Pretoria - Hiss, rattle and tick - these are some of the noises a woman’s new car is making, and she is so desperate that she has gone to court to try and have it replaced.
Abigail Wentzel, from Kilner Park, explains in court papers she bought a new Renault Kwid in December last year. It was a dream car which the salesman assured her was perfect for her purpose.
But, she said, she had trouble with the car which makes ticking and hissing noises, and rattles so badly that the roof rack was coming loose and had to be stuck on with super glue.
“When I first started the new vehicle on the showroom floor, there was a ticking or rattling sound from the front part of the vehicle,” she states.
However, she says the salesman said it was normal and was simply the car systems starting up.
Four days later she called to say the noise was worse.
“The new vehicle’s hazard lights also now started flashing when it was started.
“(This was) accompanied by the rattling noise,” she states.
The next problem was that the air con didn’t produce cold air.
She went back to the dealership and says a mechanic replaced a faulty module. He said the car’s central locking should work, something she hadn’t even realised was faulty.
Back on the road the next problem that she noticed was that the inbuilt Bluetooth system stopped functioning as soon as she went above 70km/* .
Wentzel stated in her papers that by this time the front window rattled.
She took up her concerns with the dealership, even sending a picture to show “that the roof rails were defective and pulling away from the new vehicle”.
The dealership, she said, super-glued them back.
A month and a half after she bought the car, the noise had reached “unbearable and worrying levels”, she stated.
At some point the emergency mobiliser went on, which sounded like an “open window” in the dashboard.
“Out of desperation and panic, both for my well-being and that of the new vehicle, I phoned the dealership to ask whether it would be safe for me to drive on.”
Wentzel said as the sales representative handed the phone to a technician, she heard him using a swear word - which she declined to repeat in court.
She once again took her vehicle in for repairs.
“But since it’s back, the rear panels have begun coming off and the unsettling rattling sound has returned It also makes a ticking sound at the front left hand side, when the engine is hot.”
Wentzel said the dealership refused to refund her what she had paid for the vehicle and it appeared that it did not help repairing the defects.
The court this week gave the dealership 10 days to respond.