Missold car - Advice desperately needed!

Purpleee

Hi all, any advice would be much appreciated
A friend purchased a 10 month old car in October 2018 for around £55k. Bought from a frachised main dealer, and advertised as 1 prior owner, with around 9,000 miles on the clock. Had a few minor issues over the last 18 months, but all sorted under warranty. Recently in June, they had a terrifying incident where the whole car shut down while on a dual carriageway leaving them with absolutely no control over the car. Fortunately they coasted to a stop and there was no traffic around due to lockdown. The car has been with their local main dealer (different to where they bought it) and they still have no clear or adequate explanation as to why this happened. Their dealer said the battery terminals were dirty from road use - but the battery on the car is in the boot under the carpet. 
While doing some internet research to see if any other owners had a similar experience, they discovered that the car had been a long term press car before they bought it and from the blog it appears it had been put through it paces (even an oblique reference to taking it on an F1 track). The dealer they bought the car from is claiming they had verbally disclosed this to them at the time of purchase - which they did not. They have the original advert and there is no mention of any of this. They've sought the advice of a solicitor and have spoken to the manufacturer's head office, but don't seem to be getting anywhere.. 
Any suggestions or advice regarding any other avenues to persue??

macman

If the car was advertised as 'one previous owner', then I fail to see how they misrepresented it. It's up to the buyer to do their research before purchase as to how that previous owner's usage might affect it's value. Especially with a high value performance car, which this presumably is.
What resolution is actually being sought here? The status of the previous owner has no bearing on the fault that occurred, which was a full 20 months after purchase, and appears to have been corrected under warranty. Is your friend now seeking a partial refund nearly 2 years after purchase on the grounds that the vehicle was misrepresented? 
Best course of action here is to follow their solicitor's advice. What was it?

AdrianC

So the advert wasn't incorrect - there was one previous owner. The dealer say the buyer was informed prior to purchase, nearly two years ago. The buyer says they were not. Neither can prove either way. If this is, as I strongly suspect, some kind of enthusiast car, then it's entirely possible that an ex-press car would be more desirable to many buyers, so it would be in the dealer's favour to notify them.

The previous V5C at the time of buying would have had the previous keeper's name and address on it - they were only removed from new V5Cs around May 2018, so the one in their name would not have had. Did they see the previous V5C prior to purchase?

You say they've spoken to a solicitor, and aren't getting what they want, and you say they "want other avenues to pursue"... but the key thing you don't mention... What DO they actually want to achieve?

Do they want the sale unwound, and a full refund of the purchase price? It's simply not going to happen. But I'm sure the dealer could be persuaded to offer a favourable price to buy the car back.

Does this previous history affect the value at the time of purchase? Almost certainly not. Again, it may actually be a positive selling point.

Do they want a bit more effort in finding the fault? I'm sure the dealer is doing all they can, and it's (presumably) under the manufacturer's warranty...
Is the car working now? If it's a single, transient, non-recurring fault with no apparent cause or logged fault code, I don't know quite what else the dealer's meant to be doing to diagnose it...
If there's a likely cause of loose or corroded battery terminals, then... <shrug> Clean and tighten them. But you'd expect that would raise its head far earlier than 20 months after purchase...

DoaM

Is this another case of Mis-bought rather than Mis-sold?

waamo

A solicitor has got nowhere. I doubt a bunch of unqualified strangers on the internet will get further tbh.

ToxicWomble

I bet one will be along soon with plenty of anecdotal advice though

Grumpy_chap

Probably about their 911, Range Rover, S-Class or Golf R.

Jumblebumble

Purpleee said:

Hi all, any advice would be much appreciated
A friend purchased a 10 month old car in October 2018 for around £55k. Bought from a frachised main dealer, and advertised as 1 prior owner, with around 9,000 miles on the clock. Had a few minor issues over the last 18 months, but all sorted under warranty. Recently in June, they had a terrifying incident where the whole car shut down while on a dual carriageway leaving them with absolutely no control over the car. Fortunately they coasted to a stop and there was no traffic around due to lockdown. The car has been with their local main dealer (different to where they bought it) and they still have no clear or adequate explanation as to why this happened. Their dealer said the battery terminals were dirty from road use - but the battery on the car is in the boot under the carpet. 
While doing some internet research to see if any other owners had a similar experience, they discovered that the car had been a long term press car before they bought it and from the blog it appears it had been put through it paces (even an oblique reference to taking it on an F1 track). The dealer they bought the car from is claiming they had verbally disclosed this to them at the time of purchase - which they did not. They have the original advert and there is no mention of any of this. They've sought the advice of a solicitor and have spoken to the manufacturer's head office, but don't seem to be getting anywhere.. 
Any suggestions or advice regarding any other avenues to persue??

I think you are being told fairy stories as I have serious doubts that dirty battery terminals on a 2 1/2  year old  car would cause it to stop dead and I struggle to think about any road use that would cause dirty battery terminals ( especially on a 60K + car).
 I wonder what the ECU logs claimed and I would also check very carefully if it has been in an accident and not repaired properly
I have to say in your shoes I would be devastated as I would never have confidence that the power loss would not be repeated
All the wibble about press cars and F1 tracks is irrelevant and you will get no where debating this.

noitsnotme

ToxicWomble said:

I bet one will be along soon with plenty of anecdotal advice though

Well they are a qualified advanced driver after all (https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77531079/#Comment_77531079) and I wouldn't be surprised if they claim they were an F1 champ at some point as well.

Sandtree

Purpleee said:

A friend purchased a 10 month old car 
advertised as 1 prior owner, with around 9,000 miles on the clock.
<snip>
they discovered that the car had been a long term press car before they bought it and from the blog it appears it had been put through it paces (even an oblique reference to taking it on an F1 track). 

Are you alleging that the car was more than 10 months old or that it had more than 9,000 miles on the clock? Thats all the advert says and doesnt mention what profession the previous owner had nor how the car was driven for those 9,000 miles.

Assuming its some form of performance vehicle those 1,000 miles a month are not going to be some old dear just tootling down to bingo once a week. I know when buying my only brand new performance car I certainly wanted to see what it could do, its why I bought a 455 bhp car, and their instruction to keep the revs down for the first 1,000 miles or something (cannot remember exactly what they said now) certainly wasn't followed fully.

Certainly sounds much more like buyers regret than miss-selling

sweetsand

Dear OP
Sorry to hear about your friends woes.
Cars of that calibre and at times lesser cars are prone to odd faults where they do cut out and it can take an awful lot of investigating to get to the bottom of it.  They've had the car for a good 18 months and what is there to prove yor friend has not raced it etc, do you see where I am coming from

Re the one owner, it is and when we bought one owner cars many, many years ago we always checked if that one owner was a rental co, business co and even with one private owner the car could have been badly driven by the one owner and or those others allowed to drive
IMHO, your mate has no case whatsover.
However, the choice is yours but you will be wasting time.  
Why not sell it but cars of that calibre do lose a lot of their value in the first year and then settle at around year 5.  I'm safely assuming the car is now worth 30% less but if it's an appreciating classic your mate could be in the money so please check.