Faulty cat on car - advice please

welshsue

I hope someone can advise me please. 2 weeks ago I ordered a new cat for my car via a motor factors through ebay.
This was duly fitted to my car.

I have been having problems for the last week getting my car through its mot as the co emissions levels were too high. I and my garage were scratching our heads trying to work out what was wrong.
As a last resort, as I still had the old cat, the garage refitted that and it sailed through the emissions test.

I have contacted the company concerned and they have said to send it back (at my own cost which will have to be a courier) and they will send it off to the factory for testing and if they decide its faulty they will refund.

How do I know to trust what they say? i.e will they actually send it off.
Surely under the sale of goods act its not fit for purpose as it failed within 2 weeks or it was faulty when purchased.

Any advice please.

Rolandtheroadie

Just out of curiosity, why did you order a new cat?
The motor factor is probably trying to cover itself for people who buy a cat then realise theirs isnt faulty and try to return it.

I'd just keep hold of the facts and send it back.

bazster

Sale of Goods Act allows you a "reasonable" period after purchase to reject the goods outright and obtain a refund. In this case, I would guess that 2 weeks is entirely reasonable.

Furthermore, since the item is faulty, the seller must pay the return carriage, not you. They will doubtless point to some rubbish on their eBay listing which states that you must pay for any returns, but this is nonsense: for faulty items, they must pay. It's the law.

How did you pay for the item? If it was Paypal, you can use their claims procedure if the supplier refuses to play nicely. If it was by credit card, then you have a claim against the card company if the item cost at least £100 (but not if you used a credit card to fund a PayPal payment).

Make sure you keep the paperwork relating to the failed test, it would seem to be good evidence of a fault. And get your dealings with the supplier into writing (by recorded delivery) as soon as possible. If you don't know their postal address, ask eBay for it.

But I too am curious: why did you buy a new cat if there was nothing wrong with your original one?

welshsue

Last year's mot was borderline on the emissions and the garage recommended changing the cat prior to this year's mot to avoid potential problems.
Thanks for the advice. Will ask supplier to pay return postage or open paypal claim.

bazster

welshsue wrote: »

Last year's mot was borderline on the emissions and the garage recommended changing the cat prior to this year's mot to avoid potential problems.
Thanks for the advice. Will ask supplier to pay return postage or open paypal claim.

Hah! And it was still OK a year later! Better find a different garage next year!

welshsue

yes, I am thinking the same thing. They have a new guy doing the mot testing (straight out of training) and he picks up on every little thing and even tests things that are not on the mot!!!. We have a very long advisory list, whereby the main guy at the garage would not have put most of these down.
For example there is a very small chip in the windscreen on the passengers side which should not be marked as an advisory as its not within the drivers field of view.
We had a child seat in the car last year, no problems. This year he says cannot check one of the rear seat belts due to car seat.

bazster

welshsue wrote: »

yes, I am thinking the same thing. They have a new guy doing the mot testing (straight out of training) and he picks up on every little thing and even tests things that are not on the mot!!!. We have a very long advisory list, whereby the main guy at the garage would not have put most of these down.
For example there is a very small chip in the windscreen on the passengers side which should not be marked as an advisory as its not within the drivers field of view.
We had a child seat in the car last year, no problems. This year he says cannot check one of the rear seat belts due to car seat.

Hmmmm. I experienced the same thing recently: got an advisory that a seat belt was frayed. I almost needed a magnifying glass to find a couple of stray threads!

harveybobbles

I had the rear seats folded down on my last MOT as I had a boot full of stuff. They never said anything about it. Just if they cant acess it, they wont test it. The same with baby seats - they wont remove them to tets the seatbelts incase they dont re fit them correctly and the baby ends up going thru the windscreen...

As for the MOT - use Council run MOT centres in future as they wont go looking for things to fail to generate work.

blue_haddock

Right i can shed some light on this as i sell similar parts via mail order.

As you we're having problems before changing the cat and after changing the cat i would suggest that it wasnt the cat at fault - have you tried anything else such as the lambda sensor?

If the manufacturer check the cat and it is ok then you will not get your money back as it has been fitted and therefore no longer in resaleable condition.

Hintza

You want the seller to pay postage for returning the item which as far as they know at this stage has no fault.

Send the item back and later you can chase up whether they owe you the return P+P or not. I will always return P+P if the item is at fault I will not do it if the buyer is at fault (or an idiot).

You want this sorted as quickly as possible so don't mess around at this satge.

mikey72

Make sure it's sent back by a trackable method, you can always open a snad with paypal if it was an ebay purchase. You won't get your return postage back this way though.