Written by John Kruse, one of the leading experts on Bailiff Law, this consumer friendly guide is essential reading for anyone who comes into contact with a bailiff.
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I bought a car at the end of December, from a dealer whose forecourt is his driveway. He's a registered car dealer and generally deals with high end cars, but I bought a 5 year old Volvo from him. Part of the deal was that he got my old car and gave me a 12 month warranty on the Volvo. I asked him what would be covered under the warranty and he said "it covers everything". Hah! When I said that they didn't usually cover things like the starter motor he said "this one definitely covers everything". LIAR!!!
Unfortunately, he didn't have any warranty books at the time and he wrote on my receipt that the warranty was to follow. Two weeks later, I phoned to ask what had happened to my warranty as I'd not received it. Two weeks further on from that, I still didn't have my document and I had to go back out to his house to get it.
From day one, this car has been cutting out on me and it is getting steadily worse. After phoning him numerous times to try and get it sorted, I took it to a local garage and they found out that the warranty was very basic and covered practically nothing. I phoned him again and he arranged for me to take it to a garage that he deals with to get a computer diagnosis done. Lo and behold, his pet garage didn't have the right software and I had to take it to a Volvo dealer. I'm out of pocket £70 and don't know when this guy intends to pay me back!
I phoned him the same day with the diagnosis and he said he'd speak to "his" garage and phone me back. As usual, I received no call and phoned him again the next day. He told me to phone his mate's garage and give the details. (I'd already given all the details to the dealer.) I spoke to the guy at the garage today and he thinks it will be difficult for him to fix, plus it will have to go to the Volvo dealer again to get run through another computer diagnosis.
Once again, I phoned the dealer I bought the car from and expressed my displeasure at the length of time this is taking to sort out. We've now had the car nearly 3 months and it isn't just cutting out at junctions any more - now it is losing power when you drive up the street. I have to wait until Monday so he can speak to his mate at the garage again. I am royally pi$$ed off with all of this.
He was aware of the fault when he sold it to us as we were sitting in the car with the engine idling and it cut out. He also sold it with a screw embedded in the tyre. He told us the tyre had just gone soft while it was sitting in his driveway so we'd only had the thing a few days and had to fork out £60 for a new tyre.
What are my rights here? I have been complaining to this guy for nearly 3 months and got virtually nowhere.
Should I get the car fixed by the Volvo garage and then take the barsteward to court for the money?
He sold us a car with a potentially dangerous fault (could cause an accident if it cuts out and somebody runs into us), it had a damaged tyre and he mis-sold the warranty.
What are my rights here? Can anyone help? Does it make a difference that I'm in Scotland?
I would think you do have rights and you should talk to trading standards, basically if you buy a used car from a dealer it must (and i quote from the consumer direct website)
When buying from a dealer, the law says a car must be:
Of satisfactory quality. It must meet the standard a reasonable person would regard as acceptable, bearing in mind the way it was described, how much it cost, the age and the mileage on the vehicle. Amongst other things, this covers the appearance and finish of the car, its safety and its durability. The car must be free from defects, except when they were pointed out to you by the seller.
As described. If the advert states “air conditioning and CD player” then the car should come with these features and they should be working.
Reasonably fit for any normal purpose. It should get you from A to B.
Reasonably fit for any other purpose you specify to the seller. For example, towing a caravan.
These rights are not affected by any mechanical Breakdown insurance (which is often sold by dealers if the manufacturer's warranty has run out), guarantee or warranty giving additional protection. Once a trader gives a warranty it becomes an agreement on its own, but it is not your legal right to demand a warranty from the trader.
If you inspect the car, or someone does so for you, the dealer may not be liable for any faults which should have been uncovered by the inspection. It's a good idea to get a description of the vehicle's condition from the dealer: ask whether there is a pre-sale inspection checklist
Basically you will be succesful if you can prove the car was sold with the fault and then you get it repaired and write to the dealer asking for him to pay you back, if he does not do this then you can take him to small claims court..there is something else that states up till the car is 6months old you dont have to prove it was faulty but the dealer has to prove it wasnt faulty, this is from the sale of goods act but i can not find the exact article..
