Returning a new car - SOGA

DoaM

neilmcl wrote: »

Not necessarily. If the fault was first raised within 30 days then effectively this period would've been on pause whilst a suitable remedy was sought.

^^^ is the correct answer.

david_a

Customer complains about a fault that the dealer cannot find any evidence of.

That is going to be a straight forward refund then.

Elinore

Hi All,

Thank you for your replies.

The first fault showed after two months.

I formally complained to the dealer after the last repair did not work and they insisted at another try to resolve the issue. The car was remapped and some engine tweaks made.

This resulted in the engine not wildly over revving but now it has a terrible lag when accelerating/decelerating and nasty bunny hopping going on when it does either.

The stalling issue hasn't resolved, stop start does not work and generally the other problems remained.

In light of this five weeks ago I wrote to the finance company to make them aware that the vehicle has an on-going and unrepaired fault.


I had a holding letter today to say that they are still investigating however there was some wording in the acknowledgment that was rather worrying it says .....we appreciate that you have made a request to reject the vehicle......I have done no such thing! I have not mentioned rejecting the vehicle only that there is an ongoing and unresolved issue that as the *owners* they might wish to review with the garage.

Is this fairly standard and the established outcome is a rejection? therefore they have jumped to this conclusion?

If this is the case are they just going to take the car back?

Some figures 67 Plate, bought new, I have paid £3K deposit and an additional £1.5K part exchange - the cars purchase price was 14500 and now via auto trader and similar its worth £9000/£9500.I have done 10K miles (in line with yearly mileage agreement) I have three sets of finance with the finance company over the years, with no issues - paid in full and had the car for many years after buying. In line with this I was expecting to keep this car from new till it died of old age.

If they take the car back and call it even - I have basically paid out 6K to hire a (duff) brand new car for a year?

Does anyone know if the rejection is it open to negotiation? - as I do want the same car/made/model/mileage/age but just a different one as this one appears to be a lemon? Is that something that can be arranged? Just a straight swap?

Does anyone know what the process is?

Arklight

Is it Hire Purchase or PCP?

What make and model is the car?

Have you asked the dealer for a straight swap of an equivalent vehicle?

Have you escalated to the manufacturers?

Elinore

Hi Arklight,

Hire purchase
Smart for two - sport prime (only one of this style in the country)
No, i mentioned it several times while she was in that i was unhappy and i was looking to escalate the matter - they brushed me off - twice quite rudely.
As such after the last attempt to repair failed i have gone to the finance company as they are the owners of the vehicle

daveyjp

Sounds similar to how smart dealt with us when our smart suffered numerous problems. 8 weeks they had it and still failed to fix all the faults we had evidence for.

The bonus was we owned ours so we simply drove it to another dealership and swapped it for something reliable.

Elinore

UPDATE

Contacted by finance company today - they will be taking the car back. I will be contacted shortly to hash out the details. They have mentioned the return of my deposit and some goodwill (only mentioned, no figures)


Reading between the lines the finance company have had little or no response from the dealership. In light of all the details I had provided and the matter was coming up to the end of the regulatory deadline I think they decided to settle.


So, lets see how this plays out.