Sold a car based on lies

Shagger

I bought a car from a trader back in mid-April, sold as an unmodified car with a year's MOT that had just been done the week before.
At the time, the salesman told me that the car had needed quite a bit of money spending on it, and showed me all of the receipts along with the new MOT certificate. He said all of the work had been done by their own mechanic on-site and then it had been taken to a local MOT garage that they always use.

Last week I was driving it and an engine warning light came on. It was sold to me with a 3 month warranty so I booked it in to the local garage via the warranty company. Within 15 minutes of the local garage collecting it, they'd rung me to say that the warning light was on because both catalytic convertors had been removed (a performance modification) and it was therefore screwing up the readings from the sensors in the exhaust. They said that in its current form, it wouldn't pass an MOT emissions test and would also fail a roadside emissions test. It also isn't insured as it's been insured as unmodified (which as far as I was concerned, it was).

I rang the garage I bought it from and the attitude of the guy was unbelievable. He basically just laughed and said "Tough, not our problem". After me repeatedly trying to explain that yes, it was their problem, he just hung up on me. Eventually I managed to get back through to him and was basically told the following:

1. The car was advertised as being modified and you knew it when you bought it
2. The car hadn't been modified when it left us so you must have done it (this obviously contradicts the above)
3. How were we to know? We took it as a part exchange and the previous owner had it MOT'd before we got it so he must have removed the catalytic convertors afterwards or he used a dodgy MOT garage
4. (When I told him what the salesman had already told me about the MOT) Ok yeah we did MOT it but the guy at the MOT place says it had both catalytic convertors fitted then, so either you removed them since or the MOT place is lying, in which case you have to take it up with them


What are my rights here? I've realised it's completely pointless trying to reason with the guy at the garage because not only is he a liar but he's cocky, arrogant and obnoxious and clearly has no interest whatsoever in actually making good on their mistake. The best he offered was for me to take the car back to them (50 miles away) and pay £300 for them to re-fit a pair of catalytic convertors that should have been on there when I bought it.


The warranty company are taking the stance that the car has been modified and therefore if that hasn't been done by me, I have to take it up with the garage I bought it from.

DCFC79

How did you pay ?


Maybe try a letter before action.

Shagger

I paid via bank transfer.

k3lvc

Being honest I'm struggling to see how you win this one.

Assuming it makes it as far as court the garage's defence will be eitther

a) they knew nothing about it, previous owner must've done it and as they didn't do the MOT then removable wasn't visible at that point

b) you've removed it/them in the time you've owned the car

Out of interest what car/value and were the boxes or just the internals removed i.e. is it visible ?

tacpot12

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 entitled you to a product that is of sufficient quality, i.e. not faulty or damaged. The removal of the catalytic converters amounts to damage (IMHO), and the dealer has no defence to say that they were not aware of the damage. They are also responsible for proving that the damage was NOT present when they sold the car. They cannot ask you to prove this.

You are outside of the time limit to return the car for a full refund. You need to offer the dealer the option to repair, or replace the car, or refund you the purchase price less a deduction they are allowed to make for your use of the car. You need to make this offer in writing and set a time limit for them to propose what they want to do. If the dealer does do anything, I expect they will offer to fit the cheapest catalytic converters they can. If they fit new catalytic converters, I would drive the car straight to an MOT centre and get an emissions test done. If the car won't pass the MOT test, the dealer has had their one chance to repair the car, and you are entitled to a refund, less a fair deduction for the use of the car you have had. If he agrees to fit the catalytic converters, you might ask the dealer how much the catalytic converters he is going to fit will cost, and contribute some cash to 'upgrade' to a decent manufacturer, or genuine part.

Shagger

It's a BMW M3 and I paid £15,800 for it. As soon as you get under the car it's immediately visible that the cats have been removed because they've been swapped for straight pipes. They've also used non-BMW exhaust clamps, and the exhaust sealant paste looks much newer than the paste on the surrounding exhaust parts. The fact that the engine warning light has come on supports the angle that it's classed as damage, because as far as the car's sensors are concerned it's caused a fault.

