Car Quay Ltd - Porsche mis described

[nick7602]

here is the dealers response to the letter, which clearly shows his annoyance, can you advise how to proceed:

 

Quote

 

Hi Joshua/Nick

We have received your letter today Joshua regarding the Porsche.

Please can you confirm the exact mileage of the Porsche today by sending us a photograph of the odometer. Obviously with you highlighting safety concerns the vehicle must NOT be driven again until such time that we have had the opportunity to have the vehicle collected and inspected ourselves.

We have tried to call you Joshua, and your father too, but neither of you have seen fit to call us back or respond to the email we sent this morning.

This is in stark contrast to when you were attempting to get us to knock money off the vehicle by highlighting all of the points you have raised in your letter today, things you were both aware of when purchasing the vehicle from us and are fully documented on emails you sent to us at the time. 

I look forward to receiving a picture as requested and once received we will make an arrangement to get the vehicle recovered at a time and day that is convenient for all parties.

Kind regards

Jamie @ Car Quay

 

 

 

 

[PIXeL_92]

Where you aware of the issues you listed at the point you purchased the car ?

[nick7602]

its not possible, the only issues that were mentioned at the point of sale were the switches being broken inside the cabin, the dealer mentioned they had fixed these but clearly havent again this should have been rectified before handover and these were all verbal statements nothing in writing,

 

regarding the points raised within the letter to them yesterday it was not physically possible to know these concerns purely from a test drive, and were only picked up by the specialist last Friday and I have cut and pasted those into the letter to the dealer.

 

Regarding the modification I mentioned within my E Mail to the dealer this could only be speculation, as I have no way of confirming if it had been modified from a test drive other than the assumption it has a sports exhaust

 

I m concerned if I send the car back to the dealer he will want to buy me out of the car, and I will lose the car altogether......which is not what I want

[BankFodder]

Yes – I think you are right to be concerned. Don't take any action or make any response until we have thought about it and monitor this thread for a reply tomorrow

[BankFodder]

Okay. What is rather worrying is that they say that you pointed out all of the issues which you have raised in your most recent letter and that there are emails documenting this. You have been asked on this thread whether you knew of these issues when you purchase the car. You have responded that you were not aware.

Is it really possible that the dealer is referring to non-existent emails? If he is then you are in an excellent position. However, if he is right that there is an email exchange between you which highlights these problems then you are going to have some very serious egg all over your face.

So the first thing to do is to confirm one way the other that there is no written evidence in the dealer's possession that you knew of the issues before you bought the car. Also, you should confirm to us that you did not know the issues because if it goes to court you will have to sign that as a statement of truth.

Secondly, they are offering to repair the car – certainly in so far as the roadworthiness is concerned – and I think that you are in a position where you will have to take them up on that. I don't think that you can deny them the right to carry out repairs at their expense because obviously it will be cheaper for them. However you will be able to reserve the right to have the quality of the work and parts used inspected by your own independent inspector afterwards.
You're right to be concerned that maybe once you return the car they will try to say that in fact you have returned in exchange for a refund and so we shall have to be very careful about that. Presumably the car is fully registered in your name and you have all the documentation.

For the first part, please will you confirm the point that I am concerned about, namely the existence of an email trail between you in which the issues have been covered. This is really essential. If they are right then maybe you will have to reduce the issues you are complaining about simply to those which were not raised. That would certainly include the roadworthiness of the vehicle – because by selling you the vehicle in that condition they are breaking the law. However this doesn't mean that they have a right to seize the vehicle from you once it goes back in your possession.

[nick7602]

Hi Bank Fodder

 

 

Here is a copy of the E Mail sent to the dealer and what has been said by me, Im sure you can see that the dealer is trying to embellish things really, I can send you a copy of the specialists report??  here is the E Mail to the dealer:

Quote

 

Thank you for coming back to me, I did make it clear from the outset that there was no deposit ( see attached ) and I was more that happy to go ahead with the car even with the knowledge that it is……. modified……. has intermittent electrical issue, and a none main dealer service history, along with 110000 miles on the clock, and cosmetic issues to fix I was still more than happy to go along with the deal.

 

As you own the car I guess you can sell the car for any price you like really, I understand cars its my job,  but the average person doesn’t and possibly this car will come back and bite you especially with the fact its modified and the electrical issues.

