returning a used car seems very grey....

Lady_Alexiel

colino wrote: »

Please, as you have went down the hard path of toil and argument, get this new garage (who you might be surprised are looking for some paid work) and get them to detail the condition of the car in writing on their headed paper.
Unfortunately, even with details of the car, a lot of skill, knowledge and experience, I cannot begin to guess what suspension, "gone" and, "passengers side is very much on its way" can mean in any useful sense.
Added to that vague pitch for work and apparently VOSA didn't take you seriously (a very dedicated bunch of lads in my experience), I'm going to assume you didn't take up the vendors offer to have it looked at and you will have to ponder why, at a later date, you failed to mitigate your losses.

Sorry my post was just before I went to pick the car up, I was quoting what the receptionis said on the phone^_^; I also have to apologise for incorrect about the advisory, it was about brake pipes , not suspention.

The mot report reads:


001. Offside front shock absorber has negligible dampening effect.

002. Nearside rear tyre tred depth below requirments of 1.6mm [4.1.E.1]

Advisory note:

003. (feeding rear flexi hoses) Brake pipe slightly corroded [3.6.B.2c]

I think the guy at vosa was keen for me to resolve with the original gaurage directly because he seemed quite certain they hadn't had the gaurage in question brought to there attention before. He did to be fair tell me I could get someone else to look at it, but unless I went back to the original it was unlikly I could get a refund for the test. The vosa man may have felt I was making a mountain out of a mole hill, but he didn't come accross and meaning any ill intent by it. I didn't mean my previous explanation to come accross this way.

The gaurage that has just failed my mot have told me vosa would probably look at the car themselfs now, because there is conflicting mot reports.

The reason I've ended up going down this path, has change as ive gone along. ok first I was upset I had almost been in an accident within 3 days of buying the car, my concern about stereotype dealers left me nervious that if I went back to the dealer with my problems i'd be not taken serisouly.

If the dealer had had a grown up discussion with me, allowed me to unload all of my concerns and then used his salesmanship skills to allay my fears and build my confidence in his ability to fix all my woes, then i'm fairly sure I would have been talked into just letting them do what ever it was they were intending to do to the car.

In hindsight and although this is , i doubt going to be easy for me from this point untill this mess comes to its conclusion. Im glad he acted like a bit of an !!! and played up to all those stereotypes I worried about. Because if he hadnt I would never looked deeper or asked the brilliant people here for there advice or opinions. I would posible never have found out I was driving an un-roadworthy car untill it was to late. I could later have actually ended up in an accident, which could have injured me or worse and no one would be any the wiser that this man was happy to sell faulty cars to people.

This path isn't easy, but after today, i'm confident it is right, now i've found a gaurage I can trust, I'll be using them for there expert opinion going forward.

vaio

As you haven't any significant mileage since buying it then 1 & 2 above are enough to make it unroadworthy when sold. So you can reject for a full refund + consequential costs.

What do your credit card company say?

photome

vaio wrote: »

As you haven't any significant mileage since buying it then 1 & 2 above are enough to make it unroadworthy when sold. So you can reject for a full refund + consequential costs.

What do your credit card company say?

Thats what should happen unless you are in sb,s or colino,s world

vaio

photome wrote: »

Thats what should happen unless you are in sb,s or colino,s world

Yep and I'd go further and say that's what WILL happen once the credit card company get involved

Lady_Alexiel

Hi again,

Wow this whole process takes a painfully long time. This is an update of my progress so far:

As mentioned before VOSA have failed my car and are seeking to take some form of action against the garage that did the first MOT. disapointingly it doesn't seem like there going to provide any futher updates on that front so I am non the wiser as to what if any action will actually be taken.

Trading standards went to see the dealer after I gave them vosa's report. the dealer is claiming that not only has he not recived my letter but not (sorry we tried to deliver) note was ever left at this buisness, odd seeing as the traked letter I sent was had an attempted delivery during his opening hours...well reguardless of wether he's lying or not, he's not tried to collect his mail.

Trading standards have also told him that it is there opinion that I am entitled to a full refund because even if as he claimes he was relient on the MOT provided by this other (none directly connected) garage, he as the seller is responsable for selling products which was fit for purpose , which my car clearly is not.

