Car exchange and lost money

[sailor sam]

Hi and welcome to CAG

 

As I see it from your account, the purchase of the original car was cancelled by mutual agreement so the deposit you paid should then be transfered to the repacement car. As that was £1k dearer than the original car, your finance amount should now be £3995. Clearly they have simply taken the original car as p/x on the replacement thus acheiving 2 sales rather than exchanging the 'faulty' car for the 'new' one.

 

You have 2 choices in my opinion, you can contact the finance co direct and explain the situ to them and that you regard the agreement as being breached by the dealer's actions and as such you will be seeking for a full refund of your deposit (obviously if you choose this option you will need to return the car to the dealer), or you tell the dealer that unless he adjusts the transaction to reflect the fact that your finance is £3995, you will seek to terminate the deal altogether as you consider the agreement to be in dispute under the SOGA.

[sailor sam]

While understand yor concerns, I don't think the dealer has acted in your best interests. Finance isn't my strongest field but but it dosn't seem fair that your deposit has simply been consumed from a situation which started with the original car being of unsatisfactory quality. IMHO what should of happened is that the original sale should of been cancelled completely and then you should of been back to square one as it were. It seems to me that the dealer has pulled a bit of a fast one by treating your return as a simple part exchange against the replacement car so the looser is you. When in fact the dealer should of been as he sold you a car which was faulty. Under the SOGA the seller should be given the opportunity to inspect and rectify and if that fails, then you have the option of rejecting the car for a full refund (within a reasonable time frame). It seems that the dealer has 'leap frogged' that process by simply agreeing for you to return the car and exchange it for another one. the problem is, he has treated it as another purchace and excepted the faulty car as a trade in.

 

I think you should have a word with Trading Standards about this and get face to face advice. I am also hoping others may come in with financial experience who may be able to help further.

[sailor sam]

Well as you have got Trading Standards on your side, I doubt that the finance co will want to persue any default action. As I see it, the dealer is in breach and has given you the right to walk away from the deal. Obviously you need to reject the car as you believe it has been mis-sold to you (check with TS for a reason to reject) and will need to put that in writing. At that point you MUST NOT use the car again. You can if you wish, hand it back complete with all docs and let TS do their work. Either they will commence an action agianst the dealer in respect of your deposit or you may have to yourself. Hopefully (it seems) TS will do it for you.

[sailor sam]

This just confirms what I have been saying. the dealership have treated the 'exchange' as a separate sale rather than a replacement. Also, the response from their head office seems to be avoiding the issue (deliberately in my opinion.) Trading Standards however seem to be taking the same line as me, that you should not suffer financially because the original car was faulty. If you were cynical, you could be forgiven to suspect that the dealer didn't want to give you the opportunity to reject the first car because they knew that if you did, then they would of had to refund your deposit in full and start again. I think that they have deliberately miss-lead you into thinking that they were exchanging the faulty car for a replacement when in fact they have treated it as a simple part exchange. My feeling is that Trading Standards should back you into taking legal action if necessary because I think you have been, dare I use the word; Deceived into loosing your deposit legitimately. Personally I would be tempted to take the car back (as mentioned in post #6) and say they can keep it until either they change their position and refund/adjust you deposit accordingly, or see what the outcome of possible legal action will bring. If you do this, you must advise the finance co stating that as far as you are concerned the agreement is in dispute which will mean that no default action can really be taken until it is resolved.

 

I would however, follow the advice of Trading Standards or, if necessary that of a specialist solicitor. My advice may make complete sense but I wouldn't want you to risk anything which would compromise your financial position. You could however, put these suggestions/thoughts to Trading Standards which may prompt them looking into this which they may not of thought of. we also have a Vauxhall Customer Relations cagger on here named VX Max. Hopefully he will pick up on this. It would be very interesting to here what he has to say.

 

EDIT: I have actually taken the liberty of sending VX_MAX a PM drawing his attention to this thread.

Edited February 16, 2012 by sailor sam

[sailor sam]

This confirms what I said in post #4. Rather than treating the situation as exchanging a fulty car for another, the dealer has made it into 2 seperatae sales. They have simply ignored the correct route which would of been you rejecting the first car under the SOGA as being not of satisfactory quality, and then refunding all your monies paid which would effectively put you back to square 1.

 

The dealer has simply manipulated the situation so they are not out of pocket but you are. Very unethical and unfair practice when they sold you a faulty car in the first place IMHO. From your original account, they seem to have encouraged you down this route also.

 

Trading Standards should really get their teeth into this for you.

[sailor sam]

Is this an Evans Halshaw dealership? only this have some overtones that sound familier to my case.

 

No Network Q (Vaxhall)

[sailor sam]

Kind words which I really appreciate, thank you.

 

I would be very tempted to get further advice before making the first payment either by pusing further at TS or consulting a specialist solicitor. It may also be useful to get some opinions on the 'legal' side of returning the car from our finance guru's who normally stay on the 'banks & credit' forum. I'll se if we can attract them here by asking the site team for some guidence.

 

We must focus on the fact however, that it is the dealer who has manipulated this situation. The finace co are simply acting on their information. So it may be useful to register an official complaint to them by completing their forms and sending them back to them. But please photo copy the forms AFTER you have completed them.