BMW 5 Series F10 - BMW purchased with Recall notice

JABA

AJGuy wrote: »

If you believe that BMW has broken the law then a call to your local trading standards should be your first step.

Personally I would reject the car and like others have said you will receive a full refund minus the 4 weeks you have used the car.

The dealership should have protections in place, all software updates and recalls should be checked against the dealerships computers using a VIN number. Did you run any checks on the car whilst purchasing? If not don’t worry, the dealership has to disclose if the vehicle has pending recalls, been stolen/used as a hire car etc and it thier responsibility to do these checks.

As for the recall... it was issued in October, you bought the car in December and it annoys me that another poster has question if it’s a dangerous fault. A recall by definition is when a manufacturer finds a serious safety defect and needs urgently repaired. Your EGR cooler has been recalled as it can leak glycol into the engine bay causing a fire in extreme circumstances, remember the Vauxhall Zafria’s burning down a McDonald’s. This recall has hit BMW hard with over 1.5 million vehicles affected worldwide, I find it hard that the dealer missed this by accident. Ring the DVSA and find out exactly when the recall was placed against your vin, this well help prove that the car was sold to you without all the relevant checks and disclosures. If the car was bought on finance then you have even more protection as the they are also partially responsible however I’m sure the finance company also run these checks so the fact that not a single recall was brought up during the sale suggests something fishy was going on or the recall had not been issued for your VIN until later.

Please seriously consider rejecting the car... at the end of the day, it’s just a car.

Thanks for your advice, the issue of course is that I PX my old car, and have part paid cash and part finance.

I am already on to the finance company, and they have asked me to send supporting documents, which I am processing now.

I did run the finance checks, stolen etc., but no additional checks. I requested the car have a new MOT when I picked it up, which it had.

I have had several BMWs over the last 15 years, and I never thought about the recall issue, and I had not really been following the news on this, until this happen to me.

Does anyone have information and advice on my rights towards the finance company, as they are the only ones so far who have acknowledged the issue.

I got a letter from a lawyer representing the lawyer, I have given them 2 weeks to come up with a solution.

In case I reject the car, how would I go about that?
I am not sure why I should suffer any financial loss for that though.

Thanks for your advice, much appreciated.

AJGuy

As for the PX you will get the full invoice price refunded but I’m afraid you will not receive the car back, if it’s still on the forecourt you could negotiate this but the law is clear on the fact you are not entitled to this.

Jejection of a car using the consumer act needs to be made in writing, your solicitor will draft this for you or alternatively the CAB may be able to provide you with a template. This letter should be sent to the dealership and ideally the dealerships head office.

I would take aim at the dealership not the the finance company but see if you can negotiate a halt in payments but remember to keep the money aside. But failing the dealership route a section 75 claim could be looked at, you would need to follow the lenders complaint procedures and then go to the financial ombudsman, this framework is laid out in a way that it should not cost you a penny.

As for financial loss, I would put forward that the fault occurred within the 30 day band... this means under the consumer act 2015 you would not be liable for the depreciation of the vehicle and would receive the full amount you paid plus the PX price back.

BMW are generally good quality cars so I’m not surprised you were caught off guard, once again you are not expected to check recalls when purchasing from a badge dealership so don’t worry to much about this.

Apologies for the confusion of sending you to trading standards and not the CAB, it’s industry practice to refer a customer to TS with the intention of the customer going through the CAB.

AJGuy

My only concern is that it was not on the DVSA website at the time of purchase, this would need looked into as it would affect how serious the recall was at point of sale.

neilmcl

JABA wrote: »

It was not on the DVSA website when I purchased the car, however it does show now.
But I did find it later with VIN check, and it was already notified on BMW's records.
The dealer had worked 20 years for BMW, and trough various email exchanges implied they had checked car trough BMW's own data.

That would have confirmed the car had a recall.

Then that would suggest your particular recall notice was not in the place at the time you purchased it, so the dealer has done nothing wrong.

AJGuy

Thinking more about it the recall isn’t much of an issue. The consumer act refers to faults and not recalls, the recall just highlights the fault.

JABA

neilmcl wrote: »

Then that would suggest your particular recall notice was not in the place at the time you purchased it, so the dealer has done nothing wrong.

I visited BMW 4 days after I picked up the car and the recall was outstanding.
Also DVSA states due to delays for their site to be updated to contact the manufacturer if you not sure.

It should be a well known issue for people in the industry.
Would the dealer buy a car for full price with a outstanding recall or would they pay less for it because of this?

JABA

AJGuy wrote: »

Thinking more about it the recall isn’t much of an issue. The consumer act refers to faults and not recalls, the recall just highlights the fault.

The car can have a recall without a fault, however the car failed the check during the recall appointment, so it proves the car had a fault when sold.

Few years ago I had another BMW which had a recall, however it was a non issue, as the car passed the check when tested.
So when I was told my car had a recall I thought it would be a similar scenario, however this time BMW discovered that there was a fault.

Aylesbury_Duck

JABA wrote: »

The car can have a recall without a fault, however the car failed the check during the recall appointment, so it proves the car had a fault when sold.

Then you have grounds to reject it completely.