exo prestige and performance cars - Used car dealer ignoring rejection within 30days of purchase

[Elvis7]

I purchased a used car from a car dealer for £12000. My part exchange car was £7000 and got remaining £5000 on finance.

 

on the way home from purchasing the car it lost all power to the engine without warning while I was in the middle lane of a busy motorway, luckily managed to safely get to hard shoulder quickly.

It was Friday evening and the dealer was now closed.

 

i had to pay for car to be recovered to my home address (over 100miles)

the same night I sent lengthy email to the dealer explaining the whole situation in detail and had to wait until monday morning for response.

the dealer seemed to understand my concerns and told me that due to the distance between us that it made sense to get my local garage to diagnose and fix the car and that they would make a “gesture of goodwill” to help fix the car.

 

My local garage recovered the car from my house and done full diagnostic on the car and the fault list was quite long.

car required glow plugs, injectors, various sensors, dpf was blocked, alternator faulty to name a few.

 

I then relayed this to the dealer who kindly sent me a £1000 as a “gesture of goodwill”

i then instructed my garage to work through the faults list to get the vehicle into a usable state and keep me informed of costs.

 

the garage called me after another week or so and told me the current bill was £2000 and it STILL required the DPF to be cleaned and a few other things that would cost nearly another £1000.

 

so I paid the bill with £1000 that the dealer had given me and a £1000 of my own money and told the garage to not do anymore work until I “try” and get some more money off the dealer OR the finance company.

 

after 28days of owning the car I have not used it once without fault. And now the dealer was ignoring my emails and calls so I complained to finance company and issued the dealer with my rejection of the vehicle letter and emailed it to them.

 

the dealer has since told me that the £1000 “gesture of goodwill” was his last and final offer.

 

Also to add insult to injury the finance company have rejected my complaint because a third party garage has diagnosed and partially fixed the car so they cannot reasonably ascertain that the faults on the vehicle were inherent at point of sale so therefore the finance company AND the car dealer cannot be held liable under CRA2015.

 

this whole situation is a true nightmare. I haven’t been able to work for a short while now and I’m at the point where I’ve got a £12000 garden ornament in the shape of a car parked on my driveway. And I no longer have the means to pay for it to be repaired either.

 

any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

[BankFodder]

Please will you tell us the name of the dealer and also the name of the finance company.

You haven't given us the date that you bought the car.

Also in the title to this thread, you have said that your 30 day rejection was being ignored. However in your story I don't think you have explained at what point you lodged a notice of rejection or how you did this

[Elvis7]

Hi. Sorry for late reply.

used car dealer is exo prestige and performance cars and finance company is Santander. https://www.exoprestige.co.uk/

 

i purchased vehicle on 18/12/20 and after all above problems I sent email to dealers on about 16/01/21 ( less than 30days) telling them that I was rejecting the vehicle due to it not being roadworthy or fit for purpose etc. 

 

Hope that helps

[BankFodder]

If you want us to help you then you will have to engage with this thread. We generally speaking respond very quickly and we give very close help to people to take robust action. However, we need to feel that those people are fully invested.

Please can you post up the email that you sent on 16 January.

[Elvis7]

RE: BMW X6 Reg: XXXXXX

 

Dear Sir,

some of this you are already aware of but ill start from the beginning to give you and your partners chance to try and understand the situation.

 

I purchased Vehicle registration Xxxxxxx from you on Friday 18 December 2020 @ 18;30hrs, filled tank with fuel and proceeded on my long drive back to My home address

 

I was travelling in the middle lane of a busy motorway approximately 70 miles from your showroom when with no warning the car had a TOTAL loss of power, that included loss of steering AND loss of brakes. but thankfully i was able to get across to the hard shoulder without any incident.

im a confident and experienced driver but because i was in a new unfamiliar vehicle even i was un-nerved by the situation.

 

Anyway, after a short while the car was driveable again and i double checked that their was no engine lights on and checked oil levels etc before

Quote

 

setting off again.

But the same loss of power occured again about 100 miles further up the motorway. and same again after a short while it started again.

eventually got the car to my home. still with no fault lights showing.

 

The next morning Saturday 19 December 2020 i started the car and even after the engine had fired up and was idling (roughly) the battery light stayed lit on the dashboard. so i turned it off and called my local mechanic who recovered the vehicle to his garage for further diagnostics.

 

I wont put all the fault codes in this email but i have a picture taken of the screen with many fault codes showing if you require it.

