I don’t do this often but I’ve just had an interesting discussion with DRT Auto used car sales and servicing company in Clydach Swansea. A brief history; I saw DRT Auto advertising a few cars on ebay and decided to pop up to Clydach and see what used cars they had in stock. A rather nice Mazda MX6 caught my eye and we started it up and made the basic checks. I spoke to the owner who seemed very defensive when I asked about his returns policy/warranty. He told me outright, they’ll bring it round, I’ll go for a drive and if anything’s wrong, he’ll give my money back.

The day came and DRT autos did indeed deliver the car, pointed out the absence of one brakelight and then left… no test drive, no checks, no nothing. I sorted out the insurance and went for a quick spin around the block. (I’m not used to manual cars so didn’t put any pressure on it.). I picked up Yovina in it, dropped her off and picked her up the next day. Looking outside the window, I noticed a large puddle, after investigation it was spewing water from the water pump. Driving it in this condition will damage the engine, so it’s housebound. Also checking through MOT rules (which is due shortly), the handbrake cable was dangerously loose, one other rear light was missing, and the drivers seatbelt didn’t retract smoothly… Thus making it unfit for purpose under the sale of good act. It also makes it dangerous. Non-essential problems include interior boot light full of water, the heater blower and a/c didn’t work. The latter are convenience items and therefore not much hassle for me to fix.

I called DRT Autos straight away and started with the Water pump which they said they would sort. 3 days later, I called them back and they now want to charge me for the repair work and part!

After research, selling a vehicle in this condition is illegal and I am fully in the belief that they are completely liable to repair these issues or offer a full refund. They unfortunately aren’t liable for the heater resistor pack I bought, the Haynes manual or spare bulbs. I will be contacting Trading standards in the morning because DRT Autos is not conforming to UK law, have given me a rather expensive and dangerous oversized paperweight when I asked for a car, which I could drive, road worthiness should have been assumed. Trade Centre Wales have just been fined £5000 for a similar case.

In the meantime, I have no car to speak of and am fuming. I have places to go and more importantly, Yovina needs to get to work every day!

*UPDATE 9th March 2010*

Phoned the garage back, I’ve decided to get them to do the work paid or not. If they do charge me, and it wasn’t just an error, I will then go through trading standards. I spoke to the same guy who said the mechanic had a heart attack and is in hospital so they probably can’t do it this week… Part of me wants it to be true so that they’re not just making excuses, the other part doesn’t because well… heart attacks aren’t good. He also told me it should be ok to drive provided I keep topping up with water… do I believe him? I’m not sure. Posted this question on an MX6 forum so will see what the replies are.

*UPDATE 10th March 2010*

Had a missed call at 8am this morning from DRT Auto. I called back mid afternoon and spoke to the same person as yesterday. The guy who suffered the heart attack is back at work today. (In the days of the credit crunch, I doubt DRT Autos offer sick pay (although I could be wrong) so a speedy recovery is essential.) The person I spoke to said he would come round after work to have a look at it… 20:16pm he’s not arrived… 11th March – Still heard nothing. Will try calling again but keep getting engaged tone… This blog is currently top in Google for ‘DRT Autos’

*UPDATE 11th March 2010*

DRT Auto Mechanic with a heart attack is off again. He offered to come by tonight but I arranged to take the car to their garage tomorrow at 11… At least there I can’t get fobbed off or ignored.

*UPDATE 18th March 2010*

I went in last Friday, the heart-attack mechanic had a look and confirmed it was the water pump. I mentioned the ABS light (which is an MOT failure and potentially dodgy brakes) he just swore about his own nightmare with these and says it’s pretty much a gamble when they come on and off. I tried to explain mine was always on but he went back to another car he was servicing complaining that the water pump replacement was going to be a hellishly long job.

The boss came wandering over and asked if he’d ordered the part, I said I have no idea, he wandered off, came back and said they’ll call me in a couple of days to collect and repair the car… almost a week on, I’ve heard nothing…

*UPDATE – 29th March*

DRT auto still don’t have the part. I phoned Eurocarparts (5 mins from Clydach) and they said they would have one the following day. Indeed they did. I now have a water pump and various other parts needed to make this car roadworthy and legal. The ABS brake problem I’ll need to head to a garage for, as with the brake fluid leak I can’t find. I frankly no longer trust DRT Auto to fix so I have been advised to keep all receipts for any parts and labour and Trading standards will hopefully be working to claim as much back from the garage as possible.

When I first visited, the mechanic (the one who later had a heart attack) complained of people braking into the grounds, smashing windscreens etc. I have a feeling I know why, they probably sold them a car too.

*UPDATE – 10th April 2010*

It’s official, I sent the car in for an MOT. Rear brake disks excessively pitted. Excessive play in steering system, Serious leak in 1 shock absorber leaving it with negligible damping effect, parking brake recording little or no effort, ABS faulty.

