Buying a car with altered spec.

forgotmyname

I was a bit puzzled on what to title this post.

The question is, if buying a car where every single one made had a feature lets say heated folding door mirrors.

Ever since that model of car was manufactured they all had the feature. If buying that model of car would you expect it to have that feature or should the buyer check its still fitted and working?

Spotted an advert where they word it so that it only mentions the heated part and ommit the folding part. Possibly had the feature replaced with an aftermarket part which disables the folding part.

Possibly worded badly and it does have the feature or cleverly so that a buyer would not think to check?

Caveat emptor or should the seller mention the lack of the feature?

Doing my casual inspection of the autotrader as i do, looking for that elusive bargain

Spotted some adverts where they totally miss what i consider a bonus. One car had a NAV upgrade factory option not mentioned so maybe it doesnt work? Another had a towbar which was not mentioned but the socket was visible in the pictures. One mentioned leather seats but failed to mention the heating, even the rear seats appear to be heated which is not as common.

Sellers not knowing what they actually have?

DUTR

I saw my previous car a few months back, the buyer I had sold to had sold it on, I was chatting with the current owner, (as I had the car from new) and pointed out what options I had spec'd, he had the car for months and didn't know it had electric folding mirrors, then again he didn't know how to reset the low tyre pressure warning.

chrisw

The buyer shoud research and check, the seller may not even be aware something expected is missing.

Spec often changes throughout a car model's life, in many cases bits are deleted. My Volvo lost a rear coat hook and boot power socket in its model year.

Stoke

I'd just ask tbh. When I got my current motor, I wanted to be sure it had steering controls as I take a lot of handsfree calls on the road, what I found was a lot of sellers avoided taking photos of the steering wheel (either intentionally or not). All SE models have the multi function steering wheel, so if it's listed as an SE and doesn't have that steering wheel, then it's either been in a crash and had the wheel changed due to airbag deployment or isn't an SE. Simple really.