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VW Emissions - Salesman told me affected car was not affected


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I bought a diesel Volkswagen Passat estate car around a year ago from a local car dealership.

 

 

While my wife and I were out for a test drive,

I made sure to ask the salesman if the car had been affected by the VW emissions scandal.

 

 

The salesman told us that it was not as they had checked.

However, I recently received a letter from Volkswagen stating that my car was indeed affected.

We would not have bought the car had we known that it was affected.

 

What are my rights in terms of the dealership?

I have no written or recorded record of the conversation, but my wife and I were both present when he made the statement.

Edited by meanwhileinhell
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Given that you have had a year's use of the car, it is no longer that important if you were deliberately misled, or if this was a "negligent mis-statement",

 

 

as with a year's usage you aren't likely to be able to return the car, as it is now in a significantly different state to when purchased (in age, and likely in mileage?)

 

So, you should write to the dealership, noting events, and ask to be compensated for their error.

You can ask to be placed into the position you would have been had the error not been made (or, as near to it as monetary compensation can provide): given the car can't be put back into its purchase condition, you should ask for the difference in price between what would have been paid for a car that wasn't affected, and a car that was.

 

If they accept liability, expect for them to offer you the difference between what the car is worth now, and what it'd be worth now (if it wasn't affected), if this is less than what you'd claim .......

 

Alternatively they might deny liability (saying the never would have said it wasn't affected!), or claim that once the correction is made by VW that there will be no loss in value of the car, and so no refund is due.

 

Interesting one, and could be argued a number of ways!.

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Thanks for your reply. The only real thing annoying me now is that I will have to take a full day off work in order to take it to the VW dealership to get the work carried out. I don't imagine anything would come of writing to them. I'll check my documentation and see if there is any mention of the statement.

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Thanks for your reply. The only real thing annoying me now is that I will have to take a full day off work in order to take it to the VW dealership to get the work carried out. I don't imagine anything would come of writing to them. I'll check my documentation and see if there is any mention of the statement.

 

Why a full day off work?.

 

Options include a courtesy car from the VW garage, or them collecting the car from your house. Or, ask them to pay for a hire car for the day, or your taxi fare.

 

Insisting that you'll be stuck at home and not able to do ANY work for a whole day might be a claim too far unless you can prove that there was no other option.

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Hold on here. Lets get a few facts right. The initial post state that the OP bought from a dealership. It does not state it was from an official VW dealership. If not an official VW dealership then the dealer in question would not be in a position to make any comment.

 

 

Another jumping on the band wagon of litigation not understanding what has gone on perhaps ???

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If they "weren't in a position to make a comment" then the correct answer is "I don't know", or "I can't comment".

 

If they say "no, it's not affected" and the purchaser is

a) relying on that statement, and

b) making it a major condition of their decision to purchase or not, then it is either a fraudulent representation (if deliberate) or a negligent mis-statement (if not deliberate).

 

Not being a VW dealership doesn't stop them creating the liability within contract law from giving a definitive (but wrong!) answer.

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End of the day, why didn't the OP check for themselves?

 

 

I am guessing that there is nothing in writing regarding this check from the garage and they will likely claim this conversation never took place.

 

There are some things that yes, the garage should be held liable for,

 

 

but the OP not doing his homework on a car,

especially a question as serious as that!

It would have taken seconds to do on his phone.

 

However, if the OP does have something in writing on this occasion, then there may be good cause for complaint.

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If they "weren't in a position to make a comment" then the correct answer is "I don't know", or "I can't comment".

 

If they say "no, it's not affected" and the purchaser is

a) relying on that statement, and

b) making it a major condition of their decision to purchase or not, then it is either a fraudulent representation (if deliberate) or a negligent mis-statement (if not deliberate).

 

Not being a VW dealership doesn't stop them creating the liability within contract law from giving a definitive (but wrong!) answer.

 

 

I don't think you understand the extent of the issue in hand.

 

 

At the time of sale from what's been unravelling and still seems to be so, I don't think anyone knew the extent of the issue or what vehicles were affected VW in Wolfsburg included.

To me you'd have to prove that whilst the issue came to light, the issue in itself, i.e. the fuel economy and type of emissions quantity had a material effect on your decision to buy the car. Bearing this in mind, there were other similar cars on the market at the time which had better claims so there was something other than the emissions defeat debacle that swayed you to buy this car.

 

 

Don't think your going anywhere with this.

 

 

Interesting scenario though as I expect to see a rise in claims in Europe.

 

 

Apparently VW Group were aware of the defeat device which was designed for the US market test. However the claim against VW is that they knew at the late stages not that customers necessarily were dis advantaged. In some cases customers have been able to improve on the fuel economy quoted.

 

 

All a bit of a mess but UK and Europe shouldn't get too excited about it all.

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I don't think you understand the extent of the issue in hand.

.............

 

To me you'd have to prove that whilst the issue came to light, the issue in itself, i.e. the fuel economy and type of emissions quantity had a material effect on your decision to buy the car. Bearing this in mind, there were other similar cars on the market at the time which had better claims so there was something other than the emissions defeat debacle that swayed you to buy this car.

 

Not hard for the OP to establish the issue had a material effect on their decision if the court believes the OP went to the trouble of asking the salesman about it, and then says the reason they asked was because they didn't want the risk involved with an affected car.....

 

It doesn't matter if something else swayed the OP, provided the defeat device issue was a factor making a material difference.

 

The fact that the scale of the problem wasn't know is irrelevant : the OP could well say that the uncertainty was one of the reasons they specifically didn't want an affected model!

 

By all means look at it from the "industry expert" viewpoint, but you also have to look at it from the contract law / fraudulent statement / negligent mis-satement viewpoint!

 

Count yourself lucky you knew about the issue with VW, I bought my VW 4 days before it all came out, cars value dropped by about £500

 

So, not hard to establish a loss occurring, either.

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