Be careful when purchasing a car from Kevin Spolander from Villiers Garage in Strand

I would like to put caution forward if you intend on purchasing a car from Kevin Spolander from Villiers Garage in Strand. We purchased a Renault Clio Automatic, from Kevin Spolander for my daughter's 18th birthday this year May. We viewed and test drove the car on the 14th May 2019 and picked up that the car was stuck in third gear and other minor faults such as a noisy exhaust. Kevin said that the third gear problem was due to a faulty sensor that he would order and would take 15 minutes to install and the car would be perfect and that the car had no other faults at all! He said the car comes with a 12 month guarantee and it seemed like a very good purchase for my daughter's first car.

Kevin said he would take the time up till the 27th May 2019 to repair the car 100% so we could pick up the car in perfect working condition. We agreed and said we would pay the car purchase money once the car had been repaired. On the morning of the 21st May 2019, we received a call from Kevin's fiance requesting a deposit to be paid so they could purchase the sensor, we were not happy to do this as it was agreed that we would pay money once the car was fully functional but in good faith we paid R5000 over. Kevin assured us once again the car would be perfect by the 27th May 2019.

On the 27th May 2019, Kevin called us and said that the sensor had not arrived from the UK as yet but that we could collect the car and my daughter could receive it on her birthday and drive it in third gear for a couple days while we waited for the part. We collected the car and on Kevin's insistence paid the balance of the cars purchase price.

On the 5th June 2019, Kevin collected the car to install the sensor and that's when our troubles started, as of today's date, the 12 November 2019, Kevin Spolander is still repairing the car with promises of delivering 'tomorrow'. The car was returned to us for 2 stretches during this time from the 6 June 2019 to 20 June 2019 and the 18 July 2019 to 29 July 2019, the latter time left my daughter stranded on the side of the road with a broken down car, the car had to be put on a flat bed truck and taken into Villiers Garage.

To date the issues on the car that Kevin has told us are the following, please bare in mind that Kevin never enclosed any of this to us on the 14th May 2019 otherwise we would never have bought the car:

(1) waiting for parts, (2) absentee workers so he is battling to work on the car, (3) problems with the electronics, (4) his mom being hospitalised, (5) settings not taking and jumping out, (6) he ECU not working and getting another one, (7) getting replacement ECU units that don’t work, (8) problems with the solenoids, (9) the mechatronic unit sticking, (10) replacing the gearbox with a complete recon gearbox, (11) problems with the injector, (12) the gasket going through the gearbox because *****s were tightened to much and settings were done incorrectly, (13) the timing belt jumping a tooth, (14) eye infection so he can’t see to work, (15) an oil leak, (16) a fuel line leak, (17) timing issues, (18) switch being faulty, (19) plungers are too stiff, (20) prior commitments, (21) needs to rewire, (22) electrical fault, (23) fixing problems with retaining bolts, (24) Incorrect torque converter installed, (25) faulty sensor reading, (26) replacing sensor, (27) lack of funds to buy parts, (28) solenoids (29) camshaft (30) hydraulic valve lifters not bleeding (31) Sticky relief valve

Please be very careful and think your other options through before purchasing a car from Kevin Spolander. Six months later we have paid 6 car payments for a car we do not have, paid license fees on a car we have not used, had transport fees we should not have had with having no car to use.

We have requested a refund of the car plus the expenses we have incurred but Kevin is not able to refund us. He insists the car will be fixed and returned to us but i think any reasonable person will see six months to repair a car is extreme!