Car from car dealer problem (aircon)

Blondetotty

My sister recently purchased a second hand car (10 years old) from a small secondhand car dealership. The advert stated it had aircon and when she viewed it was indeed cool air blowing.

Once she had it home, within a few days this had all but gone and it was just blowing normal temp air (definately not air con). We took it to a garage to pay for a recharge and they advised that there was a leak in one of the pipes so a recharge wouldn't work.

She then sent a message to the dealer and said that she bought the car with working air con but it wasn't so what could he do. He replied and offered her £50 into her account or he would pay for it to be repaired. She took him up on his offer to repair the air con and he arranged for it to go into a local repairers and he would pay the bill directly.

The repairer eventually called her and said that he had quoted roughly £240 + VAT to the dealer who said he wasn't prepare to pay it and that he would let my sister know. The repairer called my sister as the dealer still hasn't been in touch (last Friday) and she arranged to pick the car up having had it recharged but told it probably wouldn't last long. The recharge cost £50 which the dealer paid directly to the repairer.

She's still waiting for the dealer to advise her of anything but it's obvious he's decided the bill was too high (The car cost her £1500) and he won't pay. She argues that the car was sold with air con and she has a message from him saying that he will pay for repairs as the system wasn't working but now he has backed down. Is there anything she could/should do. Obviously we're prepared that she might have to just suck it up and pay for it herself but wondering where we stood.

She's had the car a little over 2 weeks now and didn't get any warranty with it.

Thanks in advance for any advice.

BeenThroughItAll

If the aircon was working when she got the car, the dealer could happily question whether or not the leak occurred after the point of sale. Leaks in AC condensers are not unusual, often caused by stone chips and can happen at any time.


It's a £1500 car, so I can understand his reluctance to spend almost 20% of its value on a repair to an item that, by your own admission, was working at time of sale.


Sorry, but I think it's going to be a case of deal with it or go to court.


I'm sure the usual consumer rights crusaders will tell you that you should expect the moon on a stick, but honestly, at that price point you have to be reasonable in your expectations.

Blondetotty

Thanks. I think she's just annoyed that he agreed to pay for the repair and then withdrew the offer when he found out how much it cost. Even if he'd contacted her to offer a partial funding of it she wouldn't be so angry but he's not even had the courtesy to speak to her directly but rather got the repairer to do it all for him.

She is pretty much resigned to paying for the repair herself and lesson learned I guess (although what lesson I'm not sure!)

Nodding_Donkey

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

If the aircon was working when she got the car, the dealer could happily question whether or not the leak occurred after the point of sale. Leaks in AC condensers are not unusual, often caused by stone chips and can happen at any time.

That's true but within the first six months the onus is on the dealer to prove that's how it happened, not just assume it is.

motorguy

Nodding_Donkey wrote: »

That's true but within the first six months the onus is on the dealer to prove that's how it happened, not just assume it is.

Agreed.

It would be "fairly easy" to assume that the fault was there at the time of sale, given the O/P only has the car a couple of days.

I would have thought it would be a straightforward "win" for the O/P IF it went to court.

I'd be asking the dealer directly what they plan on doing now, given the car was sold with aircon, its clearly got a fault and they said they were going to pay for its repair.

BeenThroughItAll

Nodding_Donkey wrote: »

That's true but within the first six months the onus is on the dealer to prove that's how it happened, not just assume it is.

Absolutely, but you'll notice I said 'happily question whether or not...' rather than 'state...'.

As with all of these things, the situation will be best resolved by judicious application of pragmatism, not a long drawn-out argument leading to potential court appearances etc.

If I were faced with the situation as described, personally I'd ask for the dealer to contribute to the costs in some way (which they had offered to do) and accept that when you're spending £1500 on a car, you have to have reasonable expectations.

On any car over five years old, I work on AC being a 'bloody hell, it works!' rather than a 'must work' item.