many thanks for the clarification Mossy. I will write a letter to them to this effect. Cheers!

hi all, I have an open claim for an incident from last March where someone (a minor) stepped out in front of my car. The insurance company say that because it was a minor, the claim must remain open for 2 years from the date of the incident just in case a claim is made. No claim has been made so far. Because the claim is still open, they have reduced my no claims bonus by two years. They will also not give me a bonus for the year in which the incident happened. They will however reinstate the two years no claims if the claim is closed with no claim. They do not mention whether I will also get back my no claims bonus for the year in which the incident happened (I made no other claims that year). I would argue that I should also get a bonus for this as well, i.e. when the claim is closed with no claim, I should get 3 years back. My main argument however is whether the no claims bonus should be reduced at all given no claim has been made yet. Is this something worth questioning with the insurance company, or does it sound like standard policy? Should they only reduce the no claims bonus if a claim is actually made? Thanks!

thanks so much. I'm going to get the car inspected. Would an RAC/AA vehicle inspection do the job?

thanks very much BRW for the detailed advice. the carpet is not really getting wet, it just smells nasty. It is only in the drivers footwell. The rest of the carpet is ok. After the water pump was fixed, the car overheated on the motorway on saturday when I collected it. The RAC roadside recovery engineer said either the water pump had gone again, or the thermostat. He filled it up with water to the top, and revved the car with the coolant overflow chamber cap off. The water was bubbling away. Could this be a sign of head gasket failure?

thanks. the carpet only smells in the drivers area. the rest of the carpet smells ok. I guesss water alone could make the carpet go mouldy and smell.

how important is delvering the letter in person? I'll be at work so it will be difficult to get there until next weekend.

thanks. so if they are vat registered, then by definition they are a ltd company, and a sole trader? What should the letter contain?

many thanks. Once I begun considering returning the car, I decided to check whether the dealership was a registered company. Turns out they are not, but rather an individual trading as the dealership name. The agreement is also with the individual. They do however have a forcourt, do finance, warranties, are VAT registered etc. And they advertised the car a trade in autotrader. Will this be an issue with the SOGA?

thanks for the replies. Do I have 14 days from when I payed the final balance? Do I need to ensure the letter is with the dealer by recorded delivery before the 14 days have expired?

less than two weeks ago. Didnt pick it up until last saturday, returned in on sunday complaining of the smell. picked it up again this saturday just gone, car broke down (water pump failed) now back with the dealer.

Hi all, I recently bought a £3,000 used car from an independent car dealer. When I inspected the car and test drove it, the car was heavily perfumed. I assumed that the car had just been cleaned and prepared. However, once I had bought the car, after a few hours I noticed a strong musty smell, similar to sour milk or old socks. I eventually identified the smell as coming from the carpet on the driver’s side by sniffing the carpets (not something I do very often ). I have since taken the car back and the dealer has steam cleaned the carpet, but the smell is still there. Further, I cannot be sure that once the strong perfume smell fades, that the carpet smell will not be even worse (especially in the summer when the car gets hot). The car was described as “exceptionally clean” in the advert, but I am sure the dealer was aware of the smell before the sold the car, and tried to conceal it with air freshener. Since I know how difficult it can be to get smells out of a carpet, and since there is no way for me to assess the long term impact of the smell (due to the overpowering air freshener), do you think I have grounds for returning the car for a full refund? Cheers!