A Hin­du pun­dit who bought a brand new Au­di Q-7 SUV for over $670,000 from a lo­cal car deal­er­ship two years ago, is seek­ing to get his mon­ey back af­ter his high-end lux­u­ry ve­hi­cle left him with night­mares.

Ra­makr­ish­na Per­sad, of Wa­ter­loo Road, Per­se­ver­ance Vil­lage, Cou­va wants South­ern Sales and Ser­vice Com­pa­ny to give him a full re­fund claim­ing the ve­hi­cle the com­pa­ny sold to him was de­fec­tive.

The pur­chase was made in Ju­ly 2016 and he re­ceived it on Sep­tem­ber 15 that same year.

Per­sad said the ve­hi­cle is now parked up be­cause of a num­ber of de­fects.

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to the car deal­er­ship by his at­tor­ney Prem Per­sad Ma­haraj, dat­ed Ju­ly 25, Ma­haraj said the SUV un­der­went re­pairs for de­fects be­fore it was de­liv­ered to Per­sad.

“Sub­se­quent to li­cens­ing and reg­is­tra­tion, my client re­ceived a call from a com­pa­ny di­rec­tor in­di­cat­ing that de­liv­ery of the ve­hi­cle had to be with­held as the sen­sors for the side air-bag and the con­trol unit were de­fec­tive,” Ma­haraj wrote in the let­ter.

He said Per­sad was of­fered a cour­tesy ve­hi­cle and the of­fer of three free ve­hi­cle ser­vices at 5,000 kilo­me­tres, 15,000 kilo­me­tres and 25,000 kilo­me­tres in­clu­sive of parts and labour as com­pen­sa­tion for the de­lay in de­liv­ery.

Ea­ger to take pos­ses­sion of his dream car, Per­sad agreed to the terms.

How­ev­er, short­ly af­ter­wards he be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing prob­lems with the ve­hi­cle.

“Two months of tak­ing pos­ses­sion of the ve­hi­cle, I start­ed hear­ing a loud squeak­ing up­on en­gag­ing the brakes,” Per­sad said.

“The prob­lem was re­port­ed to the com­pa­ny’s South Ser­vice Cen­tre and the ve­hi­cle was tak­en in for re­pairs, dur­ing which the front ro­tor discs were pol­ished, the disc pads were cut, the front brake pads were set.”

At 25,000 kilo­me­tres, Per­sad said he start­ed hear­ing a loud hum­ming when turn­ing the steer­ing wheel, which would in­crease to the point where the in­side of the ve­hi­cle would vi­brate as well as a loud noise was heard com­ing from the left wheel.

Again the ve­hi­cle un­der­went sev­er­al re­pairs.

“At 45,000 kilo­me­tres the ve­hi­cle’s wa­ter-pump mal­func­tioned while Per­sad was dri­ving along the lone­ly Cou­va Rivulet Road.

“The ve­hi­cle stalled and my client and his fam­i­ly were forced to wait for a pe­ri­od of two hours be­fore a wreck­er came,” Ma­haraj wrote.

Sub­se­quent­ly, at 64,100 kilo­me­tres two disc pads were changed and new front ro­tors were in­stalled but still, the prob­lems per­sist­ed.

The pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter gave the com­pa­ny 28 days to re­spond.

Even though the spec­i­fied time has elapsed, Per­sad said he in­tends to give his at­tor­neys the go-ahead for le­gal ac­tion to be filed.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Mon­day, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of South­ern Sales Im­ti­az Ahamad said the deal­er­ship was aware of the sit­u­a­tion and was treat­ing with the com­plaints in ac­cor­dance with the man­u­fac­tur­er’s guide­lines.

“The deal­er­ship ad­mits that de­liv­ery of the ve­hi­cle was de­layed be­cause the air-bag sen­sors re­quired re­place­ment so we of­fered three free ser­vices and a cour­tesy car while wait­ing for the air-bag sen­sors to ar­rive.

“This de­ci­sion was made out of an abun­dance of cau­tion as it was a safe­ty mat­ter and there was no oth­er op­tion was avail­able but to wait for the ar­rival of the sen­sors in or­der to have the ve­hi­cle road­wor­thy and safe. The is­sue of brakes and wa­ter pump fail­ing is a mat­ter of main­te­nance and can oc­cur at var­i­ous times. These re­pairs were cov­ered un­der war­ran­ty,” Ahamad said.

With the case of the loud hum­ming, Ahamad said this was dis­cussed with Per­sad.

“If he is not sat­is­fied we are pleased to meet with him and dis­cuss fur­ther,” Ahamad said.

He added, “It is clear that the ve­hi­cle had a few is­sues which were dealt with un­der war­ran­ty.”

Asked whether it was usu­al for a brand new ve­hi­cle to de­vel­op prob­lems with a wa­ter pump and brakes so soon af­ter pur­chase, Ahamad said, “Un­der nor­mal cir­cum­stances no, but I don’t know the dri­ving con­di­tions of the ve­hi­cle.”

Asked whether the com­pa­ny will con­sid­er re­place­ment or a re­fund, Ahamad said, “Since this is a le­gal mat­ter, I would have to leave that com­ment to the lawyers to sort out.”