Used car faulty but garage refusing responsibilty

arcon5

Sounds like the cluster was replaced. Nothing illegal about the cluster stating the wring mileague, would only be illegal if they misrepresented the mileague. If it was advertised at 50k miles then it certainly does not sound like it was misrepresented. Plus you knew of the discrepancy before buying as you said you assumed you was getting a better deal.

You will struggle to reject it based on the mileague discrepancy.

Tilt

arcon5 wrote: »

Sounds like the cluster was replaced. Nothing illegal about the cluster stating the wring mileague, would only be illegal if they misrepresented the mileague. If it was advertised at 50k miles then it certainly does not sound like it was misrepresented. Plus you knew of the discrepancy before buying as you said you assumed you was getting a better deal.

You will struggle to reject it based on the mileague discrepancy.

You are joking right?

The Op says that he/she was not made aware of the mileage (note spelling btw) discrepancy. I think you will find that a significant issue like this should be disclosed by the seller. By not doing so could influence a potential buyer in buying the car due to the mileage reading which in this case was false. That surely is a case of miss-selling. The car was even advertised as having done 50,000 miles which also appears to be false!

patman99

On a £4k car, I would have expected them to do the brakes. Just purchased a £6k car from a dealer & pointed-out the brakes were on an advisory. They booked the car in and got the discs & pads done without any issues.

KyKyM

arcon5 wrote: »

Sounds like the cluster was replaced. Nothing illegal about the cluster stating the wring mileague, would only be illegal if they misrepresented the mileague. If it was advertised at 50k miles then it certainly does not sound like it was misrepresented. Plus you knew of the discrepancy before buying as you said you assumed you was getting a better deal.

You will struggle to reject it based on the mileague discrepancy.

That's what I assumed, I didn't think they had done it illegally, I just think they have misrepresented it by not informing up of the difference in mileage.

We presumed it had less mileage than they thought, not 15000 more.

patman99 wrote: »

On a £4k car, I would have expected them to do the brakes. Just purchased a £6k car from a dealer & pointed-out the brakes were on an advisory. They booked the car in and got the discs & pads done without any issues.

I think I may have forgot to mention that the car came with an MOT that they did themselves after we purchased the vehicle. It had no advisories whatsoever about the brakes which is what I have tried to explain to the garage but they are saying it is not their problem and it's wear and tear. I was hoping to get some solid 'technical' advice on here in the hopes of persuading them to help rather than think I am someone who does not know what I am talking about so they can just fob me off, which is exactly how they are treating me.



In terms of rejecting the vehicle, I do not want to do this. I do think it is a good car, just a very poor service for the garage and believe that once it is fixed will be the car we thought we had purchased, I just do not think I should have to spend more money getting it to the standard we thought it should have been. In terms of mileage, I'm not bothered by the mileage itself, just that if we had know the real mileage we would have paid less for the car.

arielcohen

Its a buyers market, reject the car and find another. This will surely teach the garage the cost of 'doing business'


Even if they did replace and fix the faults, Your never really going to know the true mileage and that may make it difficult to sell on. Seems the guys are dodgy, wouldn't be a stretch to assume the car is dodgy and may have faults that you are not aware of.

Good luck in your decision, but your time is running out and you dont want to be stuck with that £900 bill

KyKyM

I have reported the car to VOSA and they are going to check the car out, I hope that this will strengthen my arguement with the garage. I am also sending a letter today.

What happens if the garage keeps refusing and won't let me reject the car? Also, I did a part ex, what will happen with that? will I get my old car back if it's not sold? what if it is sold?

Limey

KyKyM wrote: »

The mileage was advertised at 50000, the clock reads 29000 but the MOT history shows it as 65931.
Here is what the MOT says, in case I am missing something here:
10/2009 - 37667
01/2011 - 19177
06/2012 - 27733
06/2013 - 28264

Not sure where the 65931 miles is from but from the figures you've put up there the 50k advertised is about right.

If you deduct the 19177 from 28264 you get a rough estimate of the milage done since the clocks were changed (9087 miles) add that to the 37667 from the 2009 MoT and you get an approximation of the milage covered (46754 miles). Of course you'd get a more accurate estimate with the 2010 MoT.

I would however be querying the MoT. :think:

Joe_Horner

KyKyM wrote: »

I have reported the car to VOSA and they are going to check the car out, I hope that this will strengthen my arguement with the garage. I am also sending a letter today.

What happens if the garage keeps refusing and won't let me reject the car? Also, I did a part ex, what will happen with that? will I get my old car back if it's not sold? what if it is sold?

Agree with Limey that the mileage looks around about right from that history. The fact it's had the instruments changed isn't a big deal as long as you were aware that the mileage was wrong.

If VOSA find that the MOT shouldn't have passed then let the garage know and give them ONE chance to refund in full (including return of your trade-in if it's still there) before you go back to Trading Standards - be polite but firm that that will be your next step if they won't let you reject it.

If they're knowingly using a dodgy MOT place then the last thing they'll want is TS crawling over all of their stock looking for faults! Quite apart from the inconvenience, selling unroadworthy cars is a criminal offence with fairly severe penalties and most TS areas are more than happy to act on it if there's evidence.


eta: Just seen that they did the MOT themselves. That makes it even worse for them, because they can't claim ignorance (which isn't an excuse anyway)

spacey2012

VOSA will ask you to take the car to a VOSA test centre, they will examine the car and subject it to a VOSA standard MOT test, and if they feel the MOT was not correctly issued they will cancel it.
They wont enter in to any correspondence with you as to what action they take against the garage.
If you MOT is withdrawn, you will need a trailer or tow truck to remove the vehicle from the VOSA garage as it will no longer have a valid MOT.
VOSA are concerned with MOT enforcement, not disputes between private parties in car sales.

colino

I'd be very surprised that VOSA will see this as a priority as it's very close to the 28 day cut-off and the faults mentioned could easily have developed in the time-frame.