I found the brake fluid leak and tightened a bolt to keep it contained. I have also given the seatbelts a good clean to aid their retraction so these managed to get through. Alarmed at everything else wrong with it. Drove in with MOT report he booked me in on Monday to repair and booked an MOT on Tuesday.

*UPDATE 19th April 2010 *

Brought car in to DRT Autos in Clydach as requested on the Monday for repair. He sent me to the cafe to talk to heart attack guy for costings… At this stage I don’t care about prices, I just need this done before I commit suicide. We walked back up to the garage and he made a list of parts. He then sent me home and said he’d order the parts in and give me a call then started whining about their incompetent suppliers… deja vu here, we’ve done this bit with the water pump… They still don’t have one of these in the garage, I asked. I guess we’re missing the MOT booking tomorrow then Dave? 6 weeks and counting. Still no water pump, and quickly losing my sanity!

DO NOT USE DRT AUTO IN CLYDACH, THEY SOLD ME AN UNROADWORTHY VEHICLE ILLEGALLY AND HAVE BEEN NOTHING BUT TROUBLE EVER SINCE

I occasionally watch these ‘customs’ docusoaps on TV where they send drug sniffer dogs into airports and cut open children’s books to find stashes of cocaine in the cover. It’s all fascinating stuff, and it’s amazing to see what people try and get away with.

I’ve always wondered however, what happens if they get it wrong? What if they cut up an expensive camera only to find it filled with the usual set of electronics, or deface a child’s toy to find it completely empty or harbouring a little sand from the beach?

Today I found out, they just put the pieces back in the box and deliver it. A friend returned a USB 3G modem and cable from Australia by post. Thankfully the modem survived, but the cable is unusable:

There were no stickers on the package, no apology, no £5 cheque for a replacement cable, just a broken cable and bits of surgically removed plastic! I don’t know if it was done by UK or Australian customs, I don’t know why, they didn’t even bother to properly reseal the package, it was just stuck down with the same glue Jen used to package it to start with and dropped through my letterbox by the postman.

I hope this doesn’t happen too often, think of those children opening a stuffed bunny birthday present only to find it had been decapitated by some overzealous customs official.

Thank you whoever you are, for not cutting up the modem and various other things I have posted from abroad. Next time, a little post-it with a handwritten ‘Sorry’ would have been enough for something of this value. At least that way I’d accept it’s part of your job to destroy other people’s things.

After buying a tripod for the animal rescue video project (more on that later), I decided to experiment. This is my first attempt at a virtual tour. If I can perfect the technique, perhaps we can offer it as a service. For the time being however, there are too many niggling problems at the moment.

Not bad, but could be better. Click and drag image to view. (may take a while to load on slow connections)

Some people have commented on my use of ‘coffee expert’ mentioned in blogs, business cards and website. I once worked as a manager of a coffee shop in Hemel Hempstead. My proudest achievement there was trebling the coffee bar turnover by arranging outdoor seating with the council, at the time it was strangely unheard of, at least we were the only ones doing it.

Anyway as part of my training I had to learn everything there is to know about coffee from it’s origins right through to taste variations of different beans, altitudes and even soil types. After what was a surprisingly interesting course, I could make an educated guess on the regional origins of any unblended quality coffee from just one sip.

The ‘serving suggestions’ part was a much shorter course unfortunately so we never covered coffee art. Check out below, it’s much easier than it looks, I’m going to try some!

Google have been approaching the social market for some time, rumours have spread about the potential to buy Twitter, at one point Facebook were also eyeing up this microblogging platform before taking their own steps and adapting their news feed into a media rich frenzy of status updates, chipmunk videos and people finding strange objects in their farms.

Today Google have launched Google Buzz, it does everything the ‘better’ facebook version does but has the portability of Twitter, it also allows you to integrate all your existing social networking activities into one including Google’s own profile pages. Finally with Gmail integration, it’s easy to keep up to date without an extra window. It works on iphone and android mobile devices out of the box. so head down to http://buzz.google.com and watch the official Google Buzz video below.

So far I’m following just a couple of people, none of whom have actually made their first update, it’s a little quiet but as Google have a huge number of subscribers already to it’s other services, who knows where this will end up.

Will it replace Twitter? Not yet, Facebook tried and haven’t but there is potential for it to grow quickly with it’s subscriber base so watch this space.

Google talk hasn’t replaced Live Messenger, Google voice hasn’t replaced Skype, Google Docs hasn’t replaced MS Office and Google’s Chrome hasn’t replaced Firefox. However Google Mail, Youtube, Google Reader, Google News, Google Maps, Google Skymaps and Google Search have all rocked the world. Perhaps I’m sceptical about Google Buzz, but only time will tell.