Car clocked

grumpygrumpy

Hi,
My husband bought a car approx 3 years ago and unknown to him the mileage had been altered (the car was purchased with 69k miles but we think the mileage was probably more along the lines of 169k). The dealer sold the car with no service history and we were lead to believe that this is why the car was a little bit cheaper than the other cars with similar spec available at the time. Everything was fine until last week we advertised the car on ebay and a couple from london came up to view it. It turns out the chap who came to view was actually a mechanic and straight away he could hear a knocking sound coming from the engine and again knew straight away that the mileage was dodgy, apparently this knocking sound only appears when the engine has covered a good few miles. He paid for an AA HPI check and yes indeed the mileage had been altered quite a lot. For some reason when my husband did a HPI check the mileage issue never appeared!?!? We would never have bought the car if it had.
My husband has contacted the dealer who has pretty much admitted to knowing about the mileage but he's adamant that we knew about it too which is a complete lie (he had scrawled on the paper work that because of no service history the mileage wasn't warranted or guaranted) He said that in the advert for the car it had clearly stated that the mileage wasn't to be trusted, which again is a complete lie! He claims to still have the advert but refuses to sent us a copy.
He's offered to buy the car back but refuses to pay us the compensation we're owed. We found out that we're entitled to the difference between what we paid for the car and what the car was actually worth back in 2012.
My husband has tried being reasonable with him and asked for less than what we're entitled to but he still refuses to budge so it now looks like our only option is to take it to small claims.
I'll be contacting CAB tomorrow but just wondered if anyone could offer anymore advice or know of any no win no fee type solicitors that could maybe help us out?. Thanks....hope that all made sense

NotRichAtAll

how do you figure out your owed compensation and why are you owed compensation?
as for engines knocking, they can begin to knock for numerous reason's perhaps the viewer/prospective buyer was trying abit of reverse psychology to get the car cheaper
and am not sure if you spotted what you wrote, but here is what i spotted below

Everything was fine until last week

so you had a good 3yrs out of the car without any problem's, at the time of purchase you did have the option to say "sorry am not going to buy this car"

anyway what reg is the car that you bought in 2011/12

https://ds.hpicheck.com/marlin/nmrHelp.do?source=HPI+Website

wealdroam

Have you noticed that mileage history has been a feature of MOT certificates for a number of years now?

bris

A knocking engine and a mechanic no matter how good he is can't just say the car is clocked.


You have a very weak case, 3 years down the line and only when trying to sell it does not make a good case, the fact you also got the car cheap only weakens it further.


Acceptance took place a long time ago, I also assume the car is getting old now. So with 3 years of motoring behind you even if a judge was to award you anything it certainly wouldn't be based on figures from 3 years ago.

grumpygrumpy

NotRichAtAll - Everything was fine until last week because we were totally unaware of the car being clocked. We've read on the CAB's website that we're entitled to the difference between what was paid for the car and what the car was actually worth.
Yes we too at first thought that the mechanic that came to view the car was also trying to scam us but when he did an AA HPI check it was pretty clear he wasn't. We also paid for a check ourselves just to make sure that wasn't a scam too!
We knew the car had no service history but that was all that we thought was wrong with the vehicle, we were willing to over look that so why would we say "sorry an am not goingto buy this car"???

grumpygrumpy

Wealdroam - Yes you are right, the mileage is featured on MOT's but due to the fact that the car have no service history as I've stated we didn't see this and also the car had been clocked 2 years before we purchased it. The only MOT certificate that came with the car was the last MOT which was done a week before we had the car.

meer53

I'd sell it back to the dealer, i think he's being more than fair.

Forget compensation, you've had the car for 3 years. Why do you think you're entitled to compensation ?

grumpygrumpy

bris - The mechanic did an AA HPI check like I stated above and the it showed that the car had been clocked. Yes he might have been trying to scam us at first by saying he could hear a knocking (who knows) but the fact is is that this chap was completely right!!!.
The car was only a bit cheaper than what the other cars were and like I also stated this we were lead to believe was due to the fact of having no service history. It was worth £1500 less than what we paid. Had it been ridiculously cheap then yes I could understand your comment, but it wasn't.
The car was overpriced and according to the CAB's website we are entitled to the difference between what we paid then and what it's worth was in 2012.

grumpygrumpy

meer53 - According to CAB's website we are entitled to compensation as the car was overpriced. The dealer hid the fact that it was clocked.

sinizterguy

grumpygrumpy wrote: »

meer53 - According to CAB's website we are entitled to compensation as the car was overpriced. The dealer hid the fact that it was clocked.

If he buys back the car, then you're not out of pocket.

Sounds like you want to line your pockets more than be put back where you started from.

grumpygrumpy

Not at all......we just want £1500 which is what he over charged us.