Avon Car Sales - Dubious tactics not to refund for fault in car - court claim issued

[BankFodder]

Welcome to the forum.

I see you got our message to space out your story for us. Well done. Maybe even a bit more spacing would be helpful.

You haven't told us the exact date that this happened. The date you bought the car and the date that it broke down.

You say that you've been contacted by a firm of solicitors acting for them. What firm was that please?

How much has this whole episode cost you altogether – including shipment et cetera?

 

Also, where is the car now?

And I'm interested to know why they sent you a letter from a solicitor? You must have sent them some communication which cause them to feel that they had to take these defensive steps. What did you send them please?

[BankFodder]

I'm astonished at this disgraceful story where hearing. What's the name of the person you are dealing with at the dealers? Also I believe that you said that you received a solicitor's letter? Which solicitors?

Where is the car now?

I asked you to tell us by how much are you out of pocket and you haven't answered as far as I can see

[BankFodder]

Also you had better read some of our used car buying advice https://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/393-general-consumer-tips-and-guidance/ although it's a bit late now

[BankFodder]

Okay, I think you are being badly mucked around and I'm sorry that you run along with it. We can help you take control and put an end to this being led around by the nose.

I would like to see the legal letter which you have received. Just out of curiosity and for a laugh.

You should understand that you're not dealing with the real firm of lawyers here, just some service that is prepared to send out letters to make you frightened.

You are going to have to issue legal proceedings on this. It may be that once they realise you're serious and you send the letter of claim that they may fall into line – but it is extremely unlikely. This means that if you decide to send the letter of claim giving them 14 days notice of a legal action, then on day 15 you must kick off the claim. If you don't carry out the threat then you may as well give up and walk away.

On the basis of what you tell us, your chances of success in a claim are much better than 95% and of course you will recover the cost of your claim as well. If for some remote reason which we don't understand, you lose then you will simply lose your court costs – and nothing else.

Also I think that a complaint should be made against the finance company because they are clearly in breach of their statutory obligations. However, it seems to me the best thing to do is to start off against the dealer.

I asked you if they are still try to charge you storage fees – and you haven't replied.

Let us know if you would like to take control and if you are prepared to take legal action. If you are not sure what this means then you should read up the steps involved in taking a small claim in the County Court. It's very easy. We will help you – but you are best off understanding the steps so that you have a measure of confidence and also that we are not dragging you around and spoon feeding you all the way.

[BankFodder]

We'll have a look at the letter and get back to you very soon. However don't worry about GDPR. It doesn't affect you. It only affects companies which collect data as part of their business. However, it is worthwhile redacting your own personal details from anything you post

[BankFodder]

I've read the letter.

Of course this is a "legal service" which works for [read: – serves] the used car profession trade. You wouldn't expect anything else.

Actually apart from being mainly nonsense, the content of the letter actually makes several admissions which will help you if this goes to a hearing. They won't have realised it, and I'll explain more as we go through the process once you have issued proceedings.

The fact is, that the consumer rights act – requires that any item you buy should be a satisfactory quality and should remain that way for a reasonable period of time.

Clearly the vehicle you have bought is not a satisfactory quality and so therefore the dealer is in breach of contract.

The second thing is that there are two kinds of breaches. There are fundamental breaches – which are serious and go to the heart of the contract and deprive you of the purpose/benefit of the contract.

The second kind of breach is a minor breach – and in law it's known as a "breach of warranty" (I have no idea why).

It seems clear to me that the car has completely broken down and therefore there has been a fundamental breach of contract and that entitles you to treat the contract as voided by their breach.

They point to the fact that it had no coolant and you drove it without any coolant.
Your answer to this is that you have no professional knowledge. You had no idea that this could impact on the vehicle and you acted reasonably throughout. Had you known about the danger of running without the coolant – or if you had realised the extent of the leakage then you would not different.

Therefore, the coolant leakage – being there responsibility – quite naturally led to the entire breakdown of the vehicle. In other words the breakdown of vehicle was a natural consequence of their original breach.

Please let me know if you have any difficulty understanding this argument.

The next thing to do is to take control and I would suggest a single letter to them rejecting their position and telling them that you want a refund of everything – cost of the vehicle and any other ancillary expenses such as the delivery costs.

I would suggest that this letter should be a simple letter that doesn't make any threats – but if after say, seven days, there is I that no response or a rejection – then you issue a 14 day letter of claim and you sue them on day 15.

