Faulty Vehicle Bought on Credit Card

samuelcartman

Hi All
I bought a Mazda from a dealer last week and part exchanged my BMW. On the way back home i felt the brakes stopped working and the pedal felt very loose. I was on the motorway with my family at 70mph and managed to stop the car on the hard shoulder with the hand brake.
Called the AA and they confirmed that it was a brake fluid leak, they towed me home as i was 4 miles away. I rang up the dealer the next day and he said i have to get the car towed to his garage for repair at my expense (he is 50 miles away). To save arguments i agreed for him to send me the brake hose and i would pay the repair cost at a local garage.

But when i took it to the local garage they showed me severe corossion on brake pipes, exhaust, radiator and sills. They said the car has probably been in a flood, and said i should contact VOSA immediately as a car in such a state had been given an MOT 10 weeks ago with no advisories. I rang up the dealer and he became arrogant and agressive.

I went home and called the credit card company, VOSA and the trading standards. VOSA will now arrange a second MOT on the car and credit card company are asking me to send all documentation to them for their review. The dealer is not communicating with me now and says i should speak to their solicitors.

I have documents from AA and a third party garage saying the car is not road worthy, it risked our lives! This is all taking up so much of my time and i dont have a vehicle to drive to work. Has anyone been is a similar position? thanks guys

lisyloo

You are covered under section 75 provided the car cost more than £100.
However card companies can take time.

Is the car repairable? do you have the money? (I mean to get repairs done short term).
Can you get to work another way - bus? train?

You could use the small claims court.
Have you asked the card company how long it's likely to take? What have they said?

I don't have much doubt that you would be covered, the problem is short term transport.
If you don't have alternatives then you may have to pay for it yourself and then claim back the money (once you've got ALL the evidence you need of course).

samuelcartman

lisyloo wrote: »

You are covered under section 75 provided the car cost more than £100.
However card companies can take time.

Is the car repairable? do you have the money? (I mean to get repairs done short term).
Can you get to work another way - bus? train?

You could use the small claims court.
Have you asked the card company how long it's likely to take? What have they said?

I don't have much doubt that you would be covered, the problem is short term transport.
If you don't have alternatives then you may have to pay for it yourself and then claim back the money (once you've got ALL the evidence you need of course).

@Lisyloo, thanks for your reply. Yes i am basing the claim under section 75. Waiting for VOSA to arrange the second MOT so i can also attach their report and sent to Virgin MBNA. I understand VOSA will take 5 working days to arrange it and virgin will take 10 working days to let me know if i should go ahead and have it repaired. Virgin have asked me not to have it repaired as they can not guarantee that claim will go my way over the phone without seeing the docs, which is understandable.
So either way i am car-less for atleast 3-4 weeks. I am car-pooling with work colleagues for now.

I have two follow up questions -
1. I am certain that the dealer's lawyers will do a counter claim, BUT will they claim against me directly? or the credit card company? If they claim against me, ill have to hire a lawyer, i think it should be the credit card company as they are acting on my behlaf here (i think).
2. When buying the car, the dealer gave me 30 day warranty with 2 options, if it breaks down a) i bring it back to him or b) i take it to the local garage. I didnt expect the car to break down to horribly in 4 hours so i said ill bring it back to him and this is now what he is holding me up against. However, i do not have a copy of any document of his 30 day warranty, or the option where he has ticked, this was all verbal and Trading standards advised that regardless he is still liable. is that correct?

nickcc

I had a similar problem some years ago with a car I bought privately or so I thought. Contacted the DOE as the car had a new MOT, vehicle examiner checked the car over at the garage that carried out the test and with the original MOT tester, examiner found about 5 failure items including corroded brake pipes, passenger seat belt not locking and extensive underbody corrosion. MOT tester was banned from testing and the garage that carried out the test was fined. Point I will make is that I changed the front brake pads and rectified a serious engine oil leak before the car was re examined, even though I had taken photo's of the oil leak and the worn pads the DOE examiner could not use this as evidence as they were not faulty when he examined the car so don't get anything changed or repaired before you have the car examined by VOSA.

lisyloo

I am certain that the dealer's lawyers will do a counter claim

For what?
This level of corrosion is not possibly something you can have done in one day.
What do you think they will counter-claim for?

or the credit card company?

If your credit card company pays out, then the credit card company will pay.
They MAY decide to pursue the car dealer they may not.
If it's a few hundred quid they may decide it's not worth the bother (their staff all have to be paid).
I am not sure what ground they could have for counter-claiming at all in this case.

If they claim against me, ill have to hire a lawyer

Do you have any legal cover on your home insurance?

so i said ill bring it back to him and this is now what he is holding me up against

The ONLY thing he could hold against you would be if the repairs you were charging were unreasonable. In fact probably the opposite is true as a more local garage will probably be more economical due to travel alone.
You say he has become arrogant and aggressive.
I suggest you keep a diary of all communications (try to remember what you can). note down days, times and what was said especially if he became agressive.
No judge would expect you to take the car to a gaarge if the own has ben agressive or it's a long way away (generally that's not economical).
I wouldn't expect you to need this, but it's back up just in case.

that regardless he is still liable. is that correct?

Yes he's liable under your statutory rights. This applies without any warranty as it's UK law.
No trader is above the law, so whatever his warranty says doesn't matter.
He might even get prosecuted criminally because of the danger in this case.

samuelcartman

HI Lisyloo
Credit card company refunded me the whole amount today. This is good but i am not sure how to proceed now, i rang them up and they wont tell me if i can go ahead and have the car repaired or do i have to send it back to the dealer. I cant give it back as the dealer has my part exchanged vehicle, and i am 100% sure we wont give me my car back in the same condition as i gave it to him.

Now, i am stuck with a broken vehicle, sure i got the money back, but now i am sure dealer will counter claim and say he wants the car back. Surely i cant keep both the car and the money??

Looks like this is going to go on for months, and if i am going to end up giving the car back, i dont want to have it repaired. Credit card company says they cant advise on this, the dealer has 45 working days to file a counter claim, if he doesnt, i keep the money and the car. This doesnt really help and i am sure he will file a counter claim. Has anyone come across this issue?

Thanks guys

[Deleted User]

Sucks to be you.

If the dealer hasn't sent the v5 off yet, you have no proof you paid now - so technically the car could likely still be theirs.

samuelcartman

[quote=[Deleted User];56646643]Sucks to be you.

If the dealer hasn't sent the v5 off yet, you have no proof you paid now - so technically the car could likely still be theirs.[/QUOTE]

I am not sure what you mean by "you have no proof you paid now"

1. I ofcourse have the sales invoice that the dealer gave me.
2. Proof of purchase on my credit card, payment made to that dealer
3. Email chain between me and the dealer arguing who should pay for the repair costs
4. and numerous other pieces of documents.

chanz4

the car now belongs to the credit card company

samuelcartman

chanz4 wrote: »

the car now belongs to the credit card company

they are not asking for the car. As far as they are concerned, the dealer has 45 working days to respond, if he doesnt, case closed, they have taken out the money from his bank via a mastercard chargeback.

fto

Just sorn the car for a while & see what happens.