Rights on 2nd hand car

londonrob

Hi

I bought a 2nd hand BMW 2 months ago, for £7,000. It had 130k on the clock but was sold by a (non-local) garage who said there was nothing wrong with it, apart from the satnav unit that needing repairing. I was told the satnav would be repaired & returned within 2 weeks, however it was over a month before I got it back. In the meantime, the car had developed a couple of annoying little faults, but when I took it to my local repair garage, they said they couldn't fix anything until the satnav unit came back (on BMWs this unit shows the details of all the faults). Once I got the satnav unit back, they fitted it & had a look at what was wrong. I won't bore people with the technical stuff, but the bill came to £2,200. The garage I bought it from had sold me an RAC extended warranty but this didn't cover a single thing that was wrong, so I had to pay the full amount myself. I put it down to a lack of experience when buying 2nd hand cars & tried not to get too annoyed by it, but after a few miles on the road, the car started playing up again. I took it back to my local garage & they now say there's something different that's gone wrong, which is going to cost roughly another £2,000 to fix.

My question is - what are my rights here? I believe that I had 30 days to return the car if it developed a serious fault within these first 30 days? However, because the satnav unit wasn't returned within these 30 days, I had no way of knowing the seriousness of the faults. I've now had it 2 months, spent £2,200 on it, with another potentially huge bill around the corner. Am I entitled to ask the selling garage for this money to be reimbursed? And what about the next bill - can I also ask them to pay this? Am I entitled to ask them to take the car back? This wouldn't be ideal as I've already spent £2,200 on it which I'm assuming they wouldn't also have to refund? Can the Small Claims Court be used to get the costs of faults reimbursed?

Any advice would be much appreciated; I realise I should have spoken to them when the seriousness of the faults became obvious, but I was hoping it was a one-off & a life lesson, now it doesn't seem like that.

thanks, Rob

bris

Second hand cars are a mine field. You do have 30 days to reject it but after that you rely on your consumer rights.


The problem there is you bought a second hand car where age and mileage take a lot of precedence. Wear and tear is not something you can claim for so with 130k on the clock proving the problems are not a result of normal wear and tear isn't going to be easy.


The fact the problems didn't appear for a couple of months doesn't help your case and how would the sat nav pick up faults before they even happened?

unholyangel

Want to make sure I'm understanding correctly.

The satnav, when they told you it wasnt working what was discussed? Did they offer to have it fixed for the sale? Or did they just tell you it was broken and not offer to fix it?

What work needed done? Is there anything that would have made the car unroadworthy or anything that would have been unusual for a car of that price/mileage/age?

londonrob

bris wrote: »

Second hand cars are a mine field. You do have 30 days to reject it but after that you rely on your consumer rights.


The problem there is you bought a second hand car where age and mileage take a lot of precedence. Wear and tear is not something you can claim for so with 130k on the clock proving the problems are not a result of normal wear and tear isn't going to be easy.


The fact the problems didn't appear for a couple of months doesn't help your case and how would the sat nav pick up faults before they even happened?

Thanks for this. The problems started almost as soon as I got it, it's just that without the satnav unit it's impossible to diagnose them properly, and my suspicion is that they didn't fix the satnav & return it until the 30 days had passed. Some of the issues are wear & tear, but not all of them & it's the scale of them that's annoyed me, when it was sold as having nothing wrong with it. I'm hoping the satnav (actually it's the iDrive, more the on-board computer than just a satnav) is able to prove the dates of the faults, though these may have been wiped by the garage when the issues were fixed.

londonrob

unholyangel wrote: »

Want to make sure I'm understanding correctly.

The satnav, when they told you it wasnt working what was discussed? Did they offer to have it fixed for the sale? Or did they just tell you it was broken and not offer to fix it?

What work needed done? Is there anything that would have made the car unroadworthy or anything that would have been unusual for a car of that price/mileage/age?

They offered to get it fixed for the sale, i.e. they took it out & sent it off to be repaired, saying it should be back within a couple of weeks, so I bought the car without it fitted. They did get it repaired & returned to me, but after 30 days. It's actually the BMW iDrive rather than just the satnav, so it's required for telling what's actually wrong when certain lights come on on the dashboard.

The work needed was: Replace gear selector; re initialise active steering; replace brake pads (front); replace offside front lower suspension arm; replace offside rear upper suspension arm; replace both rear lower suspension arm rose joints; 3D wheel alignment; remove and replace rear bumper to replace both rear light unit bulb holders.

The main issue was that the car kept going into 'limp home mode', where the car (an automatic) picks a single gear & stays in it until you get home, turn it off & reset the car's computer. So although it could be driven, it shouldn't be driven far, and is only intended to allow you to get home or to a garage. I also had a couple of times where Drive mode wouldn't engage, i.e. it couldn't get out of neutral without being restarted. I'm not sure how many of these are unusual for a car of this age/mileage, but when it was sold as having no faults, I wasn't expecting the first garage bill to come to over £2,000 with another potential £2,000 still to come, just to get it back on the road.

