When neighbours car dies due to neglect.

[Konrad C]

This week my neighbours '05 Vauxhall Meriva totally broke. Apparently there is a hole in the block if the engine. The first I knew was when the wife asked me to help push the car closer to their house. 

I am telling this story because when I had my old Mk1 Avensis, the husband would say what's wrong with my car, when I was doing an oil change. I said nothing is wrong, just carrying out servicing. He would also say, "isn't it time you changed the car?" It's old. I think one time I said "If you are buying".  

I would ask him "when last have you had the car serviced?" He replied "It doesn't need servicing" or "Not since we got it". They owned the car since 2013 if I remember correctly.

Over the last few weeks the engine started to make loud rattling noises. I thought to myself, if they don't get it fixed, it may let go! They were planning to change the car in August/September, but the car did not last long enough. Now they have to hire a car until they get a replacement. Also they will not get anything for Meriva because it is only fit for scrap. 

They have lost out, and I hope they have learned a lesson regarding car care and servicing. 

[Anthony Poli]

There isn't much the car makers can do for these people.

Probably don't care that the fuel economy is getting worse

[yossarian247]

An unfortunately common attitude I find. It's perhaps testament to the reliability of cars these days that they can stand this sort of treatment and keep going for as long as they do. A former colleague of mine used to say 'I never have my car serviced as the garage will just pretend there's something wrong with it so they can charge extra...' Where I work now there's a car often parked near to mine that has been driven for weeks with one of the tyres worn right down to the cords.

It occurred to me recently that, whereas as I check the tyre pressures and under bonnet levels on our cars at least fortnightly, I've never once seen any of our neighbours doing the same with their cars.

[mickburkesnr]

Reminds me of a conversation my Dad was having with my sister when she was learning to drive. I think she had asked him for a car and he refused, saying she wouldn't know how to look after a car. She said she did, so he asked her "Alright so how do you change a tyre?". Her response: "Call the RAC".

Thing is, and I'm putting my hatred of Vauxhalls aside, your neighbour won't blame his inadequate basic maintenance for the car breaking down. He'll blame the quality of the car or manufacturer. They will be the ones who buy brand new cars because they won't need anything doing, and will drive them in to the ground mechanically and hand it back after 3 years. I got conned like this I think with my Peugeot 3008 that I bought second hand from the main Peugeot dealer. It was 4 years old, needed a new clutch and flywheel at 60,000 miles and the turbo is about to go kaput. What have I done about it? It's sat on my driveway waiting for October to come for me to throw it back to Peugeot (it's on finance). In the mean time, I paid a friend of my mother-in-law-to-be £250 for her 1998 Corolla which is fine aside from a small gearbox leak and shoddy paintwork. But it suits me, and will help me save up towards buying a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Personally I have never seen anyone check their car for oil or tyre pressures. My sister hasn't on her Yaris. But again, it's a finance car and it'll be handed back in a month or two. I may forget about the tyres, but I do check them before I get in the car to make sure they're not flat. But I think a lot of drivers and car owners think the cars are so new and modern they don't need maintenance, they should just work.