MotorHub in keighley - Car sold to me with numerous faults

[Scientist2021]

I need help and am considering a no win no fee solicitor. 

 

My husband bought me a surprise car. 

paid almost £22,000 for it.

only looked on auto trader reviews and not on trust pilot etc, which was a mistake and he is gutted about. 

bought it on the 13th January 2021 and I have had to spend almost £3k to get it roadworthy. 

 

When my husband went to pick the car up he queried engine management light, they told him it was an Ad-Blue sensor.  He and my father waited around 2 hours for the Ad-Blue sensor to be replaced. They brought the car back to them and told them that this had been replaced. 

It hadn't been replaced and unbeknown to them, MotorHub had programmed the Ad-Blue/SCR system out of the car. 

 

I have a full written report from Mercedes explaining this, and they said it was probably a NOx sensor which are around £500 each.  instead of them replacing this, they simply programmed the system out of the car, so now my car could potentially fail its MOT.

 

Faults in order:

 

Purchased car 13th January 2021

19th January - No liquid from windscreen wipers, full of air, not covered on the warranty.  Only cost £15 at a local garage.

22nd January - £432 for new back tyres

1st February - £372 for new front tyres, looked like tracking was out and the tyres had been put on the wheels the opposite way around to look like they weren't worn, my husband didn't notice this.

 

I then got stuck whilst out. 

All of the sensors were erroring, the car wouldn't start. 

The brakes wouldn't work and the car was stating that the boot was open when it wasn't. 

 

Finally managed to get it started after sitting around for over 2 hours. 

Drove it straight to the local Mercedes dealership.  Cost me £2135.92. 

 

I have a written statement from them to say that it looked like the car had been in a minor bump, the bumper was misaligned and was leaking in water through the lights.  This had been happening for some time as all of the sensors were corroded and it needed new wiring looms, this would have been happening over a longer period than I had owned the car. Whilst the car was at the Mercedes garage they noticed the Ad-Blue/SCR system and reported this to me.  Again, I have a written statement from Mercedes.  

 

I have written 3 letters to the dealership, and my final letter asked them to consider ADR and if not I would be starting court action. 

They initially asked me to take the car to them for repair, I had already taken it to Mercedes as I simply couldn't trust them. 

 

They responded after my 2nd letter stating that they would give me a full refund minus 45p per mile.  I refused this as I had spent £3k on the car and I actually like it now it works and want to keep it.

 

Their 3rd reply stated that they will not pay for the repairs that Mercedes carried out as they offered to look at it for me and they want me to arrange to get the car back to them so they can look into the Ad-Blue/SCR system issue. Quite frankly they have lied to me about the car being in a bump, mis-sold me it in a bodged way, and lied about the SCR system, I wouldn't take a toy car to them for repair. 

 

Mercedes want an initial £168 to look at the Ad-Blue system, and then the cost of what is wrong with it after they have programmed it back in.  Mercedes also explained that they would like details from Motorhub on how they de-programmed the SCR system as they would need to do this in reverse.  Motorhub have failed to answer me this after 2 letters and 2 emails.

 

This ADbLUE system is a legal requirement in all diesel cars to lower NOx emissions.

The permissible level of pollutants that new cars can emit has been reduced significantly in the past couple of years. The introduction of the latest Euro 6 standards demanded a 67% drop in nitrogen oxides (NOx) in the exhaust emissions of diesel cars.

 

The way of meeting these standards for my car is that it is fitted with a selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system.  This has been disabled by MotorHub on my vehicle.  This system uses an exhaust fluid (ADBlue) to break NOx in the exhaust gases down into harmless elements before it is expelled from the car.

 

Disabling this SCR system has made my car a Euro 3 standard and it should be a Euro 6 standard.  Euro 3 standard applies to all new cars registered from 1st January 2001, Euro 6 standard applies to all new cars registered after 1st September 2015.

 

Where do I go from here? 

I want to keep the car, I want the money I have spent on it so far and I want the Ad-Blue system programmed back in and any faults fixed with it after that is performed.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

 

Should I consider a no win no fee solicitor?

[dx100uk]

no you do NOT use a fleecing no win no fee solicitor.

