helped. Just a shame there’s no easy way to get the car marked to stop another person ending up with this lemon. As you say, the car looks beautiful on the outside but is far from that under the skin
Just as an update, although it seemed to be a dead-end informing DVSA/DVLA, I have uploaded all the damage and pictures to the online car history check website Vcheck and they have accepted it (this is used by a lot of dealers, as it shows any undeclared damage through scrap auctions too), so it will now show if anyone does a full check on the car through Vcheck. At least it’s out there via another means that might alert future purchasers
That’s amazing - fingers crossed it makes it a lot harder to trade on and hide the car. I have reported it to trading standards but who knows if they will take action.
Also reported the dealer to the AA since they are affiliated with them - try all avenues to ensure someone else doesn’t become the 4th victim
On a more positive note been enjoying DS7 ownership now for two weeks - found an identical DS7 Etense Opera but with the grey leather interior I wanted from the start. although paid a little more than I wanted, the service from Arnold Clark was beyond amazing.
Car is fantastic and everything I wanted and more.