If you do see them then you should sue them for all of your losses and also interest calculated from the date of the breach – which is the date that you noticed the leak in the coolant.

Please let me know what you think about this.

Have you taken a legal action in the County Court before?

[BankFodder]

Excellent. You had all of this sorted – and yet you let them dominate the situation. I really don't understand why.

Did the engineers report cost you anything?

Because this correspondence is so old – I suggest that you follow my advice and you sent the letter which I have suggested.

Refer them to your original letter of November 17. Refer them to the report from autocentres – and maybe include a copy of it with your letter.

Tell them that you want a refund of all your money – including fees et cetera.

As I said, I don't think it's worth making any threats at this point. I'm sure they will ignore you or simply reject – but at least it looks good that you have given them a chance. Then in about 7 to 10 days, send the letter of claim.

I suggest that you post up your draft letter of claim here before you posted.

I suggest also that you post up a draft particulars of claim here before you click it off. You're quite right – that it should be short. You do have an opportunity to send a more detailed particulars of claim after you have issued the proceedings – but we always suggest that you don't. We always suggest that you give the minimum amount of information – simply enough to show that you have a cause of action – and then wait for their defence which no doubt will be pretty detailed and will give you lots of clues as to what they are going to say – although their letter to you probably has already done that.

If you want you can post a draft of your initial letter here as well.

Let's get going, they've much you around long enough.

Be very careful that you are suing them in the correct name. It would be a great shame to get a judgement against them and then to find that you had sued the incorrect name or the incorrect address and that you then are unable to enforce the judgement.

Your chances of winning are pretty well guaranteed. The only thing you need to be careful about is enforcing the judgement because although they seem to be well established, sometimes these companies can become very slippery when they have bailiffs looking for them.

Because this claim is more than £600, then once you get your judgement – as you surely will – we will put the sheriffs in – High Court Enforcement Officers who will carry out a no-nonsense enforcement. Much more powerful than bailiffs

[BankFodder]

Ignore their timeline. It's you who are making the rules now. It's you who are setting the timelines.

The sympathetic engineer who helped to the report has done you a great favour. There is no reason why he shouldn't be paid. I should go back to him and asking to give you an invoice for the cost of the report – dated the same as the report.

Make sure it is marked something like "waiting payment – I look forward to being paid for this as soon as possible".

We will add it to the claim.

That means that in the letter that you sent Avon, you must list out the costs which you have incurred – and also the cost of the engineer's report.

Make sure you get the invoice for this first before you send the letter.

 

 

By the way, have we seen something from Avon in which they attempt to impose this 14 day deadline?

 

Also, have you taken into consideration any wasted insurance costs et cetera?

Also, have you incurred any extra transport costs?

[BankFodder]

Well I'm sorry but I'm not going to go through that lot.

Please will you simply put up the sentence or few sentences where you are threatened with this timeline.

Also, let's not hang around please. Draft your initial letter and post it up here.

[BankFodder]

Still waiting for their extract containing the deadline threat.

Also you haven't addressed my question about wasted insurance costs or whether you have had to pay anything extra for transport.

It would really help if you would respond to these posts with the same level of rapidity that I am putting them to you.

It's your car, your mess – and your money that we are trying to get back for you, after all

[BankFodder]

We have our homes and our lives too – but thank you. I'll have a look at the summary that you have done

[BankFodder]

Thanks for this resume. That was very useful.

It seems that they were doing the right thing up until the point where they insisted that returning the vehicle to them should be done at your cost. This was completely wrong. They were in breach of contract and they were responsible for that and all associated expenses.

As I said above, I think you should write a letter which lists the issues with the vehicle and also points to the fact that they insisted on the vehicle being returned to them at your cost and this itself was a further breach of contract.

I think you should also make sure that the letter highlights the way in which they attempted to impose their own timeline for returning the vehicle despite the fact that it is they who were at fault, despite the fact that you had your own domestic commitments and despite the overwhelming problem of the pandemic.

As well as the list of issues with the vehicle, include a list of the other expenses which have been incurred and then tell them that you are looking to them to reimburse you £XXX.

You may as well include the cost of the inspection – if you can get the invoice for that as I have suggested. However, I gather that you may have carried out the investigation before informing the other side and before warning them of the possible cost. From that point of view, you should certainly try to claim it – but you should be prepared to give that particular expense up because normally you would have wanted to have incurred that cost after they started to raise their objections and so you felt that it was necessary to confirm the faults in the face of their non-cooperation.