 

The first issue was the alternator had failed and had caused the battery to fail also. because it was a second hand car that i was purchasing off you i realise that the car would not be in perfect as new condition and then i instructed the mechanic to fit new alternator and new battery at a cost of £270 Alternator, £148 Battery and £150 labour including coding new battery to car if required.

the mechanic also pointed out that i had one wheel nut missing from every wheel and that my boot lid would not open even half way...and in the boot i had part of the vehicles control box SUBMERGED under about 3 inches of water.

 

At this point if i had lived closer to your showroom i would of dropped the vehicle back off for you to either fix the issues and look further into the huge list of engine faults or cancel the sale of the car and look for another vehicle.

but because i live over 200+ miles away i decided to email you with the issues i had encountered within the first 24/48 hours of me collecting the vehicle and await your response.

 

after speaking with you, then trying to drive the car it still had all the codes present even though the mechanic had cleared them. the next main issue seemed to be a blocked DPF.

after explaining situation to you (alex) you kindly offered to give me £1000 as a goodwill gesture to help me fund the DPF issue,

following that discussion with you about my loss of power you suggested the DPF could possibly be clogged due to being sat on your forecourt a while!

 

 i had a specialist DPF person to diagnose exact DPF issue.

his finding were that the exhaust temperature sensor had failed and needed replacing and that the DPF was blocked as you suspected on your email.

That cost was £410 Diagnostics, DPF clean/reset and £170 to replace exhaust temperature sensor (including labour)

 

However,main fault of loss power is no better dispite all my efforts to resolve the problem. so the car was back into my local mechanic to do diagnostics again and discovered that i have 3 faulty injectors (no 4,5,6) and that for him to replace them the labour would be £150 due to location of the injectors on that vehicle and the injectors are £300 EACH.

thats a total of another £1050 just to resolve the injector issue.

 

Now my concern is that the vehicle still has some fault codes hinting at possible fuel pump issues and pre supply pressure issues. im not a mechanic and would hope that the faulty injectors would possibly be causing them systems to be showing as faulty. but all them problems along with the fact of the water in the boot covering the electric boxes and wires concerns me.

 

I have already lost out on £1800 by not being able to travel to work in last 3 weeks and that looks set to continue this week as the car is STILL in the garage AND this time i actually dont have ANY MONEY to pay for anymore faults to be rectified to bring the vehicle upto a driveable basic standard.

 

Finally, I have now had the vehicle for 28 Days and i have actually done EVERYTHING in my power to get this car in a driveable state. i have not had one day that has been trouble free.

i honestly think for me to move forward with this vehicle i would need £2000 off you to get the injectors done along with the water in electrical compartment fixed and the boot partially opening problem.

 

i know you have made the previous gesture of goodwill, but it wasnt enough to get this situation where it needs to be. otherwise i will reject the vehicle as of now and will get correct address for the garage for you to recover vehicle from.

Please understand i have lost £1800+ in wages and everyday i dont have a car that rises. and you will have fully inspected the vehicle that i used as part exchange and im confident you have got NO ISSUES with that vehicle whatsoever and i notice you already have it advertised for £14995.

 

I hope we can come to a suitable agreement soon, and again i apologise for very long email. ive tried to explain everything to to best of my abilities/knowledge.

 

[Elvis7]

That was a copy of the email I sent to them 28 days after purchase. 

It does mention my rejection of the vehicle if nothing is resolved quickly.

 

im obviously not a mechanic and obviously not very clued up on the legalities of things like this.

 

i feel like the dealer has instructed me to get my local garage to try and fix the issues knowing that the finance company will reject my claim due to this, leaving me with no leg to stand on.

if I could go back to day one I would of just told the dealer to collect vehicle and for them to try and fix it, AND informed finance company immediately aswell.

[BankFodder]

Things are a little extra complicated by the fact that you undertook repairs and a garage other than the garage belonging to the dealer. On the other hand, they advised you to do this and so that helps a great deal.

Have you anything from them in writing where they suggest that you go to your local garage? That would be very helpful.

I think you will be able to rely on the consumer rights act. I don't expect there will be a huge problem but I think that you should go to your local garage and get a statement from them as to the work they carried out and as to the defects they found and confirming that those defects were in existence when the car was brought to them and had nothing to do with any work that they subsequently carried out.

What have you received in writing from the dealer?

