Used Car - Faults & SOGA

sgx.saint

Hey,

I recently bought a used car (2006 plate, with 50K miles, FSH, 12 Months MOT, 6 Months Tax and 1 Month warranty) from a main and well established dealer.

Two hours after driving off in the car, it suffered a loss of power and an error message about reduced performance was shown on the dash display.

I had to make an emergency stop on the motorway. After restarting the engine, all was fine and I continued with my journey home.

As I live a long way from the dealer (150 Miles) I called them the next day to complain.

I made reference to the Sales of Goods Act and to give credit to the dealer they have been great, very helpful and they arranged to have the car looked at an independent dealer closer to my home.

The independent dealer have given me my car back today advising they couldn't find any faults with the engine and that no error codes were held in the ECU. So for whatever reason, whatever happened on the motorway was not captured by the onboard computer.

I have accepted this and driven the car away today.

However, the independent garage did say that the wheels on the car could do with being rebalanced as there is a vibration through the steering and peddles at certain road speeds.

Further to this, they advised that both wishbone bushes were split and required repair, but would typically be done as part of a service check up.

So my first question is this, would split wishbone bushes be an MOT fail?

Secondly, should I pursue this with the main dealer in terms of having this repaired under SOGA?

Appreciate the input.

ess0two

Is it a diesel turbo? if so it going into limp mode,needs a good blast thru the rev range.

sgx.saint

ess0two wrote: »

Is it a diesel turbo? if so it going into limp mode,needs a good blast thru the rev range.

Thanks for the reply, no its a 1.8 Petrol.

smashingyour...

What's so special about a 7 year old car you had to travel 150 miles to buy it?

sgx.saint

smashingyour... wrote: »

What's so special about a 7 year old car you had to travel 150 miles to buy it?

Nothing?

It was a particular model which was hard to come by and reasonably priced, plus the garage was around the corner from my parents, so was easy for one of them to place the deposit for me.

Though I am not sure what bearing this has on my question?

Joe_Horner

sgx.saint wrote: »

So my first question is this, would split wishbone bushes be an MOT fail?

Secondly, should I pursue this with the main dealer in terms of having this repaired under SOGA?

Appreciate the input.

A "split" bush isn't necessarily a fail, or even a problem. The fail criteria for bushes is that they mustn't be deteriorated to the point where there is excessive movement of the component they locate (as with lots of MOT failures, excessive isn't defined). Usually that means that they've perished and the rubber's gone soft.

With some bushes, especially PU ones, it's possible for the material to tear or split starting from a small nick in the material. As long as everything's still held securely that won't be a problem, although it might develop squeaks later on!

As for raising it with the dealer, it's doubtful if there are really grounds. Wheel imbalance could have been caused after you collected the car. I'm not saying it was but it's entirely possible - one curbing or pot-hole can be all it takes. Assuming the bushes are still doing their job and are not bad enough to fail an MOT then they'd also probably not be covered by SOGA precisely because they are still doing their job and not bad enough to fail an MOT.

That said, you've got nothing to lose by mentioning the things the other garage found and asking if they can help out with them. If you decide to do that, don't go in quoting legislation - that's one thing that's guaranteed to get you "your rights and only your rights" with a lot of businesses and many will know the limits of your genuine rights far better than you do!

Seeing as it could be hard to show that "your rights" extend to these problems it's a generally better bet to be nice (while, obviously, concerned about what you've been told) and give them the chance to be nice back

sgx.saint

Joe_Horner wrote: »

A "split" bush isn't necessarily a fail, or even a problem. The fail criteria for bushes is that they mustn't be deteriorated to the point where there is excessive movement of the component they locate (as with lots of MOT failures, excessive isn't defined). Usually that means that they've perished and the rubber's gone soft.

With some bushes, especially PU ones, it's possible for the material to tear or split starting from a small nick in the material. As long as everything's still held securely that won't be a problem, although it might develop squeaks later on!

As for raising it with the dealer, it's doubtful if there are really grounds. Wheel imbalance could have been caused after you collected the car. I'm not saying it was but it's entirely possible - one curbing or pot-hole can be all it takes. Assuming the bushes are still doing their job and are not bad enough to fail an MOT then they'd also probably not be covered by SOGA precisely because they are still doing their job and not bad enough to fail an MOT.

That said, you've got nothing to lose by mentioning the things the other garage found and asking if they can help out with them. If you decide to do that, don't go in quoting legislation - that's one thing that's guaranteed to get you "your rights and only your rights" with a lot of businesses and many will know the limits of your genuine rights far better than you do!

Seeing as it could be hard to show that "your rights" extend to these problems it's a generally better bet to be nice (while, obviously, concerned about what you've been told) and give them the chance to be nice back

Thanks for that most helpful post, exactly what I was after, I will nudge the original dealer to see whether they will consider contributing towards any costs.

ess0two

sgx.saint wrote: »

Thanks for the reply, no its a 1.8 Petrol.

Try googling the model etc and fault,somethings sending it into limp mode,usually switching off and restarting is a short term cure.

smashingyour...

sgx.saint wrote: »

Nothing?

It was a particular model which was hard to come by and reasonably priced, plus the garage was around the corner from my parents, so was easy for one of them to place the deposit for me.

Though I am not sure what bearing this has on my question?

Because you asked about the soga.

The dealer could have said pop it back and we'll have a look at it.

sgx.saint

smashingyour... wrote: »

Because you asked about the soga.

The dealer could have said pop it back and we'll have a look at it.

It was a main dealer that had branches in my home town, which was why I was happy to travel, because if anything was to go wrong, then I could go to my local dealer.