When the car slowed, it was the first time that the CC had switched off. I know of many people who use CC within speed restrictions such as 50MPH average speed cameras on the motorway.

Cruise control is not a speed limiter which is the way your using it.

Cruise control instructions warn against this as the speed actually varies on conditions. Go read the warnings. I've posted them.

What you need is a speed limiter which works in an entirely different way.

When the car slowed, it was the first time that the CC had switched off. .

how were you using it

for eg, were you say above the speed limit, then took your foot off the pedal and when slowed down to the limit pressed to cruise. it then went off a bit later?

Simply bring the car up to 40mph using the accelerator, press the CC button, lift my foot off and flick the lever down tho engage the CC. It would then happily run at 40mph for anything from a few seconds to a couple of minutes, at which point I would feel the car start to slow, as if you've lifted your foot off the accelerator, and noticed that the CC light had gone out. The CC would not turn back on unless the engine was restarted. This went from happening 1-2 times per week to eventually happening 1-2 times per journey to and from work.

ok.

i was thinking as an eg when using cruise on a passat, it wld only work when bringing up the speed rather than the other way (it would cancel itself, and wld then need to accelerate back up to the required and then do the cruise)

I think this conversation is getting you into an endless loop and worrying you needlessly.

Once again, I suggest that you take the steps that I've already laid out for you. The most important thing is to get a video record of what is happening on the cruise control. I have already said that you should get the video of it happening to 3 times. Make sure that there is some date and time stamp on the video.

Once you have that then we can talk about getting it confirmed that it is a fault. Once you have that then you are ready to go.

This thread is simply dissolving into endless speculation and it's going to get you nowhere except very confused and under confident of your situation.

You need empirical evidence. Nothing else will do.

I suggest that you call it a day now

agree, fault evidence is needed. there's no point in making a court claim without evidence.

any contrary evidence wld though probably need to be expert (technical) in the circs, though a self video might work.

maybe OP could try and get another garage to look at it. but that will involve cost.

Been in touch with FOS today and the representative dealing with our case simply gave us a link to which we should send our FOI request.

We received a response stating that they would have the information to us by Dec 17th, which seems a long time.

Also within their response they advised that it woud be best to obtain the information we require from the person who was dealing with our case as it would be a quicker process, so we are going to re-address this tomorrow and ask why why it can't come straight from her.

Just one other piece of information;

My wife spoke with a representative from Toyota today as we had initially asked for a valuation on the vehicle, and once we mentioned that we had seen a solicitor about this he said he would be very surprised if Toyota didn't just write off the remaining debt (circa £2.5k) as they do not like getting the courts involved.

With regards to the video;

the dealer still has the car which we would obviously have to retrieve,

but the last time I spoke with Trading Standards they advised that simply by collecting the car I am "accepting" it back which is extremely damaging towards my case.

Obviously I am concerned that this may well be the case and just wanted to ask you were 100% sure that this is the route I should take?

Well I disagree with the FOS. Once you present them with the FOIA request it is up to them to direct it to the proper person or proper department to deal with it. I think you should make a point of this in any letter you write. I'm very surprised at what they are telling you.

In terms of this information from trading standards, I disagree completely. I think it is absurd that you should be expected to leave the car with a dealer but if you are at all concerned then it won't hurt you to give them a letter requiring the return of the car because you are going to make further investigations and you do not accept the situation. However, I don't think trading standards know what they're talking about.

As far as what the solicitor has said, I have no idea if this is true or not.

What would be interesting to know is how many times the dealer has taken the car out to check the fault. I can't imagine that they have taken very much trouble about it at all. I don't suppose that you made a note of the mileage when you left the car – or they recorded it in any paperwork they gave you. If you do have a note of the mileage then I suspect that you will find that it hasn't increased very much.

By and large I think that you are being led around by the nose and I think you need to take control of this

This was FOS' email this afternoon;

From: Information Rights Officer [mailto:information.rights@financial-ombudsman.org.uk]

Sent: 20 November 2017 16:34

To:

Subject: RE: 1 - FOI Request

Dear

Thank you for your email requesting information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. We’ll respond as soon as we’re able to and by 17 December 2017.

Yours sincerely

Elizabeth Taylor | stakeholder team | Financial Ombudsman Service | [email protected]

To be honest, I was surprised when TS advised that I should not have collected the car after it was repaired.

I actually asked, "what was I supposed to do, just leave it there when I am paying over £300/mth for a car that I can't use?"

Her response was "sometimes that is what you have to do".

She genuinely seemed really baffled at the fact that I had picked the car back up.

With regards to the solicitor;

I didn't quite make myself clear as it was the Toyota representative that doubted that Toyota would want this to escalate to the courts.