[Elvis7]

After I emailed the dealer with a detailed explanation of me breaking down on way home from purchasing the car they then also replied by email saying that due to distance involved and covid restrictions etc it would be best to get a garage local to me to diagnose/fix.

 

It was quite an awkward time because I purchased the car at close of business on Friday so I couldn't get hold of the dealer until Monday 21st December.

Then trying to find a local garage even willing to diagnose it was a nightmare.

 

I don't know wether to take the dealer to court for a full refund on vehicle or just for all the costs of getting it repaired or both?

Also what about lost earnings?

I'm not sure what to do. It's a lot of money.

[BankFodder]

You haven't responded to my suggestion that you get a statement from the repair garage. Please would you do so.

You are certainly in a position where you could sue for a refund on the car plus any costs which you have incurred in respect of repairing it. I think it's unlikely that you could claim for loss of earnings – but we would have to examine that later.

The problem with seeing for a refund is that at £12,000, you are over the small claims limit. If you are aware, the small claims track means that you can sue somebody for a figure of less than £10,000 and even if you lose, you will not be liable for their costs. Once it goes over £10,000 then the claim is allocated to the fast track. That means that if you lose you will be responsible for a fairly large proportion of the other side's costs.
Where you are suing a company which really doesn't want to honour their commitments but simply make life tough for you, once they realise that they are on the fast track, then go out of their way to increase the costs by making litigation more complicated. Although they may eventually lose and they will have to bear those costs themselves, it can make it rather daunting for a litigant in person who realises that the risk factor is increasing quite dramatically simply because they are trying to stick up for their own rights.

The alternative could be to have the car properly assessed so that all defects are understood and then a price obtained for putting the car into a proper condition. I'm sure that this would come to less than the figure for the small claims track and so you can go ahead and sue the dealer with a high level of confidence and a very low risk factor.

Your 30 day rejection is a valid rejection under the consumer rights act – but am afraid that it is complicated by the fact that you had already had repairs carried out. On the other hand, I don't think you need to rely on the consumer rights act in this way.
It is clear that because the vehicle has totally broken down, that you have been deprived of the whole benefit of the contract to you and this gives you the right to treat the contract as fundamentally breached. This amounts to a termination of the contract by the dealer and all you have to do is to accept that it is terminated.

Of course you have been let down by the finance company – but frankly I don't find that this is very unusual. They like to lend money for lots of interest – but when it comes to stepping up to their statutory duties, they get very reluctant – just like insurance companies.

Did you make your complaint to the finance company in writing? Maybe you could let us see what you sent them. Maybe also you could let us see what they sent back to you.

Finally, I'm going to say once again, that you need to start following this thread and responding rather more closely. You first posted your story on 13 March – and that is two weeks ago and we have gotten pretty well nowhere and only started to find out some of the details of the story.

We invest our time completely free of charge here. You need to engage properly with us and do things at our pace. You will find that you get much more enthusiastic help from us and you will get better results because once we have decided what action to take, it will be very rapid and the key will be to keep the other side on the back foot.

[BankFodder]

I should also add, that you have made the fundamental mistake that a huge number of people do when buying a used car – they buy it a great distance away – and never factor in the difficulties of having to go back to the dealer to sort out defects et cetera.
It's ridiculous to buy any car 200 miles away – especially a used car. I'm afraid that you shot yourself in the foot on this one. It has added to your problems and I'm sure that the dealer realises that things are so difficult for you in terms of location that this is another incentive simply to sort it out yourself.

I suggested above that you could simply sue for the cost of repairs but that still means that even when you have the car working, you are still dealing with the vehicle which if it develops defects in the future you will have to do business with the dealer 200 miles away if you want to get them to take this facility for any defects. Also you will be dealing with the dealer with him your customer relationship has been thoroughly broken.

Your very best solution here will be to get rid of the car.

[Elvis7]

Regarding the finance company, I will post a copy of the rejection letter when I get home later.

 

also the advice you have given above regarding buying a vehicle so far away is now so obvious and agree completely about shooting myself in the foot.

 

hopefully someone will learn from my mistake and STAY LOCAL when buying a used vehicle.

 

thanks again

[BankFodder]

When I'm very sorry to hear about your mother and I'm sure that this must be very distressing.

If the worst does happen then I suppose you will have difficulty coming back to this thread very quickly – but maybe you could update us (without trying to pry into your personal affairs).