 

as BF will advise 

issue a letter of claim 

then follow through with a small claims court claim for everything its cost you to put things right?

how did you pay for the CAr?

[dx100uk]

Motorhub Motorsure Ltd , Keighley - Car engine seized on the way home from dealer - General Motoring Issues - Consumer Action Group

[BankFodder]

Well there's one thing you can say about this company is that in terms of manipulating social media, they seem to be extremely honest because looking at trust pilot, I don't think I've ever seen such a catastrophic bunch of reviews and they seem to have been no attempt by MotorHub to manipulate the reviews and to insert false-positives.

 

https://www.trustpilot.com/review/motor-hub.co.uk

 

Although there are only 80 reviews so far, 89% of them are a single star.

Also, we had another case on this forum about MotorHub of keighley - 

 to provide you with a little light reading.

Also 

Quote

A SECOND-hand car dealer based in Keighley has been ordered to pay £53,567 for vehicle sales that misled consumers.

The fines were handed down at Leeds Magistrates Court after the company entered guilty pleas relating to six breaches of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.

Motorsure Limited - which trades under the name Motorhub at Damside, Oakworth Road, Keighley - was investigated by National Trading Standards following complaints from customers who had purchased vehicles from the company between August 2017 and May 2018.

AD

The company misled consumers through a range of practices to conceal quality and safety issues with the vehicles.

The complaints included:

• Selling vehicles with covered or disconnected dashboard warning lights to conceal faults with the vehicle

• Failing to disclose recorded mileages were incorrect

• Not declaring that a vehicle had been subject to accident damage

• Failing to disclose a vehicle had previously been used as a taxi.

 

 

 https://www.keighleynews.co.uk/news/17620719.keighley-car-dealer-ordered-pay-53-000-plus-misleading-customers/

[BankFodder]

You ask about using a no win no fee solicitor. My site team colleague is correct that this is not the way to go.

No-win-no-fee is much understood.
First of all, unless you take out the special insurance, if you lose then although you won't be obliged to pay anything to your own solicitor, you may be required to pay the costs of the winning side. This is something that nobody tells you until it's too late.
Also, it's difficult to get a no-win-no-fee deal where the value of the claim you are making is low – below £10,000 so that it is on the small claims track. This is because the rules on the small claims track mean that even if you lose the case, you don't have to pay the costs of the winning side other than their very basic court costs which amount to very little. This means that the no-win-no-fee solicitor will not be able to claim their cost from the other side. Therefore the only source of funds would be a percentage of your winnings – which is not what it's all about.

Also, with any solicitor – unless you are extremely lucky, they will simply want to push the papers around and get a settlement as quickly as possible, get their fee and then close the file and move on. This means that that they could end up pressurising you into accepting some kind of compromise which won't really reflect the situation and won't really reflect your losses.

If you are prepared to put the work in with our help, then you will have the maximum chance of maximising the outcome – and you have one thing that any firm of solicitors doesn't have – you have Grudge and that is an element that is highly motivating and you won't find anyone else.

Please could you list out in very short form – bullet pointed, the list of faults which you have had to address and the cost of repairing them.

You have two options here. You could either attempt to obtain a complete refund or simply the cost of repairs so far.

Because the value of the vehicle is more than £10,000, – substantially more – this will put you squarely into the "multitrack" and this means that if you went to litigation and you lost, then you'd have to pay much of the cost of the other side – assuming that they defended. It's extremely unlikely that she would lose but it could motivate the other side to cause trouble for you.

On the other hand, you say that you want to keep the car – and in that case you would simply go ahead and try to recover the cost which you have laid out so far.

Of course there is another problem and that is that you then have a vehicle which has been supplied to you and if it manifests any further defects over the next two or three years which might normally be the responsibility of the dealer, you may be in a position where it is difficult to have those covered by the dealer as well.

Frankly you would be best off getting shot of the car altogether and trying to recover your costs of repairs – but this will probably be complicated because of the value and also because as I gather, you haven't really given an opportunity to the dealer to repair – or you haven't informed them of possible repairs and given them sight of an estimate and an opportunity to challenge it before you put the repairs in hand.