 

I to have seen another car which I am impressed with and its a younger model for less money……give it some thought Jamie….if you want to press ahead with the deal for 15K with someone else OK by me….but do make the new owner aware the car is modified -   

 

 

This still doesn't detract from the fact that the car is modified and this wasn't mentioned in the advert at all anywhere, when we rejected the car the first time round they still didn't mention the modifications in the second advert either electing to go with the first advert again. 

 

But I will be honest, If I can get the braking system and suspension fixed I would be happy with that, hand on heart the safety issues are the things that bother me more than anything

 

The modifications are I feel secondary now perhaps compromised in someway by me in my E Mail to the dealer.

 

But here is a pertinent point, the conversation regarding the E mails and all the above points were done with my father

 

And Not Me The registered keeper and purchaser of the vehicle who is Mr Joshua Kinson

My father Mr N Kinson has not signed anything???....... hes just had a conversation with a dealer.....hes not the purchaser

 

 

[BankFodder]

10 minutes ago, nick7602 said:

 

But here is a pertinent point, the conversation regarding the E mails and all the above points were done with my father

 

And Not Me The registered keeper and purchaser of the vehicle who is Mr Joshua Kinson

My father Mr N Kinson has not signed anything???....... hes just had a conversation with a dealer.....hes not the purchaser

 

 

Yes you are right – this is a very pertinent point – but I'm afraid not in the way that you think.

The fact is that you bought the vehicle together and although you are the legal purchaser – the owner – I think from what you have written on the thread, it is pretty clear that you bought this as a joint enterprise and if there was an email exchange with your father in which the issues were discussed then I think that it is entirely reasonable for the dealer to say that you were aware of the issues – and I'm quite sure that if you went to court a judge would have no difficulty finding that the issues had come to your knowledge and that is what counts. It would mean that you had gone into the contract with your eyes open.
I'm sorry to say but I expect that the issues had come to your knowledge and that you were aware and I think it's rather disingenuous for you to say anything else. If you try that on an official level with the court I think you will shoot yourself in the foot very badly and you will lose credibility on everything.   Don't forget that if it goes to court then not being open about matters can be very serious.

I think that we need to start off with you agreeing here exactly what it is that you were aware of.

Already you have sent a message to the dealer outlining a load of problems that you are not happy with – so you have put this down in writing and so already you have shown your hand. The dealer now has written evidence of what you have been attempting to say. Already this is put you in a bad position.
The dealer does have an exchange of emails but with your father and in which exchange these issues were discussed. This was all part of the general negotiation which led to the purchase of the vehicle.

I'm afraid that you won't be able to distance yourself from these and so I suggest that you cut your losses and abandon these points immediately. They are a lost cause and if you try to run with them you will find that they will cause you to lose everything.

So what I would like you to do now please is to go through the email exchange, go through the list of issues that you have identified and discover any issues that are contained in your list which aren't referred to in the email exchange.

In respect of those issues you have an excellent chance. In respect of the roadworthiness problems, you will be home and dry and we will do our best to make sure that the vehicle is passed on to the dealer for repair and that you get it back.

Frankly I think it is a very good thing that this huge flaw in your case has come to light now because if we hadn't discovered it – and I have to say we have discovered it quite by accident – you would have been in a bad position.

We are on your side. We support you completely – but that means that you need to tell us the truth. Telling the truth means that you say everything. Half-truths or hidden truths don't cut it.

You have to be straight dealing and we can help you have a successful outcome to this.

 

 

[BankFodder]

Roughly speaking I would suggest this:

 

  

Quote

Dear X X X

Thank you for your email of X X X date.

As a result of your message, I have now spoken with my father and I have discovered that indeed many of the issues which I have identified were discussed between you and so it would be unfair of me to say that I was unaware of them. I realise I should have discussed more closely with my father. I apologise for having raised these matters.

However I shall certainly be returning the vehicle to your garage for repairs in respect of the roadworthiness issues.  These were not apparent when I bought the vehicle and I'm not aware that these were ver identified either by yourself or by my father during the negotiations. 

 I shall be telephoning you to arrange the return of the vehicle to you for repair but I want to agree with you in advance that  the repairs and of course the return of the vehicle to you is on the very clear understanding that you will be having it for a limited time in order to carry out the repairs and the vehicle will then be returned to me.

