Sold a faulty part

Wallly

Hi all. New to the forum and looking for a bit of advice before I pursue legal remedy for an ABS pump I had supplied and fitted by a local garage which turned out to be faulty. It's a fairly long story so please bear with me!


I noticed problems with the ABS system in my '04 Octavia at the start of last year. I took it to the main dealer who diagnosed a faulty pump, quoting me around £1500 for the repair. I shopped around for a better quote at garages I'd used previously and went with the best one I found.
The car went in and the pump was changed but unfortunately the problem remained. Diagnostics were unable to identify any further issue but the garage suggested they try a few other other things. More parts and labour later, still the original problem persisted and the bill now stood at over £1200. The only option remaining, according to the garage, was for them to take car off my hands, for "scrap", in lieu of payment. I politely declined and reluctantly settled the bill in full.
I took the car back home (Czech Republic) to an authorised Skoda mechanic along with the original diagnosis. There they replaced the pump again and lo and behold, problem solved! I informed the garage in the UK of the situation and asked for a refund, for the pump itself and additional work carried out as a result of them fitting a non-functional part. After much correspondence, they finally agreed to send the part back to their supplier for testing. Last week came word from their supplier that the warranty was not to be honored for the following reasons and that there was nothing more to be done (copy and pasted verbatim):
1. Part to replace faulty unit could have been done by dealership in Europe
2. Parts warranty cannot be done now as it is off vehicle & (name of supplier) can not authorise for electrical items
3. All warranty above £100 must be taken to relevant dealership.
Regardless, my agreement is with the garage who carried out the work, not their supplier and I believe they are liable under the CCA, as they sold me a non-functional unit. Of course, no one wants to accept responsbility but I am prepared to take pursue legal action as this has caused me a lot of time and money.


Does anyone have any advice how the CCA may apply in this case, what my options are or any other relevant information?


Thanks in advance.

Hintza

Nightmare; not helped by having it fixed abroad. Do you really have the stomach for where this fight will take you?

If so LBA but you will need something/one to back up your claims. etc

arcon5

CCA ? ? You sure you don't mean SOG&SA

kaya

Did you pay by credit card by any chance?

mattyprice4004

Hopefully it was paid by card. If not, you have a strong case but pursuing it will be hard.

bigjl

When ever i have been supplied a faulty part there is a warranty that covers the part only if if supply the parts and the parts and fitting if a garage has supplied and fitted the parts.

But there should always be a warranty on the parts.

Though in fairness the warranty would have been in the form of an exchange part.

Clearly the garage has not done as requested and paid.

Sounds like they hoped to rack up a bill and get the car for free.

I have never heard of labour etc being reimbursed.

But good luck with it anyway.

And i thought the Czech Republic was in the EU for the thick end of ten years so don't understand them having an issue with that.

Lesson learned.

Cheaper is not always better.

pvt

Here we go again with a supplier using their warranty bollux in an attempt to wriggle out of their statutory obligations.

Any warranty must always state "this warranty does not affect your statutory rights", and it is for the very reason that shady and dis-honourable suppliers will try to cite failure/breach of warranty conditions to try to wriggle out of appropriately compensating you.

So first off: Your beef is with the garage that sold you the faulty unit, not with their supplier. You have no relationship with their supplier.

Secondly, is there any dispute the unit is faulty? The supplier doesn't seem to have claimed otherwise. If not you should be entitled to your money back under SoGA. The warranty is of no relevance.

As the garage fitted a faulty unit (even though they didn't know it was faulty), and it failed to fix the problem, and you gave them opportunity to rectify that problem, then I reckon you have a claim against them for everything you've paid them. Threaten them with a claim through the small claims process if they are not willing to reimburse you. You were paying them for their competence, and if they diagnosed a faulty unit, replaced it and then couldn't diagnose that the replacement was faulty, then they were incompetent.

As others have said - if you paid for any of the repairs via credit card then drag your CC company into the fight under S75.

Good luck