Let's start off by having a look at the list of defects and the cost of repairs and then we will take it from there

[BankFodder]

I also like to explore very closely the initial issue of the possible manipulation of the Ad-Blue sensor programming.

If this can be established beyond doubt, then this might provide a very useful key to unlocking this problem.

In addition to the list of faults which I asked about earlier, could you please let us know what documentation you have received in respect of this and maybe you could post it up here in PDF format

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry but I did ask you to put documents up in PDF format.

It would be helpful if you would do that. Putting documents up in the image format the you have used here makes it very difficult to read especially for people on small screens.

[Scientist2021]

• 19th January - No liquid from windscreen wipers, full of air, not covered on the warranty.  Only cost £15 at a local garage.

• 22nd January - £432 for new back tyres

• 1st February - £372 for new front tyres, looked like tracking was out and the tyres had been put on the wheels the opposite way around to look like they weren't worn, my husband didn't notice this.

• 24/02/2021 £2135.92 from Mercedes, PDF attached for this.

 

 

PDF attached.

Email from Mercedes below:

 

As per our telephone conversation yesterday please find your invoice attached.

This explains work carried out to your car and items that were identified.

We also discussed that we found that the AdBlue system (SCR) has been programmed out of the car and the ECU has been disconnected.

This has likely been programmed out due to a faulty part on the SCR system.

We could potentially look in to rectifying this issue for you but the costs are unknown due to not knowing how this has been programmed it out.

The issue is trying to trace how this has been programmed out and reversing. There is no guarantee we can fully repair this and put back to standard as it will likely be trial and error.

If you would like this repair attempting we would start at a cost of £168, for this we will re-connect the ECU and carry out a software update to re-program the engine ECU, then see what happens from there.

 

Kind Regards

 

 

FA14 NGE.pdf

[BankFodder]

Thank you.

That's quite a list of faults. I understand that you had these repaired without any reference to the dealer.

You should understand that this is unhelpful to you because you would be required at least to give the dealer notice of the faults and your intention to have them repaired and also a quotation in advance so that the dealer can comment.
This is because if you go on to claim these costs from the dealer, you put them in a position where they say that they have not had their own opportunity to carry out their own investigation and also to carry out the work at a cheaper price. In an extreme case, they might even try to dispute that the faults you are referring to every existed. Of course it's very helpful that you have gone to a proper Mercedes repairer in order to deal with the issues.

You say that you didn't trust them – and you're probably right not to trust them – but nevertheless, if you are going to start complaining about defects in a vehicle or any other item which you have been sold, then you have to involve the seller because ultimately you will be attempting to hold them liable for the costs.

It's important to have this kind of paper trail – and you should remember this in your future dealings.

What you have done is not fatal to your position – but it's extremely unhelpful and if the dealer might be able to say that you have paid more than the going rate for the work which is carried out, then they could be in a position where they could reduce the value of your claim. It's not a good idea to do anything which might bring comfort to the dealer.

Once again, you now say that you would like to hang onto the car – which is fine – and it may well be the less complicated solution in view of the overall value of the vehicle. However, you need to think very carefully about your ownership of the vehicle in two or three or four years time and what you would do about further defects which might manifest themselves.

I said that an interesting feature here is the apparent manipulation of the Ad Blue sensor. You said originally that you had a full written report about this – but you haven't posted it.

Please could we see it

[Scientist2021]

All I have is that Mercedes have told me in their email that they have noticed the Ad-Blue/SCR system has been programmed out of the car.  When speaking to a family mechanic about this he informed me that this record would be stored on the dealers computers.

The email from Mercedes is below:

 

As per our telephone conversation yesterday please find your invoice attached.

This explains work carried out to your car and items that were identified.

We also discussed that we found that the AdBlue system (SCR) has been programmed out of the car and the ECU has been disconnected.

This has likely been programmed out due to a faulty part on the SCR system.

We could potentially look in to rectifying this issue for you but the costs are unknown due to not knowing how this has been programmed it out.

The issue is trying to trace how this has been programmed out and reversing. There is no guarantee we can fully repair this and put back to standard as it will likely be trial and error.

