Have I lost £10k on a duff car?

mattyprice4004

It's (at least) 10 years old, with a very highly strung V10 engine. 
I'd take it as an omen - use the credit card to seek a remedy under Section 75 and try to reject the car. 

If he spent every penny buying it, how did he plan to run it? Price up a set of brakes, any of the drivetrain components etc and you'll see it was an insanely brave (?!) move to buy an absolutely ruinous-to-own super-saloon like the S8. 

I've just only just had the 'stones' to buy my first V10 - and that follows buying two houses and the sale of a rather profitable business. Trying to run something of this ilk as a junior chef is both admirable, and comprehensively insane at the same time. 

The best of luck to you; you need to try and reject the car and encourage him to opt for something a little less stratospheric in running costs. A good rule I was told with these kind of cars is 'if you can't afford to buy two, you can't afford to run one'  

tacpot12

Big_dog said:

.... Now for a junior chef, this was a remarkable achievement for him.
...

You son did well to save £10K while working in a relatively poorly pair job and I do feel very sorry for him to have been ripped off, but it was more or less inevitable when buying an S8 for £10K. Even some basic research would have turned up plenty of similar horror stories. I've seen reports of Audi RS6's needing 4 new shock absorbers (at over £2000 each) as the car approaches 14 years only. His research should have told him that anything worth buying he couldn't afford, and anything he could afford to buy was going to need £10K spending on it. (It's a £20K car not a £10K car). 

However, if he can save £10K once, he can do it again. You need to help him sue the garage under the Consumer Rights Act. Start here: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/buying-or-repairing-a-car/problems-with-a-used-car/

If the dealer doesn't go out of business first, I think you will get some of the money back. Even if you only get half back, he can buy a car. I do wish that it were possible to seize some assets from dealers when such problems occur. Dealers would be much quicker to resolve the issue if they have assets tied up, and it would stop the trick of dissolving the company and selling the stock to a new company that just happens to have the same directors and operates from the same site.
 

dogshome

That a car with a fresh MOT should be sold with brake pipes that are so corroded they have broken away from the calipers, is almost unbelievable - Check the MOT history online

The OP does not give any dates for this transaction, but if was within the last 30 days the son has the right to return the car, it's documents and keys to the dealer with a Letter of Rejection, and with only a further 4 miles on the clock the dealer should repay 100% of the purchase cost

If it's over 30 days and less than 6 months, the car should still be returned, but the dealer has one chance to rectify the problems before it can be rejected.

However if the state of the car has been truly reported, I suspect that this dealer is one of the "Change the legal company name and do the same" variety, and the money is well & truly lost

AdrianC

dogshome said:

The OP does not give any dates for this transaction...

Yes, they do.

Big_dog said:

It was delivered one evening at the start of August

sweetsand

Hi
A word of caution - that car needs very deep pockets to run - just the brake pads cost hundreds of pounds. If it breaks down for an eltrical fault, just finding that fault may cost hundreds  - it is a very, very expensive car to run and I for one would not have something like that unless i had very deep pockets.

macman

The complication here is that the car was taken to a 3rd party garage, rather than towed back to the vendor. If the dealer was less than 3 miles away, why?  Vendor now of course has every opportunity to say that the damage occurred outside of their ownership, and will wash their hands of it.
S75 is unlikely to succeed on this, as payment appears to have been made to a 3rd party, not direct to the vendor. 
Rather than go straight to an LBA and small claims, I'd write to the dealer rejecting the car under CRA 2015 within the first 30 days, tow it back and leave on the forecourt.  He'll almost certainly ignore this, so within 14 days then move to LBA and small claims process.
Report the MOT irregularity as advised above.
Bear in mind that if the vendor is a limited company, you must sue them, not the individual. And the odds are that he will simply liquidate the company if you win, so no guarantee of recovering anything.

EdGasketTheSecond

I'm not sure I even believe this thread is genuine.

Grumpy_chap

The OP's grievance against the garage that sold the car is understandable, but I wonder whether pursuing a claim against the garage to reject the car and / or chargeback and / or sue the garage and / or VOSA is all over-complicating the solution.

• OP's son is a chef (so no reason to be technically aware when it comes to cars than the average person)
• OP's son bought a car for £10k
• The car had brand new MOT the day before purchase.  MOT does not give any indication of reliability but OP's sons is reasonable to rely on MOT as basic safety of the vehicle.
• Car was delivered and the OP's son was going to go for a drive with OP's wife (but not OP despite the car being a luxury performance saloon they could have all got in easily).  OP's son was going to drive the car, so must be insured at least TPFT.
• OP did not drive anywhere as OP noticed the car was a death trap, faulty brakes, leaking brake fluid, leaking oil. The car spontaneously combusted.
• This last point seems to be the 'get-out-of-jail-free' card here as the fact the car burst into flames means the OP's son can claim on the insurance to recover the £10k paid for the car.  Let the insurance deal with any remedy against the supplying delaer.

MinuteNoodles

Big_dog said:

I preferred not to go but saw them off in the car park, wich was just as well as I noticed engine fluid on the floor. It turns out that the brakes were leaking because the break pipes were corroded and also completely broken off the brake calipers. If I hadn't of stopped them, they would have died that night.

The car was leaking oil and fuel and over heating. It was toed to a local garage and partly diagnosed. I say partly because they had to do emergency fire fighting procedure on the car as it nearly caught fire.

Cool story bro. Had that been the case then it would have pulled very noticeably to the left or right when braking or not stopped at all with the brake pedal going to the floor which you would definitely notice. If it was leaking oil and fuel that badly there'd have been a plume of smoke following it down the road and you'd have got a headache driving it.
So what else happened in this fantasy of yours before you woke up?

Penelopa.Pitstop

I had that car on Saved list on Autotrader, to see how much it takes to sell it. Whoever thinks of buying S8, should know, this model is not the best option and awfully expensive to run.
We probably need more details, where was it bought from, was there test drive, etc. I think rejection is best way to proceed. S75 won't work, because car wasn't bought by OP but his son.