Think we've been sold a flood-damaged car

colino

You really need to get focused. Forget when if it was swimming or not, don't shell out for legal advice or court dates. Get it back to him and get your cash back. He will be well aware of his legal responsibilities as a professional motor trader and he has broken the law.
Remind him of Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 in which his misleading by omission has caused you to take a transactional decision (to buy) that you not have otherwise (if you knew - as he did- it was Cat C).
Don't take another car off him as a substitute, any cack-handed dealer who cant source and sell a Fiesta for a genuine profit wont have one worth buying.

securityguy

maninthestreet wrote: »

The dealer saw you coming if you believed his story about the car just being valeted to explain away the damp interior of the car.

Quite. Why on earth do people buy second hand cars with things obviously wrong with them? There are zillions of second hand cars. The world is full of them. Most of them are sound cars that have the right number of miles, have been serviced at roughly the right intervals, haven't been driven into walls and have been got rid of for legitimate reasons (first lesson of buying cars privately is to ask "why are you selling it?" and run away if the answer makes you nervous). Why do people persist in buying cars where the seller is making excuses?

This goes double if it's a dealer charging dealer money. All that "well, we'll put it right before you collect it" nonsense is just that, nonsense. Here's an idea, dealer man, why not put it right before you put it on the forecourt, and then we'll talk? I know why the dealer doesn't want to do this: he doesn't want to tie up the cost of rectification on a car that's sitting on the forecourt. But his cashflow is his problem, not the purchaser's.

It's slightly different if you're buying a car with a significant amount of manufacturer warranty, from a dealer, because then everyone has an incentive to do the work; the dealer is paid at full rate, so makes a profit out of it. If you buy a car like that with something that is obviously, unquestionably fixable without implications elsewhere, then it's probably OK. But otherwise, why listen to excuses from second hand car dealers? Either the car's right, or you go to the next dealer and look at something else. There are lots of cars. You never need to buy a car that needs fixing.

vaio

I know you did a bank transfer, if you paid a deposit by credit card then google s75 and get your credit card company involved too.

ILW

it is probably perfectly safe, just a bit smelly.

vaio

It maybe safe but depends on where the electronics are housed as to whether it will be reliable in a couple of months time. If the cigar lighter is rusted then so are any number of earthing points tucked away under carpets

In any event, as the OP has a non disclosed Cat C get out of jail card I'd be playing it asap with a dealer who was too dumb to empty the spare wheel well of water before selling it on to some gullible punter

Netwizard

securityguy wrote: »

Quite. Why on earth do people buy second hand cars with things obviously wrong with them? There are zillions of second hand cars. The world is full of them. Most of them are sound cars that have the right number of miles, have been serviced at roughly the right intervals, haven't been driven into walls and have been got rid of for legitimate reasons (first lesson of buying cars privately is to ask "why are you selling it?" and run away if the answer makes you nervous). Why do people persist in buying cars where the seller is making excuses?

Quite. There are hundreds and hundreds of Ford Fiesta's on Autotrader which are not CAT C or "dodgy". One that is CAT C can't be worth anywhere near £1k let alone £1,500!

Hope the OP can sort something out and get the money back though. Not a nice situation to be in.

meanstreak

Thank you so much for all your replies.

We are probably going to try to reject the car and get a full refund. Based on this information (I know it's Brighton and Hove, but it's simply collating information from various government acts and applies nationally):

http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/cgi-bin/brighton-hove/con1item.cgi?file=*ADV0003-1011.txt

We will be making our case to him thus:-

1) The car is a category C write-off and this was not disclosed in either the auto trader advert or by him in person. He *is* a dealer and so had a legal obligation to tell us. Admittedly, we should have done a HPI check before buying, but he should have disclosed this.

2) There is an oil leak (this manifested when we had got the car home and had it parked on our driveway), a broken speedometer, a horrible damp smell, water under the spare wheel, wetness all over the fabric areas and rust in the cigarette lighter socket. None of this was mentioned in the advert or by him in person (he claimed the wetness was due to a recent valet and the smell was masked with two air fresheners).

We are contacting both citizens advice and the local trading standards today to see where we stand, but I am fairly confident that we have done nothing wrong except be incredibly naive and trusting where we should have been extremely cautious (believe me, whatever the outcome, we have both learned a valuable lesson here) and he has done quite a bit wrong both morally and, hopefully, in the eyes of the law.

vaio

the cat C is a slam dunk, the rest of the issues fall into the "what do you expect on a £1500 car/should have been spotted on pre sale inspection" category

maninthestreet

vaio wrote: »

the cat C is a slam dunk, the rest of the issues fall into the "what do you expect on a £1500 car/should have been spotted on pre sale inspection" category

The faulty speedometer would be an MOT fail, so the car is not roadworthy.

mcjordi

maninthestreet wrote: »

The faulty speedometer would be an MOT fail, so the car is not roadworthy.

only just a failure now due to the amendments to the test last month..

rusty cig lighter socket would be a red flag for water ingress..

the speedo is electronic one so again could point to water ingress.