As for the warranty i doubt you can claim back the misselling part unless you have proof he told you it covers everything, in Scotland i believe telling someone is as good as writing it as long as you have a witness.
I am not a solicitor but i have had some time with a faulty used car and spent a long time looking at rights and consumer law along with the trading standards...i hope this helps but trading standards are the people to speak to for advice
Delboytrotter is quite right, do not have to proove the car was faulty, for the first six months the dealer has to proove that it wasn't - the reverse burden of proof.
The car's computer indicates that the car was actually sold to us with these faults so that will be difficult for him to disprove.
As for the warranty, my husband was there when he said it covered everything but I don't know if the witness needs to be impartial or not. I know he said it covered everything because I said that they didn't usually cover starter motors and similar items, but he said that it definitely covered the lot.
I found consumerdirect.gov.uk and sent them an email asking about my rights etc. They've advised me to write a Recorded Delivery letter to him stating that I want the car fully repaired within 14 days so I will do this tomorrow, despite the fact that he has arranged for it to go into a local garage for repair to one of the faults. I am not happy about what he has arranged, as the mechanic has already indicated to me that he is not confident that he can effect a full repair. The trader has also said that it will be tested insofar as the mechanic will drive it about to see if it has stopped cutting out. As this can be an intermittent fault, I don't see that this is a reasonable test of the repair.
I can see me ending up in court with this barsteward.
You should send the letter anyway, give him 14 days to put right all the faults and prove he has put them right by independent inspection, if he cant do it in the 14 days reject the vehicle and drive it back to him and demand he refunds it, do not move until he gives you written conformation that he will refund...you do not want to leave it to long more than a couple of weeks will make it harder for you to deal with it, i have had similar problems but i have the car on HP which has made it even worse...
"I am fully aware that when a used car is sold that it should be sold “without defects” although some wear and tear is acceptable a defect is not and as such I will allow you one more chance to rectify these faults in this vehicle" include this in theletter and ensure that the date it must be fixed by is 14 days from today. do not tak eany rubbish from him straight to the point and get him sorted. Whilst he is repairing your car he should also provide you with a car to run about in...demand this..
You only need look on the internet to find out how good car salesmen are at fobbing people off.
Good Luck
Regards
Derek
Just a slight correction to Del's post - you are highly unlikely to be able to reject the car and get a refund after this length of time - you would really be looking for a repair, or if he fails to do this, damages to cover the cost of repair.
(Google Bernstein v Pamson Motors for case law example. Del's situation is different in that he has purchased on HP and therefore legal acceptance would not apply)
Please note I'm not insured in this capacity, so if you need to, do get official legal advice.
What an awful two days I've had with this saga! The car went into his local garage and they couldn't get the part so it has had to stay there until the part is delivered.
I had to phone him to get his address as it's not on his website. He wanted to know why I needed his address and I'm a bad liar so I told him I wanted to write to him about the problems with the car.
He kept going on about how he'd "given" me a warranty with the car (yeah, right - like I didn't pay for it as part of the deal) and how he was prepared to get the repairs done even though the warranty didn't cover them. I told him that the warranty had to be set to the side in our discussions as it was over and above my statutory rights.
He completely threw his toys out the pram, told me to pick the car up from the garage, get it fixed myself and let my lawyer talk to his lawyer. Of course, the car was up on the ramp and stripped down with the offending part removed so there's no way I could take the car. Luckily, the guy at the garage worked his magic on the trader and he agreed to have the first fault rectified.
I've now involved Trading Standards as I am not hopeful that this guy will pay me back the money for the diagnosis, or that he'll get the other fault(s) rectified.
He's changed his trading name too which is a bit concerning. It looks like he's put the business in his son's name.
the warranty.
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Re: Used Car Problems (another one!)
As this can be an intermittent fault, I don't see that this is a reasonable test of the repair.