Help! Car bought from dealer, via Ebay. Has fault!

sarymclary

Hi,

About 3 weeks ago, we bought a car advertised by a dealer, in an ebay auction.

We won the auction, and went over to collect the car the same day. We checked it over, and took it for a test drive. During the test drive, I noticed the brake light intermittently light up on the dash. I asked the dealer about it, and he said there were no problems, and it was probably just the sensor on the brake pads that needed sorting, nothing major.

We used the car for a longer journey a few days later, and discovered that when this light comes on on the dash, the indicators, and main beam lights will not work. The light can flash intermittently, or stay on for a long time. Obviously it's a concern because if driving in town, indicating to take a turn can be hazardous.

I have sent several emails to the dealer stating the problem. He has initially tried to say we test drove it, and there was no problem with the car then. I replied reminding him that I was concerned about this light, but he'd assured us it was only the brake pad sensor, this is clearly not the case.

I have tried to appear reasonable, and polite in my replies, and have asked to take the car back over to the dealership for them to have a look at, and try to rectify the problem for us. He has now not replied to my emails.

What do I do next? Do I just go back with the car, return it and demand my £ back? Do I involve ebay, as the item clearly isn't fit for purpose, and it'd never get through an MOT as it is, and I consider it to be dangerous. Do I contact Trading Standards to help deal with the matter? We were encouraged to buy from the guy, because he WAS a dealer, and felt that it would offer us better protection when buying. We actually thought the bloke was quite OK when we met him, and his feedback was 100%, which was again reassuring.

Thanks for any help. Also, anyone mechanical got an idea why the warning light is affecting the indicators/main beam? Is this a duff electrical fault? We did an HPI on the car, and it's not registered as having been involved in an accident, as we wondered if it might have had a dodgy repair, but of course if it was unregistered and repaired, we'd never know anyway.

scheming_gypsy

if he's local just turn up and tell him that you've come to arrange to have your car sorted out. Take a copy of all the legal stuff as backup, SOGA and eBay's T&C's about traders and even information from the trading standards. You don't need to do anything with it unless he starts sayign it was sold as seen etc.

mcjordi

you have to give the dealer chance to rectify the faults before taking it any further..

scheming_gypsy

the warning light could just be a short somewhere. My old Volvo used to have an issue where the parking light would stay on when i turned the ignition on and the lights wouldn't come on, but if i turned the key a fraction back anti clockwise, it was fine.

sarymclary

Thanks. He's fairly local, about a 40 minute drive away. He's not in a town location, but about 7 miles out, on a village based industrial estate, which is why I'd tried to arrange a day/time to go over to get the car looked at. I am going to email him again today, to say we intend to go over this week to have them sort out the problem, they can either ask us to turn up at a particular time, or we'll just go when suits us.

sarymclary

I've sent him another message, saying I'm disappointed he's not replied before, and that I'd really like to resolve this issue between us without further hassle. Have included a paragraph from a sample letter on the Which? website, reminding him of his duties under the SOGA 1979, and that he is obliged to repair/replace/refund for the vehicle. I've given him 7 days to get back to me, and that we'd prefer to agree a mutually convenient time for him to carry out the work, but we are prepared to just take it back after that time, demanding a full refund at our convenience.

I think he's trying to ignore the messages in the hope that I'll just go away, and know he's occupied with a big extension that he's building on the back of his workshop, but that's his problem, not mine. My problem is that I have a car that won't allow me to indicate when a warning light is on! We've also discovered that the cigarette lighter isn't working either, which was a minor thing, but suspect someone has been playing with the electrics on this car.