second hand car

emmieco

Hi , my son brought him self a second hand car from a private seller.
When he went to view it the seller seemed really nice and told my son he had owned the car for a number of years and on its last mot the car had past its mot with no advisorys , he showed my son its last mot certificate .
He did mention though that the garage told him the car would need a bit of work done on its exhaust if the car was to pass its next mot.
My son brought the car , he hasnt even past his test yet , so my son taxed it and put it on our drive for four weeks, he then arranged for its mot ,which was due.
The car failed miserably , in fact it is a death trap, so much welding needs doing on the underneath that the garage was not willing to touch it.
12 things failed, 2 advisorys.
My son contacted the original owner and he said he had only had it 5 months and didnt know and its nothing to do with him.
Can my son get his money back as it has so many problems .

sjbrun

No the car belongs to your son now.

A second hand car in a private sale is sold as seen. Your son took it as is.

If your son didn't have any knowledge about cars he should have taken a mechanic along with him to check it over.

The seller doesn't owe you anything.

usefulmale

Why didn't you advise your son not to buy a car with just 4 weeks MOT left?

You can check the past MOT history of a car here https://www.gov.uk/check-mot-history

Get the scrapman to come and collect the car, then tell your son to spend his money on driving lessons to pass his test, and THEN look for a car.

Your son has made some mistakes here and you appeared not to advise him correctly, so he must chalk this up to experience.

You will not get any refund from the seller.

robatwork

sjbrun wrote: »

No the car belongs to your son now.

A second hand car in a private sale is sold as seen. Your son took it as is.

This isn't strictly true.

From what you are saying, the seller directly lied to your son and misrepresented the car. This does form part of the contract of sale, and technically you could take the seller to court and argue the point. It's beyond "puffing" when someone states they have owned a car for years when it's in fact 5 months.

However in reality, how would you prove it? Your son's word against the sellers. What do you have in writing in the form of a contract?

Chances are very high that you won't get anywhere and need to write this off as a very naive buyer.

neilmcl

sjbrun wrote: »

No the car belongs to your son now.

A second hand car in a private sale is sold as seen. Your son took it as is.

If your son didn't have any knowledge about cars he should have taken a mechanic along with him to check it over.

The seller doesn't owe you anything.

Not exactly true. If the car's description has been misrepresented then the seller can be liable.

NotRichAtAll

Damm shame your son should of took someone with him even yourself for support. If your lumbered with it has the garage given you anykind of what the cost would be to fix?

emmieco

I would of been no good to him, I know nothing about cars as I don't drive, I am a single parent and he was so excited to be getting his first car, he brought it before he passed his test as an incentive to pass.
The guy at the garage didn't say, all he said was there was so much welding to be done to make it legal and he wouldn't do it, he said he didn't even look at the exhaust as it wasn't worth it, my son sent it to the garage to get the original exhaust problem looked at and fixed and decided to get its new mot at the same time, it wasn't due its mot till the end of the month

NotRichAtAll

I know its too late now but you should of gone even though you don't drive and know sod all about cars, moral support goes along way and your presence may have made the seller think twice about taking advantage of you son.
if the car is that bad then £50-£100 scrap or strip it and sell the parts. Next time if there is a next time make sure your kid takes an adult.

Poppie68

Check the V5/logbook, that should tell you how long the seller had the car.

baza52

lincroft1710 wrote: »

As your son hasn't passed his test and you don't drive, who acted as qualified passenger whilst your son took the car for its MOT. Could this person not have gone with your son to view car. How is he funding insurance as it must be expensive for a learner driver.

Op never said Son drove the car. It was "sent" to the garage.
As for how he affords to insure it, None of your business is it.....

emmieco

Thank you Baza52 , i was going to say the same thing , how it got to the garage has nothing to do with it, but if you must know , he paid for a pick up to drop it off as he wanted nothing to go wrong on the day he passed his test and was legal to drive and where did i say he was learning to drive in it.