Anyway that's how them that it should be drafted.

If you'd like to prepare there and then post it up here so we can have a look. You could of course turn into a letter of claim and threaten legal action straightaway – but in view of the passage of time since the last serious communication between you and also their so-called legal letter, I suggest that a simple letter laying out the problems and what you want will be the best way.

I'm sure it won't produce any result and so you should draft a letter of claim ready to post off in about 7 days to 10 days.

 

[BankFodder]

Possible particulars of claim:

 

Quote

The claimant bought a XXX car registration XXX from the defendant car dealer. Within weeks the car displayed serious faults and an investigation revealed further serious defects. The defendant is aware of the defects. The car is not a satisfactory quality. The defendant insisted that the claimant return the car at his own expense – which the claimant eventually did. The defendant refuses to reimburse the claimant for the cost of the car and associated costs and losses. The claimant seeks £XXX [cost of the car], £XXX car transporter cost, £XXX cost of independent engineers report – total £XXX plus interest plus costs.

 

Obviously there are things you may want to add or correct, but this is broadly speaking the kind of brevity you are looking for. Although it's early days, I expect that you will have to issue proceedings and so we may as well get this sorted out.
Your letter of claim on the other hand should be reasonably detailed – but listed – and a minimum of narrative.

[BankFodder]

Absolutely. The car had to be returned to them because of their own breach of contract. It's outrageous that they wanted you to pay for it – and it's outrageous that they tend to include a term of the contract that suggest that you should bear the cost of returning the vehicle.

The contractual term which you are referring to – anyway simply says that the vehicle should be returned to the dealer. That seems reasonable enough – and it wouldn't need to be made a term of the contract – but what that term doesn't say is who is responsible for getting the car back to the dealer and who should pay for it.

 

[BankFodder]

I have to say that the story is a bit convoluted – and I don't always get the time to go through it and understand thoroughly the sequence of events.

So what I gather is:

• You bought a car – it demonstrates some faults
• you had the car examined by a mechanic and the faults were confirmed and new faults identified
• you contacted the dealer and they told you to return it to them but it would have to be at your own costs
• you eventually did return it to them that they then claimed that the car suffered damage because of the way you had handled it before the return
• they have offered to refund you the price of the car – less the cost of the repair of the damage which they claim you caused
• they have also declined to refund you the cost of the transportation of the vehicle to them.

Is this correct?
 

[BankFodder]

Thank you. That is also very helpful. I'm still waiting to see the extract of their deadline threat.

[BankFodder]

Have a look at this letter.  If there are other losses which you have incurred then please include those in the letter as well. And post it back here.

I'm suggesting that you sent this as a fairly detailed resume of the situation but which is not to conflict-oriented at this point.

I expect them not to respond – or if they do respond then to respond with denials and maybe a partial offer.

The important thing is to have some kind of paper trail and also to make them aware of the defects and your losses.

If you haven't received a response by next Friday then I think it is the time to send them a letter of claim giving them 14 days – as long as you're prepared to follow through on day 15

 

Quote

Dear XXX

As you know, I purchased a XXX model car from you on XXX date. Within a few weeks it started to show a coolant warning light on the dashboard. It turned out that this was because it was leaking coolant. The coolant leak didn't appear to be a major leak at the time.

I took the car for an independent examination where the coolant leak was confirmed and also other defects including a leaking head gasket and [XXX please list other defects] were discovered.

I contacted you and you agree to receive the car back that you are only prepared to deal with the original fault – the coolant leak – and not the other defects which had been subsequently discovered. Furthermore, you insisted that I should be responsible for arranging the return of the vehicle to you as well as being responsible for the cost of the return.

As you gave me no other option, I did return the car to you at my expense. He then claimed that the car was badly damaged because it had been driven without coolant. I have no idea why this should be because I had not driven it without coolant and in fact the cooling system had been topped up with water before it was taken away on a transporter.

Since then, you have offered to reimburse me the price of the car – but less the cost of repairing some damage which is apparently caused by the lack of coolant in the system – and also without reimbursing me for the cost of transporting the car to you.

You are still in possession of the car and you have been for [XXX number of weeks it has been in their possession] and you are now demanding storage fees while the vehicle is in your possession.