Unfortuantly it turns out that trading standards don't appear to have any enforcment powers to act on there decisions (somthing I didint know and am quite shocked to find out) so I've now been advised by them to send an e-mail (so there's no quibbing over if the post man came or not) asking again for a refund and givning him 7 days to do it.

It all feels a bit moot to demand deadlines if there is no guarenteed consequence at the end of it -_- , however this is what ive done. now I have the reports back from both vosa and trading standards I now have all the information the credet card company wants for there investigations, that information will be sent off tomorrow. Fingers crossed they will be able to finally push proceedings towards somekind of conclusion. Failing that I will take this to the small claimes court, surly if both vosa and trading standards say that my consumber rights have been breached , it has to hold some kind of weight with someone /sigh

thank you all for helping me get as far as I have, when I get some more news I'll let you know. Hopfully it wont be to much longer before this whole sorry mess will have been resolved *fingers crossed*

photome

Thanks for the update and good luck

motorguy

Lady_Alexiel wrote: »

Unfortuantly it turns out that trading standards don't appear to have any enforcment powers to act on there decisions

Worth highlighting.

Lady_Alexiel

Hi all,

Sadly i'm unable to report that my case is resolved yet. in fact the car dealer is still being extremly un co-operative. My credet card company are in the thick of going through all my corraspondance and I'm having to send them copies of any up dates. I've let the dealer know that I will if nessisairy be seeking court action against him, and trading standards are now entering the relm were they really do have some clout and are concidering wether or not this issue is now falling into the boundries of aggressive comercial practice.

Hopefully the next time I update I will have some better news to tell.

I hope if nothing else my updates will enable others to have a better understanding of just how drawn out this can get and just how much you have to keep pushing. I'm quite confident that the moment I stop pushing with this, especially now, will be the moment when a dealer who has made a bad judgement will get away with not taking any responsability for his actions.

Thank you all so much for all the advice earlier on with this, I know I would probably have given up trying a while ago, without your support and comments. No matter how this ends, This was defiantly the right course of action to take.

Lady_Alexiel

Success!!

Well it's somewhat of a bitter sweet success, but success all the same. ^_^

I finally got a very disgruntled e-mail a couple of days ago telling me if I brought the car back i'd get a refund for both the car and the cost of the warrenty.

It took nearly 3 months, trading standards visiting 2 times and finally treatening to charge the dealer for aggressive comercial practice, 2 independant MOT's one from VOSA (who have decided to give nothing but a warning) , my credet card company getting involved and my sending an e-mail (on of many) insisting if they didnt get there act together I would go to the civil court and add a daily inconvenience charge for every day this has gone on for.

I'm happy i've got my £2,200 back and can run this daunting gauntlet again by looking for a car as I couldnt afford to get another one untill i got a refund. the dealer in the end made sure he wasn't there when I went for my refund and left his poor assistant to clean up his mess, so he remained a gutless bully to the end.

Sadly the dealer because he gave a refund at the 11th hour will not be charged for agressive comercial practice, but he will be monitored. After adding up the costs of the last 3 months I am around £400 out of pocket, but i'm still glad I stood my ground, because at the end of the day what the dealer did was plain wrong and it would have cost me a whole lot more had a been stuck with an unroadworthy car.

Oh as a side note for those who were reading early on, I found out what that god awful smell was. When taking the car back to the dealer, the seat belt was soacking wet (it was raining) when I had a look up the bit the seatbelt comes from in the body work, I found what can only be described as what looked like and alien landscape, there were lots of long bluish spory mould growing up there, so it would seam water was also pouring into the car from somewere, ew.

So although this is just MY OPINION based on my experience, BUYER BEWARE of PLYMTON CAR CENTER, my experience of the dealer (Stuart) is that he is a bully who's "20 years" of experience has given him not customer service skills what so ever, I was given a clean MOT for a car which was found to be clearly unroadworthy by 2 independant garages and he simply did not care.

Thank you! everyone for your words of support and advice through this process, I hope that my experience if nothing else will be of use for others if they find themselfs in this situation.

mikey72

I still can't bring myself to buy from a dealer.
I've used car supermarkets, at least you know they are "buy them cheap and stack them high", and normally give you the lack of sevice you'd expect.