What To Do Next? Over to you

Firstly I'd like to apologise for not posting anything sooner after my end of the road post...  I've been in-undated with well wishers (which has been very nice to hear, so thank you to all those people who have contacted me) and others wanting an update, so now I have a little free time I can write up what's happened since I saw oil on my garage floor for a fourth time and freaked out!

Quite a lot has happened since that date, so I've bulleted as much as possible below:-

• I sent a ranting email over the Graham MacDonald (CEO) of Caterham cars asking for my money back.
• Graham responded, was sorry for the way I felt, said he wanted to get all the facts from CC Midlands and would call me the next day.
• Graham called the next day, he apologised the for problems I've encountered and I agreed to having a further discussion with a view to Caterham Cars (CC) getting the car back in Dartford and giving it a thorough inspection.
• Simon Lambert contacted me to arrange a convenient time to meet up and talk things through, I said I was going away for a break and would contact him on my return.
• Got back a week ago (21st October 2015) and sent Simon Lambert a text to arrange our meeting.
• Nicely chilled from my holiday I met up with Simon Lambert at the North Star pub in Welwyn on Friday night (23rd October 2015) - perhaps a bit too chilled, but...
• We had a good long discussion about the situation and he came up with some options for me...

So the options are:-

1. CC will collect the car, take it back to Dartford, give it a thorough inspection, get the gearbox out and either replace it or send it off for a full re-work
2. Get CC to remove the h-pattern box, and pay the extra for the Sadev sequential (it's not just a gearbox change, there's about an A4 sheet of parts that are needed, clutch, fly-wheel, new prop tons of different washers etc etc)
3. Consider my options for upgrading to a 620R which would mean trading in my car and basically buying a new car (which I wouldn't have built)
4. Chuck the towel in and get a refund.

So over to you... I'm pretty sure I know what I want to do, but I'm a firm believer it's always good to ask for others' opinions, so what do you think?

Please select one of the four options below and hit the vote button, or if you have any alternate ideas I should be considering please use the comment form below.

What Shall I do?

Stick with it and get the gearbox re-worked

Upgrade to a Sadev Sequential

Upgrade to a 620R

Chuck in the towel and ask for a refund

Free Poll creator

The end of the road?

A little over a month ago, the car was returned from having it's third gearbox seal and service. I've used the car three times since then, and after the Snetterton track day I thought there was a little bit of gearbox fluid on my garage floor, putting it down to paranoia I ignored it.  Now a week after my Rockingham track day the gearbox is leaking again for a FOURTH TIME! 


The fourth gearbox leak

Not only that, after lunch at Rockingham I turned the 12v power switch on and some white smoke exuded from my bonnet... Thinking the car had caught fire (which I guess it had), I switched the power off, hastily removed the bonnet to see the white smoke coming from the coil cover. I quickly prised the cover off and could see that a part of the HT lead wiring had somehow shorted on the inside of the coil cover and was melting it, causing the white smoke.  As the coil cover is made from Carbon it made some serious looking white smoke, but nothing was actually damaged.

With the coil cover removed, I tie wrapped the dubious HT lead in place.


The shorted HT lead

I think it's time to call an end to this on going story of hassle, so I've emailed the MD of Caterham requesting a full refund.  I'm sick of this.

The follow on from this post is here:-
http://www.caterhamr500.co.uk/2015/10/what-to-do-next-over-to-you.html