Not Even The Main Dealer Wanted To Repair This Electric Car!
Recently, we bought the cheapest electric car on Auto Trader, which also had a fault. It’s a 40 kWh Rena Zoey, fully battery owned, and it had a faulty motor. This is something that the previous owner sold it as faulty. So, we knew all this, but we wanted to see if you could actually repair it in the traditional manner where you take it to a local garage and essentially get it repaired. the local Renault main dealer to the previous owner, which was down south, they had it for nearly a year. And by that point, after waiting nearly a year for a part to arrive, which Renault diagnosed as an entire new motor, uh the previous owner basically got sick of waiting. So, he ended up taking it back, couldn’t find anyone local to him to fix it, and sold it on Auto Trader. And then we came and bought it. As you may have seen previously, it indeed had a faulty motor and it had climate control not working as well. So, that could be quite expensive by itself. The no heating, no air conditioning. The brake discs and pads needed replacing. Its last MOT was October 2022 and uh it had no tax either. Oh, and the right light cluster didn’t work, but we managed to fix that in the previous video. This is extra content Tuesday. I’m bringing it back as a bit of a trial. So, it’s secondary videos instead of, you know, on top of the main stuff every Friday for extra content Tuesday just to see what happens. So, in this one, I’m going to try and find a garage to actually repair this car. So, Renault, I’ve had it for nearly a year, and it it just didn’t happen. And they were going to charge between four and £5,000. And that car by itself, if it was fully operational in its current state and condition and so forth was worth about five, five and a half. So clearly the main deal is not an option. We got to find someone to actually repair it. Not just replace the whole unit and not bother even looking. Repair whatever’s wrong with that motor. If indeed it can be repaired. Of course, the first challenge is probably going to be the biggest one. Finding someone to do it. Let’s face it, if you throw enough money at something, anything can be repaired, but it needs to be realistic. So, um, tomorrow I’m going to do the ring around and, uh, and let’s, uh, well, I’m keeping my fingers crossed. Hi. Yeah, I have your number from the He website and I have a Rena Zoi with a fault uh with the M right but you you on the he map it says that everyone repairs and services is that is that not something that you want? No. Okay. All right. Well, yeah. Cheers. Thanks. Bye. All right. The closest one only services. Let’s try the next one. Hi, I have a Rena Zoey with a faulty motor. I’m just wondering if it’s something that you might be interested in fixing. Okay, it’s brought me through. Hi. Yeah. Uh yeah, it’s uh been diagnosed as a faulty motor, but it might be something and nothing. I don’t know. It could be the Right. So, you just service. You don’t you don’t repair. Yeah, I’m I’m hearing this quite a bit in terms of on the HERA website says everybody repairs and um and services EVs. Uh but I can’t seem to find anyone to actually repair them. Why? Can I just ask out of curiosity why why you don’t do the repairs? Is it is it too new or Right. Okay. All right. Well, thanks for helping. Cheers. Bye. They said, “Oh, it’s not worth his while to get the training and equipment and there’s not enough to fix at the moment.” He said, “Um, like, well, why why are you on the map?” It says you can. Okay, thanks. Bye. That is the fifth garage in terms of proximity to me that is on the website that says they repair them and none of them will even try. It’s like no no we’ll service them but we’re not going to repair them. Crying out loud. Yeah, it’s a Rena Zoey with a faulty motor. Um it yeah it runs but it’s making a noise essentially and I just need someone to check out what it might be and hopefully repair it. You don’t fix if someone’s willing to pay it. Does it does it matter? Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks for the for the chat. Cheers. See you later. Bye. Another one basically saying well they can’t be bothered doing the training quite frankly. they don’t care that they like, well, there’s not enough to repair and we’re going to have to do this, this, and this, going to have to buy some equipment. It’s like the uh if we go back 20 years, 30 years, whenever it was. I remember reading so many articles about how ECUs are going to ruin the motor industry because your local garage won’t be able to fix or repair them or anything like that. And now look, I don’t know. I just I just industries take ages to catch up, don’t they? I mean, I’m saying this as a customer. I’ have no experience in the uh automotive industry in terms of garage repairs or all like that, but for me, the garages aren’t even willing to look into this at the moment. They’re just going to disappear over time. It’s it’s going to happen. Sorry, you got to move with the times. 