We may have the mileage of the car when we dropped it off, I'm not surer and my wife is currently out. I will ask.

As for the "test driving" that Toyota carried out;

we advised them that the car was breaking down on a weekly basis, which for me is around 250 miles.

They told us that they had carried out "extensive" road testing on it and wanted us to go and collect it as they wanted their courtesy car back.

When we collected our car it had covered just 50 miles.

This was on a Saturday morning.

By Monday morning it had broken down again and had only covered a further 13 miles,

so had they done a more thorough road test it may well have happened whilst in their possession.

Also, with regards to the CC not working correctly, they actually said that even if it did do it that it was a "characteristic" of the car, so even if I do manage to film it, surely they will just dismiss it?

I think that you should start realising that it's not what Toyota say that counts any more, it's what an independent scrutiny will say. I have already suggested that you are likely to end up bringing legal proceedings on this and in that case it would be the view of the judge.

Of course Toyota will dismiss what you say – they want to defend their position, don't they?

I think we need to start talking about values here. What did the car cost you? What is the value of it now?

they advised that it woud be best to obtain the information we require from the person who was dealing with our case as it would be a quicker process

i can understand that. when i wanted a copy of a fos case file, i just asked the advisor over the phone for it. it came within a week.

i can understand that. when i wanted a copy of a fos case file, i just asked the advisor over the phone for it. it came within a week.

To be honest i have been far from impressed by the advisor that we were given. She seems very young and naive.

I think that you should start realising that it's not what Toyota say that counts any more, it's what an independent scrutiny will say. I have already suggested that you are likely to end up bringing legal proceedings on this and in that case it would be the view of the judge.

 

Of course Toyota will dismiss what you say – they want to defend their position, don't they?

 

I think we need to start talking about values here. What did the car cost you? What is the value of it now?

I think it was just under £20K when we bought it in Oct of 2015.

There is a final payment at the end of the PCP agreement which is actually working against us at the moment as it menas that despite being 24 months into a 42 month contract, we still haven't reached the 50% mark for Voluntary Termination.

If I remember correctly there is approx £12.5K remaining on the agreement and the car would be worth £10K at best.

We actually had it valued by Toyota back in June just before we decided to reject it because at the time we were actually looking to trade it in with them because of all the problems we were having with it.

I couldn't believe when the sales advisor started giving it the old "well, theyve droped in price a lot just recently due to all this diesel scandal".

He said that they would offer a big discount against another brand new one but the payment figure he came back with was £378/mth.

Across the road was a brand new BMW that was £379 deposit and £379/mth.

It just didn't make sense to pay that sort of money for a Toyota, especially in white.

It wasn't even a nice colour.

To be honest i have been far from impressed by the advisor that we were given. She seems very young and naive.

fair dos.

re taking the car for independent testing. as bankfodder, it would seem unreasonable for such to be deemed as acceptance

It was this advisor that actually said that we should have rejected the car back in June when the EGR Vlave failed for a 2nd time.

That way she would have upheld our claim to reject it based on a repeat repair,

but as the car was "now fixed" she rejected our claim.

I told her that is exactly what we did and it was only due to the fact that she had taken the full 8 weeks to come to a decsion that the car has been fixed in the mean time.

Much of our attempts to contact her were met with unanswered phone calls and emails that we had to keep chasing due to her being absent a lot through sickness.

yes, i see in your letter pdf #7 that you listed the egr valve when advising them of your rejection.

We have to try to move this on. This conversation still getting bogged down. Assuming that you get the car back and that you establish by means of evidence that it is faulty, I have to ask you – what would you like to get out of this.

You should be aware that I'm quite convinced that you will have at least two threaten legal action and to begin a claim. You may not be aware that there is a system called the – small claims track – which allows you to bring a claim for less than £10,000 and even if you lose, you don't have to pay the other side's costs. If your claim is for more than £10,000 then it goes on to something called the Fast Track in which case you will have to pay a fair bit of the other side's costs if you lose.

Personally I think that the chances of you succeeding in your claim are better than 90%. However, if you reject the car then I think that you will find yourself needing to claim much more than £10,000. This put you at risk in the remote event that you might fail. Also, our experience is that when claims go onto the fast track that well resourced defendants start pulling out all the stops to crush a claimant and they make that claimant very much aware that they will be responsible for a high level of costs if they lose. This amounts to bullying and intimidation – but unfortunately it often succeeds. Nobody wants to sue for say, £15,000, and then lose the case and then find one is saddled with another £10,000 worth of costs.

