Well guys, just had the car serviced, door seals fixed, interior light fixed and speaker rattle not fixed and had some rather nasty news; car needs a new water pump and cam belt. Fun times!

Basically on the service the technician heard that my cam belt had something iffy going on (was going rur rur rur rur rur which I'd noticed a bit back, asked my local dealer to check and it was the usual 'nothing') and on closer inspection, the pulley is corroded on the water pump and has knackered up my cam belt. Really NOT something I would expect from a 1 year old car after just 16,500 miles... Actually a little worrying if I'm truly honest.

Anyone else heard of such a problem or anything? Figured I should get people's thoughts on this and make people aware in case it's an issue for anyone else.

Think it's safe to say I won't be using my local dealer again, they're right *#£$&£!'s :P used a different one for this service and the quality of work, knowledge and help was top notch. As for the speaker rattle, they're going to have a good look when it goes in :P

I had my water pump replaced under warranty as it was leaking from there. I only noticed when I saw that my coolant was below minumum, so I had i topped up, a few weeks later it was below min again. Could have been the same issue as yours.

It's most likely due to the storage conditions when the cars are stockpiled before being transferred to the dealers.

An old girlfriend of mine used to work for a Rover dealers doing vehicle licencing and taxing.

Part of the job required her to collect the 'new' cars from their storage compound, putting batteries in and driving them back to the showroom for a touch up prior to handing over to the new owners.

She reckoned that more than half of them had rust, seized brakes, water ingress and many other problems that needed re-dressing before they were fit to sell.

Apparently they often had weeds and plants growing up through the engine bays and wheel arches and had to take pruning shears with them so they could cut the cars free enough to move.

Just because a car has nice shiny paintwork, delivery miles on the clock and the latest registration plate it doesn't mean it has just rolled of the production line.

There are plenty of old airfields and cargo posts full of cars exposed to all weather conditions sat around in crap and water awaiting allocation to dealers.

Could be, it's a good job it's covered under warranty or if honest I'd be getting rid >_> definitely not keeping it past warranty with the problems I've had so far.