Why I can't name and shame the second-hand car dealer who sold me a £1000 nightmare – Vladimir McTavish

Anyone who has ever bought a second-car will know the whole process can be something of a lottery.

You can go to a reputable dealer, of which there are many, or some dodgy backstreet shark. You can do a private sale online or through newspaper small ads. I’ve usually gone for the first option myself.

Although that’s not 100 per cent fail-safe. I once paid a few grand for a second-hand Volvo from a high-end showroom which after a few weeks developed some kind of fuel supply issue which meant it lurched about like a bucking bronco. When I first left school, I worked for a well-known dealer. One of my jobs was painting tyres black so they looked new.

Having had to scrap my last car, I was offered a bargain price of £1000 for a replacement. I was told the driving position was uncomfortable and the car kept stalling. So I took it for a drive, found it very comfortable, it never stalled once and, indeed, has yet to stall.

There are reputable second-hand car dealers, and then there's Vladimir McTavish's daughter (Picture: Michal Cizek/AFP via Getty Images)

The list of other faults is near-endless. The passenger door, which supposedly “sometimes” didn’t open when the central locking was turned off, has yet to open. This means any time I pick up a passenger, they can’t open the door, so I have to reach across the seat to let them in. I managed to get myself into a rather contorted position doing this and may have aggravated a pulled muscle in my shoulder.

On my first trip out of town, I discovered the heater only works on its highest setting which blasts out boiling hot air while making a phenomenal racket. Driving to a gig in Glasgow in the pouring rain, it was a choice of having the windscreen steamed up or not being able to hear the instructions on the sat nav.

Then there’s the radio. It does get reception on FM, but keeps going out of tune, and your channel can sometimes disappear. Medium wave, on the other hand, is just white noise.

Should I report the seller to trading standards? Kick up a fuss and demand my money back? Should I name and shame the seller in the pages of the Evening News? I can’t, because she’s my daughter.

Lesson learned. Next time I’m visiting a backstreet shark.