Garage breaking contract

daylon

Hello, I wanted to post this issue to let people be aware of car dealerships, i bought a car from an audi dealership in the west of scotland, to cut a long story short i traded in a 4 x 4 because it was becoming expensive to run for an estate car ,the deal with the garage was an exchange of my car for the estate car plus £6700 owed to me as part of the deal,i signed the written agreement form stating all the figures and specs of the cars involved as did the dealer ,i eventually picked the car up 10 days later but no cheque (manager apparently off that day) went to pick up cheque 2 days later ,it was in a blank sealed envelope,drove off about 1mile ,opened the cheque and discovered it was £3000 short.The garages excuse is that the car was "underpriced" and that was the proper settlement figure,even though i have a signed agreement form stating different,they also state i was given the proper cost of the deal the night before i signed the deal ,which is a complete and utter lie,they basically say i knew the "proper price of this car" i.e £3000 more than the deal states and that it was a the salesmans error on the agreement, i have been to a solicitor about this and has never seen anything like this but said i have an extremely strong case but if it goes to court and win i may only be awarded a portion of the costs ,which means i may have to pay £2000 (50%)or so of my legal costs ,which basically means going to court to win only £1000 of the £3000 owed !!!!
Daylon

Hintza

Main dealer? Contact Audi in first instance they may take a dim view and put the deale under pressure to settle.

MrRedundant

Does the paper clearly show a settlement cheque of £6,700 and no indication of a pricing error/balance error.

Just checking as if it is obvious the price was wrong then just because the bottomline says £6,700 wouldnt entitle you to that. I am intrigued as to why it will cost so much. If the evidence is clear as you say then enter a small court claim for the amount outstanding and add the registration fee on top.

daylon

Thanks for replying,
I have been to audi uk and they realise there is a problem with the customer service from this dealership-they have told them to resolve this,but they say that it ultimately is up to the dealer,
The figures on the agreement are all correct no errors, i spoke to the dealer the night before i signed the deal and they went through the deal twice with the sales manager and once with the salesman 30 mins after ,they now deny this saying they both told me the figures (the ones they now say).the sales manager has said that the salesman made an error on the agreement, on the 10 jan one day after i signed so he apparently knew there was " error" but didn,t think to contact me,i picked the car up 18 jan and the cheque (which i gave back) on the 20 jan,and no one from this audi dealership thought to contact me,problem is i bought another car with this money owed,its still at the garage but have insured it and paid a deposit for a car i haven,t got!! and i,ll probably lose the deposit .My opinion is that they have maybe put the car on their system at the wrong price but the car i bought is available at other garages for the price i was quoted. thanks again.

daylon

Sorry ,about the legal fees ,i have been told that in scotland there is a limit on fees claimed back, i was told the other day by trading standards that i can only claim £300 for my legal costs from them which if i use a solicitor could cost me £3000 -£4000 going to small claims ,my solicitor and trading standards have both told me this,A contract has been broken and by what i,ve been told will not get all the money owed to me because i will have to pay legal fees,i cannot understand this.

vikingaero

Garages hate having to make deals like this where they have to pay out cash. Seems like the Manager has skanked you. Make a complaint to Audi, the Dealership, the RMIF if the dealer is a member, and issue a Letter Before Action giving them 14 days to deal with it. If the deal has been reneged on as you say then you shouldn't need a solicitor.

Dealerships are stupid when they do this - they have glass palaces and millions of pounds of exposed stock for disgruntled customers to play with. (That's not a threat, I heard of someone shooting out a dealers plate glass windows every night with an air rifle).

dori2o

I don't see the need for a solicitor in this instance, you have a piece of paper that clearly shows the amount of money due from the transfer. They have not paid this money in full.

The evidence you have is more than enough to get a result in the small claims court.

Had they genuinly made a mistake why did they not, in the 10 days from making the agreement to you collecting the car, contact you to advise they had made a mistake. They had ample time to review
the contract they had entered into.

They didn't even have the decency to point this out to you when you collected the payment. Again at this point they have had sufficient time to try and resolve the matter.

I would send them a Letter Before Action, confirming that they have 14 days from the delivery of the letter (send it recorded/special delivery) to resolve the matter and pay you in full the amount outstanding.

If they fail to respond or still refuse to pay you the money then start a claim via the small claims process in the county court.

Also contact Trading Standards and explain the situation to them. They may be able to resolve this matter for you without any further hassle.

Flyboy152

Hintza wrote: »

Main dealer? Contact Audi in first instance they may take a dim view and put the deale under pressure to settle.

Nothing to do with Audi, unless the dealer is owned directly by them, even then it will be their retail division, not the manufacturer.

Edit: If it is the dealer I am thinking of, they are owned by VAG Retail (Volkswagen Marketing).

vikingaero

Flyboy152 wrote: »

Nothing to do with Audi, unless the dealer is owned directly by them, even then it will be their retail division, not the manufacturer.

Edit: If it is the dealer I am thinking of, they are owned by VAG Retail (Volkswagen Marketing).

I made a complaint to Mazda UK about my Mazda dealer and they forced them to resolve the issue.

Flyboy152

daylon wrote: »

Hello, I wanted to post this issue to let people be aware of car dealerships, i bought a car from an audi dealership in the west of scotland, to cut a long story short i traded in a 4 x 4 because it was becoming expensive to run for an estate car ,the deal with the garage was an exchange of my car for the estate car plus £6700 owed to me as part of the deal,i signed the written agreement form stating all the figures and specs of the cars involved as did the dealer ,i eventually picked the car up 10 days later but no cheque (manager apparently off that day) went to pick up cheque 2 days later ,it was in a blank sealed envelope,drove off about 1mile ,opened the cheque and discovered it was £3000 short.The garages excuse is that the car was "underpriced" and that was the proper settlement figure,even though i have a signed agreement form stating different,they also state i was given the proper cost of the deal the night before i signed the deal ,which is a complete and utter lie,they basically say i knew the "proper price of this car" i.e £3000 more than the deal states and that it was a the salesmans error on the agreement, i have been to a solicitor about this and has never seen anything like this but said i have an extremely strong case but if it goes to court and win i may only be awarded a portion of the costs ,which means i may have to pay £2000 (50%)or so of my legal costs ,which basically means going to court to win only £1000 of the £3000 owed !!!!
Daylon

To be honest, when I aw the title of thread, I immediately though, "here we go again, another one who thinks that a mean and nasty dealer has ripped them off, because they didn't the right shade of mats." But I wasn't expecting this.

If the dealer had called the same day (or even the next day) a mistake had been made, they might have a case, but to wait until you had completed the contract and slipped a cheque in a blank envelope, two days later, they can swing for it. If the sales executive had made a mistake, that is their look out.

daylon

Thanks for the replys ,much appreciated,
I just want to say that there are no "bits" about this that i,m holding back etc ,it really is as i have written ,i sign a contract as do they,they say salesman makes an error on the agreement -for which i knew about(absolute garbage),salesman has been disciplined -which is not true as it was the sales manager who told me the deal twice the night before i signed.The dealership is Ayr audi by the way part of the lomond group who have 4 audi garages in scotland.