I think it is time to bring an end to this dispute.

Clearly the car was defective when you sold to me. There was a coolant leak, there were the other defects which were subsequently discovered and which must have been present at the time that the car was sold to me. In any event, I was entitled to purchase a car which was in satisfactory condition and which would stay that way for a reasonable period of time.

Clearly that is not the case with this vehicle.

Your dealership seems well-regarded on the Internet and I would encourage you to take steps to reimburse me for this unfortunate situation and this would be in keeping with the reputation which you have on Google et cetera.

I'd be grateful if you could arrange let me have reimbursement of full of all my losses incurred so far – which is the cost of the vehicle, plus the cost of transportation plus the cost of the independent report which was repaired and which identified the other faults of which we had previously been unaware.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours

 

[BankFodder]

Okay it suddenly opened.

Ignore it. Ignore the ultimate demands – et cetera.

Send the letter I suggested if you are happy with it – if not, then make your corrections and then post it up here for us to see.

I think it's gone on long enough so we might as well start putting the wheels in motion – if you are happy

[BankFodder]

Thank you. Very clear.

You haven't listed out your losses – and you should do. You are asking for reimbursement and you need to say exactly what you are expecting.

Secondly, you adjust it to the lawyers. You shouldn't do this. Address it to the dealer. We don't care what the lawyers say and they are irrelevant.

Also, omit the reference to "after a few long trips". Refer simply to "after a few weeks".

[BankFodder]

I think it's time to stop expressing gratitude. No, ignore the lawyer. We don't care about them.

I'm afraid you can't claim for stress and inconvenience. It simply not recoverable and so it's not worth mentioning it because it is a loser. You only want to put yourself in a position where you are claiming winners.

Don't give a deadline. However, next Friday, you can simply send a letter of claim saying that as you haven't heard from them in respect of your letter dated XXX, you are now proposing to see them et cetera. We'll work it out

[BankFodder]

I suddenly realised that the brake defects and also the CV boot defects – which I expect are related to the steering effectively mean that the car was in an unroadworthy condition.

Selling an unroadworthy vehicle is an offence under The Road Traffic Accident 1988.  https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/52/section/75/enacted?view=plain

If you obtain a judgement on the basis of those defects which you have listed out, then you will be in a position to send a copy of that judgement to Trading Standards who have the power – maybe a duty – to prosecute.

I think we may as well leverage this and when you prepare your letter of claim, we will refer to this

[BankFodder]

I'm not sure if the point you are making is in relation to my suggestion that we leverage the unroadworthy condition – or as a general point about the legal arguments that you will make in respect of the satisfactory or otherwise condition of the car when you bought it.

Also, are you saying that the MOT company and Avon Car Sales are the same people?

Also I'm not quite sure what you mean in respect of adjusting your claim for insurance money.

[BankFodder]

If you are talking about reducing the insurance figure – then leave it alone. Let them raise the point if they want.

It would certainly be handy to find some kind of relationship between the dealer and the MOT garage. What is the name of the MOT garage? Of course this would not be to say that there was anything dodgy about the MOT is – but it would be interesting to know. Was it a new MOT?

 

I think the court will certainly be interested in forming conclusions about the clean MOT and yet the findings by Skoda. I think this is very significant.

In terms of the decision by Visa, don't worry about it. That's the kind of thing we expect from these companies. They were an easy life and they don't expect that they will be challenged

[BankFodder]

Would you mind posting up the letter which you eventually sent and will use that as a basis.

[BankFodder]

Quote

Quote

 

Dear Avon Car Sales Ltd.

 

Letter of Claim

 

[You have failed to respond to my letter of XXX date] [you have refused to reimburse me as requested in my letter of XXX date].

 

The details of my complaint and the reimbursement I seek are all contained in that letter.

Furthermore, your insistence that I be responsible for the cost of transporting the vehicle to you in order to carry out any sort of repair and for which you were legally responsible is, in my view, an example of unfair trading in addition to a breach of contract.

 

I also notice that under the Road Traffic Act 1988 Section 75 it is an offence to sell a vehicle that displays some of the defects which were present in the vehicle which you sold me. 
If you do not reimburse me in full within 14 days then I shall see you in the County Court and without any further notice for my losses plus interest and furthermore, I shall refer the judgement which I am confident of obtaining against you to Trading Standards who are then required by law to be an investigation.

Yours faithfully