Buying used cars and consumers act protection

Lubarbeiro

We bought an used car from CarsJunction in Wandsworth late May/early Jun with an extended warranty. We also used a credit card as part of the payment for added legal cover and the choice of buying a car from a business over a private seller was the added protection it offered. The AC wasn’t working but the car dealership charged us for a re-gas and promised it would be fine.
For two weeks we didn’t really use the car and then, the first time we needed the AC it didn’t work. The car dealership took the car back for another re-gas, this time free of charge. We didn’t have the car for a week while it was done and it returned with a working AC. The following day, the AC Once again stopped working. Once again we returned the car to be fixed and it stayed there for over a week, this time the dealership kept the car for weeks as they wanted to use the car for some time to insure the problems was fixed, the car was returned and unfortunately the problem persisted. In total we had property of the car for almost two months but direct access to the car for less than 4 weeks. At this stage Citizen Advice was helping us and made us aware of our consumers rights. Over the phone credit card company said they could help but there are long delays due to Covid. At this point we agreed with the dealership that we would start mitigation and offer to return the car. Instead, the dealership gave us permission to use the car until the matter had been sorted.
After endless emails, WhatsApp messages and communications with The dealership and their “legal rep” they offer to accept the car back but wanted to charge over 45p per mile based on the HMRC travel rate expenses, please bear in mind it our car, our expense not theirs. The car milleage means that they wantEd to deduct almost £500 from what we paid for the car. Obviously we did not accept it. The credit card company is taking a bit long and we need to act quickly. Shall we take it to small claims ourself or wait? Any thoughts? Thanks guys.

MinuteNoodles

The travel rate expenses are a reimbursement of expenses paid to an employee or claimable by a business and are set at 45p per mile to also cover fuel, road tax and insurance which you've had to pay, not CarJunction. 
PCP deals charge typically between 6p-16p per mile for every mile you go over the mileage limit of a PCP deal to compensate them for any depreciation/additional wear due to mileage so if they were to claim anything that is much more reasonable and appropriate than a rate that was set to compensate someone for the total cost of using their car for work.

Also worth considering is that they most likely can't charge you if they didn't state what the charge would be when they told you you could continue to use it. Without knowing what the charges would be upfront you cannot make an informed decision as to whether to continue to use it or get a better deal doing something else.  

If it went to court a judge would throw out their claim in an instant. 

Mercdriver

Lubarbeiro said:

We bought an used car from CarsJunction in Wandsworth late May/early Jun with an extended warranty. We also used a credit card as part of the payment for added legal cover and the choice of buying a car from a business over a private seller was the added protection it offered. The AC wasn’t working but the car dealership charged us for a re-gas and promised it would be fine.

For two weeks we didn’t really use the car and then, the first time we needed the AC it didn’t work. The car dealership took the car back for another re-gas, this time free of charge. We didn’t have the car for a week while it was done and it returned with a working AC. The following day, the AC Once again stopped working. Once again we returned the car to be fixed and it stayed there for over a week, this time the dealership kept the car for weeks as they wanted to use the car for some time to insure the problems was fixed, the car was returned and unfortunately the problem persisted.

In total we had property of the car for almost two months but direct access to the car for less than 4 weeks. At this stage Citizen Advice was helping us and made us aware of our consumers rights. Over the phone credit card company said they could help but there are long delays due to Covid. At this point we agreed with the dealership that we would start mitigation and offer to return the car. Instead, the dealership gave us permission to use the car until the matter had been sorted.

After endless emails, WhatsApp messages and communications with The dealership and their “legal rep” they offer to accept the car back but wanted to charge over 45p per mile based on the HMRC travel rate expenses, please bear in mind it our car, our expense not theirs. The car milleage means that they wantEd to deduct almost £500 from what we paid for the car. Obviously we did not accept it. The credit card company is taking a bit long and we need to act quickly. Shall we take it to small claims ourself or wait? Any thoughts? Thanks guys.

Try and break up the paragraphs as i makes the post difficult to read.  45p per mile is ridiculous.  Most PCP/Leace coompanies charge between 6 and 8p a mile.