In terms of them doing the repair, yeah I think you're right and they'd fit the cheapest cats possible. I also wouldn't be surprised if they deliberately abused the car as much as possible on the 100 mile round trip from my house to their premises, as the guy I spoke to on the phone really was like a cocky, petulant teenager, to the point I was tempted to go down there. Although I know it would have achieved nothing and likely even been counterproductive.


Is it worth involving a solicitor at this stage, even if just for the letter?

a.turner

Shagger wrote: »

It's a BMW M3 and I paid £15,800 for it. As soon as you get under the car it's immediately visible that the cats have been removed because they've been swapped for straight pipes. They've also used non-BMW exhaust clamps, and the exhaust sealant paste looks much newer than the paste on the surrounding exhaust parts. The fact that the engine warning light has come on supports the angle that it's classed as damage, because as far as the car's sensors are concerned it's caused a fault.

In terms of them doing the repair, yeah I think you're right and they'd fit the cheapest cats possible. I also wouldn't be surprised if they deliberately abused the car as much as possible on the 100 mile round trip from my house to their premises, as the guy I spoke to on the phone really was like a cocky, petulant teenager, to the point I was tempted to go down there. Although I know it would have achieved nothing and likely even been counterproductive.


Is it worth involving a solicitor at this stage, even if just for the letter?

What do you want to happen?

shaun_from_Africa

Shagger wrote: »

It also isn't insured as it's been insured as unmodified (which as far as I was concerned, it was).

Don't dwell too much on that as even though the car had been modified, provided that you were not aware of this then according to both the financial ombudsman and the association of British insurers it shouldn't have any effect of the validity of the policy.

This is classed as "innocent non-disclosure" as it would be impossible to state that the car had been modified if you had no prior knowledge of this.

Ectophile

Sending a Letter Before Action costs you the price of a first class stamp. Send it from a Post Office, as they can give you a receipt to show it was posted.


But if you decide to take them to court, then you have to hope that the dealer still exists by the time the high court enforcement officers turn up. The trouble with backstreet dealers is that they tend to disappear and be replaced by an almost identical company the moment a high court judgement appears.

k3lvc

Shagger wrote: »

It's a BMW M3 and I paid £15,800 for it.

Seriously ?? You paid £15k for an M3 from a (presumably back street) dealer and didn't even get it up on ramps to have a look.

Your £300 to fit cats is likely to either involve nicking them off another car or fitting empty ones and disabling the light.

If other than that the car is legit then I'd be taking it on the chin and taking it to a specialist to sort out

pinkshoes

Shagger wrote: »

It's a BMW M3 and I paid £15,800 for it. As soon as you get under the car it's immediately visible that the cats have been removed because they've been swapped for straight pipes. They've also used non-BMW exhaust clamps, and the exhaust sealant paste looks much newer than the paste on the surrounding exhaust parts. The fact that the engine warning light has come on supports the angle that it's classed as damage, because as far as the car's sensors are concerned it's caused a fault.

In terms of them doing the repair, yeah I think you're right and they'd fit the cheapest cats possible. I also wouldn't be surprised if they deliberately abused the car as much as possible on the 100 mile round trip from my house to their premises, as the guy I spoke to on the phone really was like a cocky, petulant teenager, to the point I was tempted to go down there. Although I know it would have achieved nothing and likely even been counterproductive.


Is it worth involving a solicitor at this stage, even if just for the letter?

Ok, so it's a high maintenance car we're talking about here...

Buying something like this, you really should have had a good look before buying, particularly underneath. Obviously hindsight is a marvellous thing...

First of all, you need to quantify your loss. How much is it ACTUALLY going to cost you to get it re-fitted?

You then need to send a letter before action to the garage, asking them to either fit the Cat converter, or pay £X for you to have it fitted elsewhere. (send with proof of postage giving them a timeline to respond by in writing).

If it went to court, the outcome would be based on probabilities.
Has the garage put their contradictive statements in writing? If so, good!

But the court would want to know why you would buy such a car without basic checks. It is quite common for people to remove the Cats on M3s, so I would have thought someone buying one might know such a thing and check... You would therefore need to plea naivety.

Next time when spending so much money on a car, take a car geek with you!!

(I'm married to a car geek, hence I know a fair bit.)