If you would like this repair attempting we would start at a cost of £168, for this we will re-connect the ECU and carry out a software update to re-program the engine ECU, then see what happens from there.

 

I had no choice but to take my car to a dealership as I needed a courtesy car to get to my job in the NHS.  MotorHub do not offer a courtesy car.  The warranty on the vehicle from motorHub was only covered for £250 too.

 

Kind Regards

 

Mark Emmerson

Senior Service Team Manager

Mercedes Benz of Doncaster

 

 

 

 

[BankFodder]

Well not having the choice will be helpful to your position – but if they do eventually raise the fact that you didn't communicate with them, I think that they will have a very valid point.

The note that you have posted above relating to the reprogramming of the SCR system is the same as you have already posted in your PDF. Originally you had said that you had obtained a report.

Because I think this is such an important point because it does suggest a deliberate manipulation by the dealer, I think that you need to get hold of Mark Emerson and asking if he could put his findings into a more detailed and more formal sound in statement.

We are trying to help you build up a case against the dealers before starting to approach them about this and the more prepared you are, then the better chance you stand of having a satisfactory solution.

I think that the suggestion here of the manipulation of the system is important – especially given the judgement which apparently was given against this company several years ago and the fine they received for falsifying records – and which you have now seen in the newspaper article which I referred to above

[Scientist2021]

I will email Mark now to ask for a more detailed and more formal statement.

[BankFodder]

Yes. Tell them that it is something which could be used in litigation.

It will need to identify the date that the investigation was carried out, who carried out the investigation. How it was carried out? What the result was? What effect that would have? How it would be remedied.

Also – very importantly, he needs to express a view as to when this reprogramming might have occurred? It occurs to me that the dealer might say that it had happened before they got their hands on it.

Is there some kind of record of dates embedded in the software contained in the SCR unit?

At least that lot. You can tell him that a draft statement at this point would be useful and that we might ask for further information as we grow to understand it

By the way, if at some point you decide to break away from us and go to a solicitor, you will need all this information anyway. Preparing it now will save you a lot of time and also preparing it now will save you a lot of money because if you go to a solicitor they will be looking at £300 an hour – which is the value of our advice but you get it free

[Scientist2021]

Mark at Mercedes sent the following in an email:

 

I hope you are well.

These are our findings when your car came into Mercedes Benz Doncaster on 12^th February 2021…

 

We did not carry out direct investigation into the SCR system, we advised that we had noticed the SCR unit was disconnected and you said you would come back to us after speaking to the selling dealer. We discovered the SCR control unit was disconnected whilst investigating the issue with the boot of your car.

 

This being disconnected would trigger a warning light to appear on the dash. As there was no warning light present we suspect that the system has been reprogrammed/coded out of the car. Due to the SCR system being removed this means that the car will not be using AdBlue which will affect the emissions output.

 

With regards to remedying the issue, we are unsure of how it has been removed from the car therefore it would need to be a step-by-step process attempting different methods to bring the car back to standard.

Unfortunately there is no record of dates stored within any control units that would state when this was coded out with. 

I hope this helps.

 

Kind Regards

 

Mark Emmerson

Senior Service Team Manager

Mercedes Benz of Doncaster

01302 554600

[BankFodder]

Good thing you had sent a reaction – because I got occupied with something else and forgot.

I had been hoping that when you said that you had a full report – that the report would be conclusive that there had been some tampering. I'm afraid it's not.

For the allegations which would need to be made against the dealer to persuade a judge that there had been some mischief, the standard of evidence would be set at a fairly high bar and this report doesn't do it.

I'm sorry to put things on hold – but I'm afraid that things are a bit complicated to date. I'll get back to you with a more detailed opinion later on.

[Scientist2021]

Ok thanks. I was under the impression that it was illegal to sell a car with the Ad-Blue system disabled? In which case they were breaking the law selling it to me in this state. 

[dx100uk]

what 'law' and it won't be a criminal matter re : illegal.

[BankFodder]

It may well be unlawful to sell a car with this function disabled and of course that would be helpful to you but it would have been more helpful to be able to show definitely that it was they who disabled it.