The vehicle has been purchased by me. It is now fully registered in my name and it is my property and returning the vehicle to you for repair should not be understood as relinquishing the ownership it to you or handing it back to you for any kind of refund.

 

I'd be grateful if you could give me an estimate of the amount of time that you will have the vehicle in your possession to carry out these repairs.

I look forward to hearing from you

 

I think that it is conciliatory. You acknowledge making an error but on the other hand you give a plausible excuse for it and hopefully it opens the door to a continuing good relations between the two of you – a good repair and the successful return of your vehicle

[nick7602]

Im very sorry if you feel I have misled you in the course of this conversation

 

The only thing I am interested in is the brakes and suspension being fixed thats all here is the Porsche specialists report, which shows significantly more issues than mentioned in the E Mail sent to the dealer  shown above 

 

Hope this helps, I have highlighted in the report the points that were raised to the dealer prior to picking up the car

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dont forget the vehicle is being bought on finance

[dx100uk]

you say the vehicle is being purchased on finance...does the finance specifically mention the car?

[BankFodder]

Since you first posted on Tuesday morning, it seems fairly clear to me and also other people who have invested themselves in this thread that you were only concerned with putting the vehicle into roadworthy condition but also that you thought that there was an argument to be made for making the dealer responsible for the other issues that you have listed. If you look at your first post, you will see the issues which you listed including nonworking air conditioning et cetera.

We have spent a lot of time trying to advise you in respect of all of these issues and in fact it is also clear from your most recent post where you revealed to us that the issues had been discussed with your father but that because he wasn't the purchaser, and he was not the legal owner, these discussions did not apply to you.

I think any reasonable reader of this thread would arrive at the same conclusion which is that you have tried to leverage this against the dealer and although I generally speaking find that second-hand car dealers are a pretty rough lot, I think in this case you have been unfair.

For the moment I suggest that you abandon all the other issues and concentrate on getting the car into roadworthy condition. The dealer seems to be fairly open. There is no clear indication that he might try to keep the vehicle and I suggest that you sent him the letter which I have drafted in an earlier post giving your apology – and a credible excuse for not having realised that the issues had been disclosed by him.

Keep us informed of what happens – but at the moment I don't think that there is much else that we can do.

I see that the issue of finance has been raised. I don't think that that is at all relevant at the moment but it could be an interesting aspect later on if there are problems.

Once again, it's important to be squeaky clean on all of this. We always occupy the moral high ground. It's a very safe place to be.

[nick7602]

There are one or two items picked up that weren't mentioned initially so I attached these to the list of faults with hope that these would be fixed alongside the suspension and brake discs etc.

 

I think your help from all concerned, especially you Bank have been incredible, and so very helpful, I must apologise to you all without reservation, it has not been my intention to mislead or give half truths, just trying to put the facts across as I see them even if this appears misleading....but again I do sincerely apologise.

 

I will as you say use your very kind draft of a letter to be presented to the dealer, would you advise E Mail or Normal Post?

 

Again thank you for all your very kind help all of you with this concern. I will keep you informed as to the response I receive from the dealer. 

 

 

[BankFodder]

I think because you need to court his goodwill, it could be an idea to print it out and then go round and deliver it to him and tried to shake hands.

I think you are going to need to nurture some goodwill – and also it might be a goodwill relationship that could be useful in the future

[nick7602]

Thank you very much, I will do that

 

 

 

Kind Regards

 

Joshua

[BankFodder]

Maybe even a bottle of wine – tastes rather nicer than humble pie!

If there are any issues later on then we will help you sort them out

[nick7602]

Good afternoon Bank

 

I just wanted to ask a quick question, having given the dealer the letter as drafted by yourself, I have as yet not heard anything back from the dealer, I appreciate its early days, how long should we give the dealer?

 

What if the dealer has no intentions of repairing the vehicle or communicating further?

 

 

 

Kind Regards

 

[BankFodder]

When did the dealer receive it? Did you hand it personally? Did you have a chat with him as suggested?

If there is a refusal to deal with it then don't worry we can handle it – although it would take a little time

[nick7602]

Hi Bank

 

The dealer received it on the Friday, so yes a bit early.

 

It sadly isn't possible to take the letter by hand due to the distance from where we live, I know that it would have been the best thing to do.

