Thread: Car advertised as "no faults anywhere" very faulty

Hello,
I bought a car for £3800 two weeks ago from a dealer from a classified ad on ebay. The car, a merc was clearly advertised as "immaculate", "mechanically its 100%, no faults anywhere", "drives like new".
I drove it the 80 miles home and as soon as I arrived, noticed both front tyres were deflated from horrifying tyre wear down to the cords (the wear didnt appear to be present on sale, but as a result of poor wheel alignment)
I phoned the dealer the next day, but they became hostile and made it pretty much clear there and then they had no intention of solving the problem. They only "advised" me to take the car to be checked, or claim on the warranty (that they failed to sign)....

The check at a merc specialist discovered two pages, £1800 worth of mechanical problems, including "brake hoses excessively perrished" "dangerous tyres" etc etc etc.

Clearly the car was not fit for the road, and my life was endangered.

On contacting Trading Standards, they suggested I wrote to the company rejecting the car under the Sale of Goods act, giving the dealer a reasonable amount of time to reply.

That time has now come and passed without reply.

I rejected the car because even if the dealer did offer to repair, I believe that they only have to offer a "reasonable" response to satisfy obligations, and would be highly unlikely to pay the £1800 required to make it "mechanically its 100%, no faults anywhere" as it was advertised.

Bare in mind, I have a nice looking car which I cant use (and havent used since) sat outside my house and no other form of transport. How frustrating!

As my only apparent course of action is now the small claims court, am I right in thinking that I have a very strong case here for a full refund plus my costs?

If so, would it be a big gamble for me, given the categorical advert (of which I have copies) to repair the car to be "mechanically 100%, no faults anywhere" and sue the dealer for my costs?
i.e. can I sue the dealer for £1800 costs in repairing the car to the level to the description, since they didnt respond to my rejection, or might the courts look poorly on that course of action?

Obviously I'd prefer it to be fixed, and quickly, but suspect thats unlikely unless the courts rule in my favour somehow.

Many, many thanks in advance,
Aadster

Hi,

First of all the wheels must have been way out of alignment to cause the damage to the tyres as you described after an 80 mile journey!

Did you send the letter by recorded delivery? And what did it say?

Personally I would certainly reject the car rather than having it fixed. But the short answer to your general question (based on the information you have provided), is yes you can sue the dealer.

Thanks,
Yes, when I got up to motorway speeds, I noticed an odd vibration and odd steering behaviour- I think both the camber and toe were incorrect.
There's also a good chance that friction with the suspension arm played a part.
In some senses, it doesn't matter since whether the inner edge of the tyre was worn on purchase, or it was an alignment issue, there must have been a fault present at sale, and one of many long term faults such as rust brakes.

The problem I'm facing is that the longer this goes on, the more I'm having to pay on public transport; I dont have another car, I cant afford another car, I'm having to pay the interest on my credit car and there's no guarantee if or when I'll get my money back

how long would the whole process of the small claims court take from claim to award?
If I am awarded for, would the dealer be forced to pay in a timely manner? how timely?

Many thanks,

You did'nt answer the questions about the letter you sent to the seller. In the meentime, Consumer Direct would of given you a case number so you may like to contact them again to tell them you had no response. It may be the case you can claim damages from the seller in respect of your related expences (i.e. travel) so keep all tickets and reciepts.

If you take the seller to court you can do it on line at https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/csmco2/index.jsp

Its hard to say how long it would take. The process starts with your application which will involve a fee of about £35. You can claim interest at the current rate from the date the debt originated (the sale date in this case) until the date of judgement. The respondent is normally given 14 days to respond from date of service. If the seller disputes the claim, then the case will be listed for a hearing (which will usually be heard in the nearest court to the applicant). But before then you would be requested to file your eveidence and produce a statement. The hearing would be around 4-6 weeks following the end of the initial 14 day response limit. While this is going on, you will no doubt be offerd to settle the claim by arbitration so someone may contact you about this.

From the info you have provided, it would appear that the seller is totally in the wrong so my guess is he will not want to go to court but may wait until he receives the summons before he reacts. Once you issue the proceedings, all your costs are recoverable plus interest.

Before you go down this road though, speak again to Consumer Direct.

