Thread: car purchased off eBay

Hi,
can someone please offer advice & tell me how I stand legally. I have just purchased a cheap car for my son to drive after recently passing his driving test. The car was purchased from ebay with a full "12 months MOT". At first sight the car appears very clean & tidy, allthough I am not a mechanic. It was only recently purchased on 30th Jan 2009. The person I bought it from is registered on eBay as a private seller but he is actually a dealer with full garage workshop facilities. He emphasied what a fair trader he was & treated people how he would like to be treated, he seemed to be quite genuine. He assured me verbally by telephone, prior to purchasing the vehicle that because the car is a small 1.1L Ford Fiesta, that the annual road tax was would only cost £35.00, this obviously swayed my decision to purchase the vehicle. I know the car only cost £350.00 but I have not budgeted for the additional problems.

The problems start here. We went to tax the vehicle at the local post office, we were told that the road tax will cost in the region of £110.00 & not £35.00 P.A as we had expected.

We then discovered that a Post Office could not tax it anyway as the vehicle was registered as being a disabled car. This means a 40 mile round trip & an additional charge of £25.00 to change the registration document from a disabled class to PLG.
Since the MOT the car has only travelled just 39 miles & now I think the clutch has gone as we cannot select any gears without a loud crunching noise. There is evidence of severe brake fluid leakage around the servo drum.

The Rear Wiper is not working, Is this part of an MOT ?.

Excessive brake travel, cost me £30.00 to have the brakes bled & adjusted. The mechanic that repaired the brakes said he was doubtfull that it should have passed an MOT with that much brake travel. He also said that a new exhaust back box would be required shortly.

We noticed after purchase that the seller & MOT person shared the same surname !!!, it isn't a common suname like Smith or Jones !.

Costs so far.( £75.00 being the difference between seller quoting £35.oo & NOT £110.00 true cost)

£75.00 Road fund licence
£25.00 DVLA registration document to change to PLG Class.
£30.00 brake adjust & bleed
£---.-- New clutch ( I dread to think how much a clutch will cost to have fitted)
£---.-- Wiper Motor
£---.-- Exhaust back box.


I did expect to have to pay for a little bit of tidying up here & there but I did not expect the financial problems that we are experiencing.

Can anyone please tell me what my rights are & what course of action (if any) I should take.

Thanks

As I understand it the following would apply.

The fact that the seller misrepresented the amount of the car tax would not give you any recourse as it is something that you would be expected to know, or at least take the trouble to find out, it is information that you could have easily checked.

I would also suspect that it made no reference to the taxation class that the vehicle had been previously assigned -so I doubt you would have no cause for action here either.

If you feel that an MOT has been issued fraudulently then you need to take it to a ministry of transport test station and request that they examine it (this will cost you) and they may take issue with the person who issued the MOT.

IF the ministry will commit to saying that an MOT certificate should not have been issued on the vehicle and you can PROVE that it was issued by the seller then you may have a case for misrepresentation but I suspect that will be difficult to prove as the seller would only have to claim that he has a valid 12 month MOT certificate to substantiate his claims on ebay.

With regard to the REAR wiper, I understand that they check the blade is in good condition but do not test to see if it works (silly I know) and so a non functioning rear wiper is not a MOT fail.

With regard to the clutch and the back box - unless there were specific claims made about the condition of these items, I doubt that you would have a cause of action here either - the seller would simply say its a car for very little money, it would be expected not to be in showroom condition.

Unless you feel you can claim that the car was not fit for the purpose for which it was sold then I think your actions here are pretty limited.

I would be interested in other peoples comments on this.

Although the SOGA says you are covered but must take in year and price paid, I would expect the clutch to last longer than 39 miles.
As this is the biggest spend on the car, you should ask him to fix it.

He should be your first contact anyway.

Make sure you get some pictures of the 'new adjusters' and send a copy along with your demand that he pay for a new clutch kit to be fitted.
I said 'clutch kit' purposely as you don't want him saying he will repair it and then just bunging in a part worn plate he got from a scrappy.

If he should prove difficult, I don't think I would bother with trading standards for advice, but you can, of course, write to them and let them know they should keep an eye on him.

Let us know what his response it to your quote, there are still lots of options to take including rejection and small claims.

As far as fit for purpose or satisfactory quality goes f4 the price is irrelevent, it must still be able to do what it was sold for and no clutch means it cant do that. If the heater didn't work or the glovebox fell off or the radio didn't work, that wouldn't mean it was unfit for purpose as it could still get you from a to b.

When this is all over and not before, I would report it to ebay as others have said and tell them he is a trader and not a private seller.

Good luck and get lots of pics.

Only send him copies of receipts, you hang on to the originals.