I think that the best way forward here is not to reject the car but to get a definitive opinion of what is wrong with it and get an estimate for a complete repair of that issue and then sue for that – as well as all the loss and inconvenience that you have suffered over the time you have owned the car. This would have the advantage of bringing the claim to well under £10,000 and it would also have the advantage of finally isolating the issue. Once this cruise control issue was repaired, if there were further faults with the car then you can sue for them one by one. At some point I think Toyota would put up their hands and agreed that it was a lemon and replace the car. I think if you went all out and sued on the basis of a rejection of the vehicle now, although you would very likely win, you still expose yourself to an element of risk however small.

I think that you need to approach this strategically.

It's a great shame you didn't come to this forum a long time ago

you don't have to have reached 50% to VT!

just pay the diff to it.

check the rear of the agreement

the figure should be listed.

pers i'd VT it, but do it PROPERLY!!

I think "doing it properly" includes figuring out whether this means that you take a loss on it and also whether the finance company then decides that you still owe them money and they come after you for it.

I think it is very important to establish that they are in the wrong and that your rights have suffered.

We have to try to move this on. This conversation still getting bogged down. Assuming that you get the car back and that you establish by means of evidence that it is faulty, I have to ask you – what would you like to get out of this.

 

You should be aware that I'm quite convinced that you will have at least two threaten legal action and to begin a claim. You may not be aware that there is a system called the – small claims track – which allows you to bring a claim for less than £10,000 and even if you lose, you don't have to pay the other side's costs. If your claim is for more than £10,000 then it goes on to something called the Fast Track in which case you will have to pay a fair bit of the other side's costs if you lose.

 

Personally I think that the chances of you succeeding in your claim are better than 90%. However, if you reject the car then I think that you will find yourself needing to claim much more than £10,000. This put you at risk in the remote event that you might fail. Also, our experience is that when claims go onto the fast track that well resourced defendants start pulling out all the stops to crush a claimant and they make that claimant very much aware that they will be responsible for a high level of costs if they lose. This amounts to bullying and intimidation – but unfortunately it often succeeds. Nobody wants to sue for say, £15,000, and then lose the case and then find one is saddled with another £10,000 worth of costs.

 

I think that the best way forward here is not to reject the car but to get a definitive opinion of what is wrong with it and get an estimate for a complete repair of that issue and then sue for that – as well as all the loss and inconvenience that you have suffered over the time you have owned the car. This would have the advantage of bringing the claim to well under £10,000 and it would also have the advantage of finally isolating the issue. Once this cruise control issue was repaired, if there were further faults with the car then you can sue for them one by one. At some point I think Toyota would put up their hands and agreed that it was a lemon and replace the car. I think if you went all out and sued on the basis of a rejection of the vehicle now, although you would very likely win, you still expose yourself to an element of risk however small.

 

I think that you need to approach this strategically.

 

It's a great shame you didn't come to this forum a long time ago

All we want is to hand the keys over and to walk away without having to pay any more money on this car.

In effect we are only asking for the £2.5K that is remaining to take us up to the 50% mark to be quashed.

What we probably shouldn't have done was go and buy a new car from another dealer,

which I now see to have been quite a presumsious decision on our behalf,

at the time we were fully supported by Citizen's Advice that this was more or less an open and shut case and that once Toyota agree to take the car back, it would be quite a swift process.

We bought the new car on a 2 months leadtime which came and went in September.

Since then we have been paying for both cars.

I too wish we had contacted you long before now but seriously underestimated just how wrong this could all go.

Citizens Advice are quite good at some things – but dealing with debt where you need an aggressive approach and also dealing with consumer matters – aggressive or not, do not seem to be an area where they are particularly strong.

On this forum we tend to take a pretty tough approach. Some people might say that we are aggressive but in fact we are simply very businesslike – but I'm afraid that you seem to have let your opportunities slip through your fingers.

oh yes ......prove its a lemon and nail them....

Sorry for vanishing but something else other than this issue with the car has happened, which has taken up our time for the past couple of days.

We received an response from the FOS today with regards to our request for the correspondence between them and Toyota. They are refusing to give us the correspondence due to the data Protection Act.

I have attached the PDF.

Now I am really confused as to what to do.

The solicitor we contacted has also got back to us, but the call was missed and they left a voicemail advising that they will be back in office as fo Monday.

I know we have missed various opportunities as you previously mentioned but we really need to try and resolve this as soon as possible as it is taking a huge toll on my wife (Lisa), especially on top of recent events. Any help you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Lee.

FOI 2885 - Lisa Parkinson - final.pdf

sounds about right. (foi results have to be available published)

as i mentioned prior, could've just tried asking the adjudicator for a copy of the file (but, they may now be difficult doing that given the above)

or if that fails, do the dsar (but be prepared to wait up to 40 days)

Who do you mean by the "adjudicator"?