Despite all that, I'm afraid that we need to act on this and propose a plan.

You not the only one he ends up buying cars at great distances. I really don't understand why people find the car and think that it is the only one for them and that they must have it. It always leads to trouble – and it's always much more expensive than people think, once all the problems of distance and defects et cetera are factored in.

The one redeeming feature here is that you haven't paid by bank transfer. The worst scenario is where people buy a car at a distance – sometimes without even seeing it, just on the strength of the telephone call – and then pay by cash or paid by bank transfer. This forum has got dozens of nightmare stories about people who got themselves into this situation and frankly they probably lose their money most the time.

We certainly would like to see the letter of rejection – but also you need to set about getting a statement from the repair garage has I suggested. Even though you have got some very stressful personal difficulties at the moment, I think that you need to make this a priority so that it is done as early as possible while the repair garage remember the details. The longer is allowed to go on without getting a statement, the more difficult it will be later on.

At the moment I'm thinking that maybe your best bet would be to attack the finance company – but we will see.

I'm a bit amazed that he part exchanged your car for a value of about £7000 and it's now being advertised at twice that price.

You bought your new car for £12,000 and at that rate, they may well have bought it in for £6000. It seems to me that you may have traded downwards rather than upwards. It's not very relevant now that it is a bit sobering. Is your old car still for sale do you know?

If we advise you to take some legal action – and this is probably what you will have to do – will you be in a position to bring the action, without help, and to press it through despite your other difficulties?

 

[Elvis7]

I’ve requested a statement off my local garage for repairs carried out and offered to pay for a more detailed letter off them to explain that the faults the vehicle had must have been present at point of sale.

im having trouble uploading my finance company rejection letter but it simply states that due to an unauthorised third party garage carrying out the repairs then they are rejecting my complaint because they cannot verify that the faults were present at time of purchase.

i will get my brother to upload it later today.

 

my part exchange vehicle has been sold by the dealer already for £14995.

i completely understand most of this is due to poor judgement and lack of knowledge of how it all works and I’m positive that somebody will benefit from your input regardless of the outcome of my situation.

 

regarding taking action to court I would be in a position to carry out the action as soon as possible.

again please accept my apologies for delayed response. Personal circumstances are restricting me greatly at the moment.

[BankFodder]

This sounds like a very useful letter to you. Please will you find a way to upload it in PDF format.

I think it's important that we see it

[Manxman in exile]

Couple of points:

 

1.  In your first post you say that after you collected the car and it broke down driving home, you had to pay to have it recovered.  But in the copy of the email you sent the dealer (see #5) you do not mention this and it is implied that you "managed" to drive the car home.  Probably best to stick to a consistent story.

 

2.  I think you have been asked for but have not posted a copy of the email from the dealer giving you authorisation to have the car worked on by a garage of your choice nearer to you than the dealer.  If you haven't posted that could you please do so?  Apologies if I've missed it.

 

3.  A copy of that email might help with:

 

On 01/04/2021 at 08:35, Elvis7 said:

 

im having trouble uploading my finance company rejection letter but it simply states that due to an unauthorised third party garage carrying out the repairs then they are rejecting my complaint because they cannot verify that the faults were present at time of purchase.

 

 

and from the first post:

 

 

  On 13/03/2021 at 04:09, Elvis7 said:

the dealer seemed to understand my concerns and told me that due to the distance between us that it made sense to get my local garage to diagnose and fix the car and that they would make a “gesture of goodwill” to help fix the car

 

Edited April 2, 2021 by Manxman in exile

[Manxman in exile]

Ah...  I suppose Santander mean the repair was not authorised by them.

[BankFodder]

7 hours ago, Manxman in exile said:

Couple of points:

 

1.  In your first post you say that after you collected the car and it broke down driving home, you had to pay to have it recovered.  But in the copy of the email you sent the dealer (see #5) you do not mention this and it is implied that you "managed" to drive the car home.  Probably best to stick to a consistent story.

 

 

Good point and I hadn't picked this up.

However I'm not interested in "a consistent story". I'd like to know what provably actually happened.

Also, the email that we are waiting for in which the dealer advised to go to a local garage is extremely important because if we can see that and it pans out then there should eventually be little difficulty in sorting things out for you.

Once again, I understand that you have some very demanding domestic difficulties at the moment – but we would like to get this going. You've allowed this to run for getting on for four months now. It's much more demanding for us when we have this stop start process going on.