Can I return my car - consumer act?

AlexisV

If you paid £10,250 and have done 5,000 in one year, you might be looking at knocking a grand off and go for a £9,250 refund.

ah75

Heh - OK I'll put the financials down (was avoiding that)... :cool:

I paid £17k - £250 on credit card, £11k cash/debit, the remaining was my old car part-ex'd (which they probably inflated the value of to suit).

£17k was their price on the windscreen - all I managed to squeeze out of them was the floormats (that they'd taken out!?) and a tank of fuel. Shame.

They've offered £12k. :mad:

The solicitor did say that quite often you can assume the value has dropped £2k as soon as you drive a new car (this wasn't new - but very near!) off the forecourt.

fivetide

ah75 wrote: »

HThe solicitor did say that quite often you can assume the value has dropped £2k as soon as you drive a new car (this wasn't new - but very near!) it off the forecourt.

On the basis that would be the part ex or private sale value I'd almost agree.

Sounds similar to what you would get if you were making a total loss claim on insurance. They are essentially offering you a trade in price when what you want is the value of the same car. What are similar spec cars going for? Start there for a value.

Watching this with interest as my friend might be about to do the same thing....


5t.

ah75

BTW - "Private Good" for my car is £14.5k.

But there's no way they should be allowed to make a profit on selling something to me that is flawed, and inconvenienced me for the past year. While they have been good at collecting/dropping off the car - I've been without a car for over a week sometimes while they try to repeat the fault (and fail), and on many occasions I've been stranded somewhere with a useless lump of metal that doesn't want to open/move, and it often gets returned with less fuel, and new scratches/dents to the bodywork.

The Sales Manager is on holiday today. It starts tomorrow when he returns and I book an in-person appointment...

motorguy

ah75 wrote: »

BTW - "Private Good" for my car is £14.5k.

But there's no way they should be allowed to make a profit on selling something to me that is flawed, and inconvenienced me for the past year. While they have been good at collecting/dropping off the car - I've been without a car for over a week sometimes while they try to repeat the fault (and fail), and on many occasions I've been stranded somewhere with a useless lump of metal that doesn't want to open/move, and it often gets returned with less fuel, and new scratches/dents to the bodywork.

The Sales Manager is on holiday today. It starts tomorrow when he returns and I book an in-person appointment...

I'd be checking out what price equivalent cars are making at dealers now. If thats say, £15000 i'd be saying to them that you want that amount so that you can replace the car with one thats not faulty.

For info, i bought a BMW a couple of years ago for £22995 from a main dealer. The car was described as having a FSH and being 'BMW Approved' whereby it had to pass 'stringent checks'. A year later i chased them up to stamp up the service book and it turned out the car was missing a stamp. As it was a top spec 535d Sport it was important that it had a FSH and i bought it as such. After some 'to-ing' and 'fro-ing' with the dealership, then BMW UK, the dealer principal agreed to take buy the car back. It had a trade value of £14K and they opened at £16K. I said i reckoned i could have been able to get £17,000 for the car on the open market, had it not been for the lack of the service history, so they wrote me a cheque for £17,000.

I was going to change the car anyway, so it 'got me out' of the 535d, and i was able to go and buy another car and get a decent discount as i'd no trade in.

mikey72

ah75 wrote: »

The solicitor did say that quite often you can assume the value has dropped £2k as soon as you drive a new car (this wasn't new - but very near!) off the forecourt.

Nearly new uually means someone else has lost the £2k already. A fair price would be the value of a replacement car off another dealer, not a trade in price.

thegirlintheattic

Get back onto Ford. Their customer service is usually very good. All these parts that have been replaced - has it been to solve the key issue?

Have you tried getting a new key programmed?

ah75

thegirlintheattic wrote: »

Get back onto Ford. Their customer service is usually very good. All these parts that have been replaced - has it been to solve the key issue?

Have you tried getting a new key programmed?

I'd disagree (see my earlier posts) - their customer service team just chase people, they cannot make decisions, provide advice or anything useful really - I think they see themselves as enablers.

Oh the dealer has certainly already tried replacing the keys (that's the very first thing they try as it's cheapest!), key recognition unit, door catches, and so on. This is all to try to fix the KeyFree system failing to recognise the keys. I long for a proper metal key that I can stick in the ignition...

I'm not looking to go through any further diagnosis after the year of unreliability - they can do that in their own time and suffer the depreciation, inconvenience, fuel loss, unreliability and deal with their own scratches and dents that they keep causing while it's in the dealership car park.

Thanks for your suggestion, but after a year of trying to repeat and fix an intermittent problem - it's beyond that.

ah75

So having waited for the Sales Manager to call me (as promised by the Service Department on the Weds), I decided to phone on Friday. The Sales Manager was on holiday (fair enough) - returning Saturday. So I phoned Saturday and had to explain the entire issue to a Sales person before they'd get the Sales Manager to phone me back. Perhaps I should've just walked into the showroom and asked to see him?!

The Sales Manager phoned me back later in the day and wanted to discuss all the details on the phone, despite me saying "I don't want to talk about this on the phone, I would like a meeting to discuss it in person".

Once I mentioned the "I've been taking legal advice" he said we would probably have to stop talking until he does the same. So I recoiled slightly and said "neither of us want to take this down the legal route if avoidable - if you can come to an amicable agreement with me taking all issues into consideration, rather than the insulting part-ex buy-back price I'd received so far, then that would suit me". So he asked how much I wanted, which I said "I actually liked this car, but have to replace it with something similar as I have zero confidence that this can be fixed". He offered me a literal exchange for an identical car with identical mileage/age - I said "no way in hell" as my model of car comes with the KeyFree system as standard, and I never want that again!

He said that in order to buy-back the car 'at no profit' to the dealership, he cannot authorise that as only the General Manager can. He would speak to him and phone me back Monday to arrange the meeting.

Monday came and went without a phone call. So I decided to write him a letter including:
1) My situation/extreme disappointment
2) A complete log of issues since it started
3) A copy of all letters (including ones unanswered by him and the Service Manager).
4) A list of all visits to the dealership for the fault - it showed that they had had the car for a total of 37 days in the past year.

I'm still waiting for that phone call...

motorguy

Whilst i can understand why you dont want the same system again on another car, there are probably thousands of people out there with the same system with no issues.

I would just be careful as the dealership have now offered you an exchange for an identical car and you have declined.

If this gets to court the judge will look at BOTH sides of the issue and the fact the dealership has in fact offered to exchange the car to another identical one will stack in their favour.