Hi Sam,
Sorry, had to rush out the door hence my hasty answers.
Yes, I sent the letter Royal Mail recorded delivery and now have a signature recorded for it (although merely a circular squiggle and printed in the company name "DIOS").
The letter was based on advice and a template from consumer direct. I listed some of the problems, described the problem results of the professional testing, rejected as "not fit for purpose", nor "in satisfactory condition, taking into account any description of the goods" citing the Sale of Goods Act 1979. I requested a response in writing including agreement to a full refund plus costs to reach me before today, Tuesday (that was 7 working days from the day they signed).
I forwarded my letter in an email correspondence to Bristol Trading Standards and whilst I doubt they will act in direct response to it, they at least have a record of it, 10 days from when I sent it.

Thank you very much for your detailed Breakdown of the proceedings; hopefully it wont come to this, and the dealer will come to their senses. Being that the problems were discovered within hours of the sale, and are safety related; being I'm pretty sure I've done everything by the book in my communication, and that the dealer has done absolutely nothing to help themselves, including a clearly fraudulent advert, I really cant see how it could be any worse for them in any court case.

One other perhaps salient point is that when I paid, the dealer said that their credit card machine "was not working", and it would be best to do the transaction through paypal or internet banking. I could only pay £2800 through PayPal from my credit card to the company's PayPal account plus a further £1100 through direct transfer from internet banking on my debit card to the personal credit card of father of the apparently father / son business.

Does this change their or my rights? The car was advertised through an Ebay business seller account, and the majority was paid under credit to the company account, so I presume I have additional protection under the Consumer Credit Act, but does this also mean that the individuals are personally liable. In other words, they cant close the company and run away? Would it be my choice to sue the company or the father or both?

Many thanks again for your time and valued advice,
Aadster

There is mention in your posts of Credit interest. If you paid by credit card then contact them,explain story, and ask that they do "claw back" for you. The term claw back may not be recognised by all banks but they all must take action to help you retrieve your cash.

I picked up on this as well scania. If you paid by credit card then surely the quick and easy way is to do the clawback thing? I would make sure you don't use the car in the meantime. Might also be an idea to get an HPI check done. Might explain a few things!

Heliosuk, on top of what you say about HPI, i am now recommending to F&F that they also search the VOSA website for cars newer than 2005.
www.motinfo.gov.uk should give results of MOT tests etc but don't know if it shows mileage on date of mot test.

Good point scaniaman! Also, did you go through ebay's dispute proceedure?

thanks everyone.

Firstly, I did run an HPI check before purchase, and it was clean in every regard.

After purchase, I also checked the MOT history. The advisory notice on the actual MOT had been removed (not good practice!) but the advisory on the website only mentioned tyre wear on all wheels and bearings going on one wheel. Weirdly, the MOT before, conducted at the same garage, "Mercedes Benz of Bath" picked up the brake pipe corrosion and some of the other problems which were noted in my recent test, but were not mentioned in this years MOT. Weird that an MB garage would miss that, but perhaps it was a friday afternoon job (or perhaps more sinisterly, an insider job!)

Ebay: The advert was a classified advert. There is no "buy" button, and whilst you are responding to an advert in a legal sense, you dont buy through ebay.

I raised a paypal dispute. Got no response from the seller. Escalated it. Got a response from PayPal, which simply said that they dont investigate "quality" issues.
That is very annoying since clearly the advert was at least misleading, at worst fraud, and the seller sold me a very dangerous vehicle which is demonstrably not fit for purpose. I'm going to complain to PayPal over their response.

On a side note, for the interest of others having read their terms in detail: PayPal "buyer protection" is two tier. Physical goods (apart from exceptions such as cars, houses, boats etc) are fully covered IF they are associated with an EBay item at time of purchase. This main cover means PayPal will return all the funds to you first, then will recover costs from the seller themselves. The second tier covering the exceptions is still covered, but PayPal can only recover up to the value that is in the sellers account. In both cases, PaylPal will have to judge in your favour first, of course.

as an update on the paypal dispute:

I complained to PayPal as their response was unsatisfactory (they claimed that they dont investigate 'quality' issues, and I pointed out this was a 'not as described issue' which they do claim to cover)

They said that because the PayPal transaction was not connected to the sale (because its a classified Ad) they don't investigate.

So dead end for me, but useful to know for future purchases.

Will phone my credit card company today to see if they can help...

Can I ask:
As I paid £1010.16 of the £3800 transaction to the personal credit card of the company owner, does this make them personally liable. I.e. if they were to liquidate the company, for instance, I would still be able to pursue at least a part of the refund by suing him personally?

Many thanks,

No it doesn't make them liable (other than making the transaction appear really smelly). When you say paid to the 'personal credit card' I assume you mean that - rather than you paying BY credit card?