 

 

 

Kind Regards

 

[BankFodder]

I have to say that looking around at the reviews for this dealer, they don't seem to be at all bad. The fact that they responded to you in the way that they did in writing – and proposing repairing the vehicle for its road safety issues seems to be highly responsible.

So far they seem to be demonstrating very good practice – and am afraid that I think you may have gotten off on the wrong foot by raising a number of issues which we now understand you were already aware of through your father. I think this is probably damage the relationship between you – and so this is why I suggested approaching them in the way that I did.

It's a shame that you didn't manage to get there – it would have made a lot of difference.

I suggest that maybe wait until Thursday and give them a nice polite phone call and asked them if they received your letter and how can you work something out together.

[Manxman in exile]

If they only received it on Friday I wouldn't expect to hear anything from them until the middle of next week at the very earliest*, and probably no sooner than next (ie this coming) Friday.  Personally I think I'd only chase it up if I've heard nothing after a week.  (ie next Monday, not tomorrow).

 

I've not read any reviews of the garage, but if you can get them to put right the faults and possible roadworthiness issues in a way that both you and the garage are happy with then, given you definitely want to keep the car, I think I'd go with it.

 

As BF suggests, I'd forget any arguments about what your father may have known and what you did or did not know.  It has the potential of undermining your credibility and demonstrates the pitfalls of negotiating on behalf of someone else or two people carrying out the same negotiations independently.

 

*If they come back any sooner I'd be concerned it would be with a response you don't like.  I'd want to give them some time and not push too hard.  That's what I'd do anyway...

[nick7602]

Hi Manxman

 

Yes I think your righting I will take your advice.

 

The dealer left a voice mail to my father the day he received the letter asking for myself and my father to contact him, sadly my father is very ill, and suffers from loss of memory as part of his condition, and I was in a meeting at 07.00 when I'm being bombarded by the dealer continuously with phone calls, the dealer mentioned within his voice mail for us to contact him at our leisure at a time to suit both my father and I

When we didn't respond by the end of the day and judging by the content and feel of the email sent to us by the end of that day, he became quite annoyed by making statements about the negotiations....which we felt was unfair given that the dealer had offered a reduction in price not me.

 

I might be wrong but I don't feel things with this dealer will go well  despite glowing reports from their customers.

 

How business  owners deal with customers who might be difficult, have a problem or something has gone wrong with a product......really shows the true side of their business

 

So we will wait and see

 

Kind Regards 

 

 

[Manxman in exile]

Nick - the inspection report you posted from the Porsche specialist garage (the one that had your name and address and was then removed) didn't identify or mention any modifications.  Are they now not an issue for you?

 

If the car has been modified in any way, I'm sure you are aware that most motor insurance policies require that you must notify the insurer of any modifications?

[BankFodder]

Maybe I've got things wrong here – but he telephoned you and he certainly wasn't to know that your father was ill or that you were in meetings. Also I gather from what you say that it was he who offered the reduction – you didn't particularly have to ask for it.
If that's all correct – then this goes to the credit of the dealer

[nick7602]

Yes he did telephone me, after I sent the letter you asked me to send Bankfodder 

and the apologetic E Mail, to him for sending that letter in the first place.

 

Yes we thought it was very nice of him to reduce the price of the vehicle, and we thanked him for his very kind offer

 

But it still doesn't get away from the fact that the vehicle has been mis described in a published advert on Autotrader

 

Yes I will be happy if they fix the brakes and suspension

[nick7602]

UPDATE: Dealer collected the car from my home address on Tuesday, I have heard nothing back from the dealer so I sent an enquiry for information regarding the course of action with my car and still heard nothing back, so I remember the owner telling me they use Zentrum a Porsche specialist in Nottingham for all their warranty work, so I phoned them to find out if they know anything about my car or if its booked in, not booked in nothing?

 

Apparently the car is just sitting there according to the person I spoke to on the phone

 

This is a highly specialist car, and it cant just go to anybody to be fixed

 

I don't have a warm feeling about this, from the formal letter sent to the dealer the request for a realistic work and time schedule for the car hasn't been sent to me either?

 

Im tempted to collect the car tomorrow and release it back to them when they can, progress the car diligently.

 

 

Kind Regards

 

Nick