I appreciate there's a difference between me being annoyed at spending a lot of unexpected cash on a 2nd hand car, and my consumer rights, so I'm trying to figure out how best to approach the garage I bought it from, to give me any chance of getting some of this cash back.

unholyangel

londonrob wrote: »

Thanks for this. The problems started almost as soon as I got it, it's just that without the satnav unit it's impossible to diagnose them properly, and my suspicion is that they didn't fix the satnav & return it until the 30 days had passed. Some of the issues are wear & tear, but not all of them & it's the scale of them that's annoyed me, when it was sold as having nothing wrong with it. I'm hoping the satnav (actually it's the iDrive, more the on-board computer than just a satnav) is able to prove the dates of the faults, though these may have been wiped by the garage when the issues were fixed.

This gets a little more complex but the 30 days isn't absolute in all circumstances. If goods dont conform at any time within first 30 days, the 30 days stops running from the day you inform the retailer and doesn't start running again until after you receive the goods back having been successfully repaired/replaced.

So if you informed them of the issues and have spent all this time waiting on the car being handed back within conformity of the contract, you may theoretically still be within the initial 30 day period.

londonrob

unholyangel wrote: »

This gets a little more complex but the 30 days isn't absolute in all circumstances. If goods dont conform at any time within first 30 days, the 30 days stops running from the day you inform the retailer and doesn't start running again until after you receive the goods back having been successfully repaired/replaced.

So if you informed them of the issues and have spent all this time waiting on the car being handed back within conformity of the contract, you may theoretically still be within the initial 30 day period.

Ah, I probably wasn't very clear in my posts. I bought it from a garage in Oxford, but I live in London. The garage that's been doing the repairs is my local garage in London. I haven't made any contact with the garage I bought it from yet (beyond my initial chasing of the satnav repair); I was planning on just paying the £2,200 first repair bill myself & putting it down to experience, but now that I'm looking at another £2,000 I'm trying to figure out how best to approach the garage I bought it from.

unholyangel

londonrob wrote: »

They offered to get it fixed for the sale, i.e. they took it out & sent it off to be repaired, saying it should be back within a couple of weeks, so I bought the car without it fitted. They did get it repaired & returned to me, but after 30 days. It's actually the BMW iDrive rather than just the satnav, so it's required for telling what's actually wrong when certain lights come on on the dashboard.

The work needed was: Replace gear selector; re initialise active steering; replace brake pads (front); replace offside front lower suspension arm; replace offside rear upper suspension arm; replace both rear lower suspension arm rose joints; 3D wheel alignment; remove and replace rear bumper to replace both rear light unit bulb holders.

The main issue was that the car kept going into 'limp home mode', where the car (an automatic) picks a single gear & stays in it until you get home, turn it off & reset the car's computer. So although it could be driven, it shouldn't be driven far, and is only intended to allow you to get home or to a garage. I also had a couple of times where Drive mode wouldn't engage, i.e. it couldn't get out of neutral without being restarted. I'm not sure how many of these are unusual for a car of this age/mileage, but when it was sold as having no faults, I wasn't expecting the first garage bill to come to over £2,000 with another potential £2,000 still to come, just to get it back on the road.

I appreciate there's a difference between me being annoyed at spending a lot of unexpected cash on a 2nd hand car, and my consumer rights, so I'm trying to figure out how best to approach the garage I bought it from, to give me any chance of getting some of this cash back.

I'm not a mechanic (so take the following with a pinch of salt), but I think your brakes & steering are two things that may indeed make a car unroadworthy.

The reason I mentioned this is that its illegal to sell an unroadworthy car. However 2 months after sale with repairs carried out, you may struggle to prove it was unroadworthy unless the garage give you a report detailing the work carried out etc or if the MOT flagged issues making it unroadworthy which were repairs you ended up paying the £2200 for.


This page has more info (your local trading standards may have their own advice guide if you google for it): https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Resident/Consumer-Advice/Trading-Standards/Unroadworthy-Cars.aspx

londonrob

unholyangel wrote: »

I'm not a mechanic (so take the following with a pinch of salt), but I think your brakes & steering are two things that may indeed make a car unroadworthy.

The reason I mentioned this is that its illegal to sell an unroadworthy car. However 2 months after sale with repairs carried out, you may struggle to prove it was unroadworthy unless the garage give you a report detailing the work carried out etc or if the MOT flagged issues making it unroadworthy which were repairs you ended up paying the £2200 for.


This page has more info (your local trading standards may have their own advice guide if you google for it): https://www.wigan.gov.uk/Resident/Consumer-Advice/Trading-Standards/Unroadworthy-Cars.aspx

Thanks for this; yeah the garage gave me a full report of the work carried out. Not sure on the MOT as that was in place when I bought it

unholyangel

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

You should be able to check the history there.

londonrob

unholyangel wrote: »

https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/

You should be able to check the history there.

cheers, yeah it passed the last one