20 years in it has taught me that much. You can brilliant. Have you done these uh sort of repairs before in terms of Okay, brilliant. Well, um I’ll tell you what, I’ll um I need to arrange to get it transported over cuz it’s a non-runner and it’s no. Um so, let me sort out the logistics anyway and I’ll get back to you. Brilliant. Nice one. Thanks very much. Cheers. I’ve actually found somebody that repairs EVs. Uh, and although he’s done quite a few EVs in, you know, various types and battery repairs, interestingly enough, um, he’s never actually done this motor fault, although he’s worked on plenty of zombies. So, he’s like, well, this is what I’m exactly what I’m after, as in what he’s after, stuff to repair so he can get experience on knowing how to repair them. So when this becomes commonplace in terms of EVs needing repairs, you know, when there’s a lot more on the market, it’ll be it’ll be ahead of the curve as it were. There is one downside. We’ve tried to get a local garage, uh, you know, to do this. And when I say local, kind of within a 10 mile radius, I think that’s fair. I’ve gone way further than that in the past. How far are they away? 38 miles. About an hour away in Ripen. So from near Skippton to Ripen. I mean, it’s a brilliant, beautiful drive. I won’t mind doing that one. So, it’s not what you’d call local, but interestingly enough, my nearest Tesla dealership, as a comparison, is in in Leeds, and that’s about an hour from me as well. So, it’s just how things are happening these days. So, we’re not we’re not quite at the local Backstreet Garage thing yet, but I have at least managed to find somebody in the same county as me, so that’s a bonus. Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Right. Well, there we go. We found somebody. I there we call this local. It’s about an hour away. Ripurn. It’s still in Yorkshire, but it depends where you are in the country, doesn’t it? If you live in Scotland, that is very local. I I guess. I guess. So, no. I I mean, it doable. It’s doable. Yeah. I mean, I’ve driven further for a specialist when he had the Curado. Yeah. Stoke on Trent for that. Just to get stuff done to it. Um, so yeah, I wouldn’t say this is local, but we have found somebody. Well, will they give it a go? Well, he’s repaired plenty of EVs before and he’s willing to basically I said, “Well, if I brought you, I know like a Jaguar IPace battery.” Said, “Yeah, yeah, anything can be fixed.” Yeah, this is a very good point he made. He said, “You can fix anything. You just need to know how.” Yeah. And those that say, and I’ve had a few of these, as you probably saw on the phone call, say, “Oh, no, it’s not worth it for us to do it.” If the will person’s willing to pay you, then what’s the difference? What’s the problem in the next video? So, please do like, subscribe, all that lot because this is something which a minieries. Well, I don’t think has anybody fixed an EV, an old Nacka EV on YouTube that’s not their own. But then you bought one to fix. Not not a Matt Armstrong category S where the bumpers. I think this is semi- unique and again recreatable by anybody watching it because we bought off Auto Trader. Again, I’ll say again, the cheapest EV on the auto trader and uh we got it shipped here with just a, you know, a national courier that can do anything. And we got it repaired with a local garage in theory. So, we say, so so far we’re 1,450 quid for the car. 250 quid for the transport. So, that’s uh 1,700 quid in total so far. On a good day, one of these between four and five. Five to five and a half for this. Battery owned, 80,000 miles, 40 kW hours away. I reckon we not this condition as well. I I mean full Renault dealer search touching wood what two grand worst case in with this we’ve got to decide if it gets to us if he says it’s going to be this whether we continue whether we continue but it gets to a point once you know if you spent £1,000 already and he says it’s another whatever you got to just go with it. Yeah you’re in once you’re in you’re in you can’t have it half done. I’m going for bearings. What are you going for? Um probably bearings or the uh reduction box. Yeah. Well let’s see. Let us know in the comments what you think it is. Uh we are aware of other YouTube channels where they fixed these sort of problems, but it ain’t going to happen for us. We haven’t got the skill, skill, time, and not people wouldn’t do that. They would take it to a garage. That’s what we’re doing. It’s for time. And if we had the time and the tools, we give it a go. Oh, hang on a minute. Do you know what I forgotten? What’s that? That the Driving Home podcast is back. That was terrible. Well, I’m going to stick with it. Drive your own podcast has got its own channel which is in the description of every video that we’ve ever put up pretty much over the last few years anyway. And it’s on all the Spotify, Apple podcasts and things like that. So please if you like podcasts give it a listen. Right. Thanks for watching guys. See you soon. Bye.
We’ve bought a faulty electric car to see if we can repair it and get it back on the road but finding a local (ish) garage to even attempt it isn’t easy!
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