Do I have to take recalled car?

onlyroz

My husband has bought a new car under a loan agreement, and he has received the registration documents and the paperwork for the loan. However, he has not received the car because it is subject to a manufacturer's recall. We are just outside the 14-day cooling off period. We have not yet been told what the fault is, or what needs to be done to fix it, or how long this will take.

Does he now have to accept the car, or can he refuse? Can he just walk away with no penalty? Or can he insist on being given a different car?

bigjl

Why would you want to walk away.

Every similar car will have been subject to this recall.

Not just the one you are buying.

It is surely a good sign that the selling dealer spotted the recall notice and wants to do the work right away surely?

If you do a Google search you will be able to find the reason for the recall.

They are a matter of public record

And if it hadn't been done now then your details would have been obtained via DVLA and you would have been asked to take it in for the free repair.

onlyroz

It is not a recall listed in the DVLA website - the dealer was simply told by the manufacturer not to release the car for a reason nobody has yet explained due to it being part of a bad batch. It hardly gives us confidence in taking delivery of the car.

Does anybody know whether we are obliged legally to take the car?

thescouselander

I also don't understand why you wouldn't take the car. The dealer will put any issue right and the car will be under warranty should anything else happen. Issues are picked up on new cars all the time during the PDI and put right without the customer ever knowing. It's just on this occasion you have found out because the fix affects the delivery timescales.

What is the real reason you don't want the car?

arcon5

Ye a warranty is all well and good if you don't rely on a car for every day transportaton and can afford to keep going back and forth to the garage. Always unsure whether they'll have a courtersey car or not.

BeenThroughItAll

arcon5 wrote: »

Ye a warranty is all well and good if you don't rely on a car for every day transportaton and can afford to keep going back and forth to the garage. Always unsure whether they'll have a courtersey car or not.

If that's your experience, you need to be a bit more assertive with your dealer.


I've been trundling around in a loan car for the last seven weeks, and the dealer's paying for all my diesel.

onlyroz

Can anybody actually answer my question?

Why would I want a car which, right out the factory, has a known fault and who knows how many unknown faults? You wouldn't accept that with any other product so why should I accept it with a car?

The first payment is due to go out in a few weeks. Should I really be happy to pay for a car we don't have yet, don't know when we're going to get it, and don't know what unknown faults it might have?

BykerSands

onlyroz wrote: »

Can anybody actually answer my question?

Why would I want a car which, right out the factory, has a known fault and who knows how many unknown faults? You wouldn't accept that with any other product so why should I accept it with a car?

Have you never bought a new computer only to find it needs a software update the first time you turn it on?

BeenThroughItAll

onlyroz wrote: »

Can anybody actually answer my question?

Why would I want a car which, right out the factory, has a known fault and who knows how many unknown faults? You wouldn't accept that with any other product so why should I accept it with a car?

Is it a VW? Or a Rolls Royce? Maybe a Kia? Perhaps a Maserati?


Probably, before anyone wants to commit their voice to advice, they'd like a bit more detail. Dependent on whether the car is particularly common, or particularly rare, advice may vary.


Have you asked the dealer what the recall is for? Have you read the Ts and Cs of the contract for supply to see what your options are? Have you asked the dealer whether you can back out of the sale?

elsien

Do you want to back out of the sale, or do you want an alternative car?
Because an alternative may also have been subject to the same recall, depending on what that was.

nidO

onlyroz wrote: »

Why would I want a car which, right out the factory, has a known fault

Which they're fixing and therefore won't exist on the car you receive

onlyroz wrote: »

and who knows how many unknown faults?

Which is exactly the same as every product ever bought by anyone anywhere.

onlyroz wrote: »

You wouldn't accept that with any other product so why should I accept it with a car?

How many things do you buy that're custom built for you? Of that small number of things, how many would you even know about being built with a fault of some kind and subsequently having that fault fixed before you receive it?

I'm baffled as to why you're making an entire mountain range out of this very tiny mole hill. The car you're intending to buy has a problem, it's being fixed. The car you actually receive, won't have the problem, just like the alternative car you would receive were you to get a different one wouldn't.