I expect that you're right – and the evidence certainly suggests that they probably did that as I said, there is a high bar for this kind of thing so it will be worth suggesting to a court – but we won't be able to rely on it as the basis of your case.

They say that they replaced the unit. Do you have this in writing at all?

[Scientist2021]

They didn’t say they had replaced the unit. The engine management light was on when my husband and dad went to pick up the car. 
motorhub told them that they knew it was an ad-blue sensor and that they had one in stock. 
 

My husband and dad waited for over 2 hours for this sensor replaced. The garage then told them both that the sensor had been replaced and it was all fine. The engine management light had gone off, so my husband presumed they were telling the truth, didn’t see why they would have a reason to lie. 
We would never had know that the SCR/Ad-blue system had been programmed out unless Mercedes told us. 
Thus was probably a cheaper option than replacing an expensive NOx sensor, but I won’t know if that is the issue until the SCR system is programmed back in. 
 

[BankFodder]

Sorry but I don't understand – and maybe we are talking at cross purposes.

Earlier on you said that they had replaced it. But in your last post – the first sentence you say "they didn't say that they had replaced the unit".

In the second paragraph in the same post you said "my husband and dad waited for over two hours for this sensor replaced." You also go on to say that "the garage then told them both that the sensor had been replaced and it was all fine".

I hope you can understand why it's confusing. I had understood that they had told you that it had been replaced – you have said this twice, now. And yet the suggestion was that it had been replaced that it had simply been disconnected or de-programmed or something

[Scientist2021]

The sensor that we was told was replaced was an Ad-Blue sensor. This wasn’t replaced (they lied to my husband and dad) as the company simply de-programmed the SCR/Ad-Blue system out of the car in order for the engine management light to go off. The engine management was obviously more of an issue than an Ad-Blue sensor, probably a NOx sensor (which are £500 each). 

If the SCR system was already programmed out at this stage then it would be impossible for the engine management light to be an Ad-Blue sensor issue. 

The Ad-blue sensor is not the Ad-Blue /SCR system. 

 

Basically they told them it was an AdBlue sensor and said they had replaced it. They hadn’t...... instead they went for a cheaper option and deprogrammed the SCR/Ad-Blue system out of the car, but lied and said they had replaced the AdBlue sensor. 

[BankFodder]

I'm sorry but I'm getting completely lost now. I'm going to have to go back and try and read what on earth is going on.

I'm starting to understand that in fact there are two sensors/units?

 

[Scientist2021]

No. The SCR/Ad blue system is a system which controls harmful emissions. This is a legal requirement on diesel cars. 

 

The engine management light was on. Motorhub claimed they knew why, they said it was an AdBlue sensor. This sensor fault would only be visible if the SCR/AdBlue system was still programmed in on the car. 

 

They lied and said they had replaced the sensor when in fact they programmed the whole system out of the car so no engine management lights or sensor issues would show up. 
 

Now my car could potentially fails it’s MoT as the car could be releasing harmful emissions. 
 

AdBlue sensors are relatively cheap. The only reason myself and Mercedes can think of is that the engine management light issue was not an AdBlue sensor issue, but a NOx sensor issue. NOx sensors are around £500 each. 
 

All these sensors are part of the SCR/AdBlue system. Instead of replacing an expensive sensor (or more) they programmed the SCR system out of the car so no issues were shown! 

[BankFodder]

Sorry, but I'm going to need some time to understand.

[BankFodder]

I'm starting to understand that the car has a catalytic converter which needs to have a substance injected into it in order to react with the exhaust gases to reduce the harm caused by emissions.
The substance which is injected is called AdBlue and if this is not working properly then a sensor gives a warning on the dashboard. Your AdBlue failed so you had the warning light. You returned the vehicle to the dealer and when you collected it, the warning light was extinguished and you are told in fact that the injector unit had been replaced.
However, a subsequent examination has revealed that in fact the old one was there that had been disconnected and the system had been reprogrammed so that the failure was effectively ignored and no warning light appeared on the dashboard.
In order to allow this to happen, there is also a suspicion that the ECU have been interfered with in some way.
Is this roughly correct?

However, we have no evidence that this was some deliberate tampering, these are merely inferences that are being drawn by Mercedes specialists