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A man in Singapore spent S$30,000 to buy a second-hand car, but ended up forking out another S$10,000 for repairs -- within a month.

The used car buyer, surnamed Toh, contacted Mothership.sg about his experience just 27 days after his big-ticket purchase in early September 2022.

The 48-year-old man, who is a private tutor, said he bought the 1,560cc car, a Citroen C4 Picasso diesel multi-purpose vehicle, from a used car dealer at Jalan Sultan.

The PARF car has about two years and seven months of its 10-year COE lease left.

Toh said he chose to buy a used diesel-powered car as he reckoned he could get more mileage out of it, given the high prices of petrol and COE (certificate of entitlement) recently.

He added that the car dealer had told him that the mileage clocked by the car was around 100,000km, which appeared reasonable and encouraged his decision to purchase the vehicle in the first place.

Problems appeared 2 weeks into ownership

Two weeks after he bought the car, the dashboard warning light came on to flag a problem.

He brought the car for inspection and had to spend S$300 to clean the filter.

Two or three days later, water seeped into the front of the car and it was discovered that there was a problem with the rubber seal.

Another week passed and the air-conditioner had to be fixed.

The most recent repair was a major one that cost S$4,000 to completely overhaul the car's pipes, brakes and other parts.

Had odometer checked

Fazed by all the repair works, Toh sent his French-designed Citroen to a repair shop and was informed the electronic odometer reading as of Aug. 1 was 225,702km, but was significantly reduced to 108,361km subsequently.

Toh's suspected that the odometer had been tampered with.

He was also told by a mechanic that the car's clutch had been replaced, which is what typically happens when a car has clocked some 160,000km of mileage.

This made him even more suspicious about the claim that the car had clocked around 100,000km at the point of sale.

Trip to Malaysia cancelled

Toh said the final straw was when his road trip with his wife to Malacca in early October could not happen after another problem with the car cropped up.

The car's warning signal began to flash when they had just crossed the Second Link.

Toh found there was no fluid in the aircon cooling system.

He decided to cancel the trip and headed home as he was worried other issues might show up.

Dealership responds

The car dealership denied tampering with the car's odometer, when contacted by Shin Min Daily News.

An employee told Shin Min: "We have been selling cars for more than 10 years and have 100 cars on hand. We won't try to make a little bit extra by tampering with the car."

The employee explained that the warranty has been voided as Toh had sent the car to an unauthorised workshop for repairs.

An offer for a one-time free servicing at a designated auto repair centre was offered instead, provided there are no further issues with the vehicle.

Car still in workshop

According to Toh, his car was still not returned to him on Oct. 17 after about a week he returned the car to the dealership to be brought to the workshop.

In a phone interview, Toh said he has spent some S$10,000 on repairs so far but has barely driven the car.

He added: "For a seven-year-old car to clock more than 200,000km is too much. The car could have been used as a private hire vehicle."

"This type of issues could be common and end users like us need to find ways to protect ourselves from sellers."

Asked if the windshield and rear window glass of the car had any visible markings left behind caused by the mandatory Land Transport Authority decal for vehicles used for private hire, Toh said there were no signs of it at all.

He said he believes the car would have been cleaned thoroughly before it was sold.

Toh added that he is in a dilemma now as fixing the car is an option, but it will incur more costs on top of the S$10,000 or so he has forked out.

He is exploring his options by looking to invoke the Lemon Law and even turning to the Small Claims Tribunals to claim back some of the repair costs, but the process will be onerous, and he is unsure how successful he will be.

Case responds

In response to Mothership's queries, Consumers Association of Singapore (CASE) president Melvin Yong issued a statement to address the various issues related to this case.

The statement read:

Part 3 of the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act (CPFTA), colloquially known as the Lemon Law, protects consumers against defective goods or goods that do not conform to contract. When consumers receive goods that are defective or do not conform to contract, they may require the business to repair or replace the goods. Where a repair or replacement is impossible or disproportionate to other remedies, consumers may request for a reduction in price or to rescind the contract. Additionally, under the CPFTA, consumers may also seek redress when they encounter a supplier who make misleading or false claims or represent that goods have a particular history or use when the supplier knows it is not so.

To guide consumers in the purchase of pre-owned cars, CASE, in consultation with multiple industry stakeholders, developed the Standard and Functional Evaluation (SAFE) Checklist. Consumers should request for the car dealer to complete a checklist consisting of the car details, functional and visual checks and warranty coverage (where applicable). Consumers are also advised to send the pre-owned car to a professional evaluation centre for third-party for evaluation to understand the condition of the car and to see if there are inherent defects in the car.

On the issue of suspected odometer tampering which is criminal in nature, CASE had previously called on the authorities to require that odometer readings be recorded and included as part of the vehicle transfer process to deter tampering. CASE has also been engaging the industry to encourage car dealers to provide logbooks and service records containing the odometer readings of pre-owned cars to buyers as part of the purchase transaction.

On the issue of car dealers voiding warranties when consumers send pre-owned cars to unauthorised workshops, CASE takes the view that car dealers should only void warranties and reject claims if they are able to establish that servicing or repairs by such third-party workshops have caused damage to the car. This is consistent with the view of the Competition and Consumer Commission (CCCS), formerly known as the Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) in a study and inquiry on car parts distributors and car workshops.

Consumers who encounter defective pre-owned cars or instances where the car dealer made misleading or false claims on the history and mileage of the car may approach CASE for assistance (hotline: 9795 8397, website: www.case.org.sg).