Used car dealer sold our car

badcardealers

We bought a car some 3 years ago, the oil sump plug fell off whilst driving in the fast lane on the M1 with our boys in the back seat. Having had to replace the previous car with the same garage we had this one towed straight to them. The swore at us saying its not their effing fault. We rejected the car but they refused to do anything, they did taken the engine apart to see if it can be fixed, they also applied to be the registered keeper within 5 days for some reason.

Within days we were in a stalemate and no car so we had to rent one, they then said as we weren't being reasonable they were going to charge us storage as we had rejected the car... they rejected our rejection because the car was over a few miles over 3000 miles and we'd had it for 6 weeks. We stuck to our guns but they kept insisting it was someone else failt, the AA who recovered the car, claim off our car insurance, claim off the AA, claim of our repairs warranty etc.... the list went on, never accepting their part. I should point out that we had kept calling the garage after we bought it saying we think the gearbox is going like the previous car and it was jumpy. They said take it for long run, put some premium oil in etc

We are now at 3 years, no car, no money, we've had to lease a car because we had no money to buy another one, this is a real struggle now to keep this going. We owe them over 25k in storage for a 12k car which we don't have. We have spent 12k on the car, 2k on legal, 1.5k on forensic tests on the car, 4k on car hire and now 18k on leasing a car.

We have just found out that they have sold the car, its being used as a taxi. The forensic report said the car had so many things wrong with it it wasn't roadworthy when we bought and the oil sump plug wasn't the issue. 

How do we get our money without taking them to the county court?

What are our right.... they have done no repair work, just claiming we owe them for storage (we did say we would store the car on our driveway 2.8 years ago so cost didn't keep increasing whilst we sort this out... they rejected this offer)

They had the car because we rejected it and we are still the registered owners how can have sold our car to someone to drive a taxi
Does anyone know a solicitor who does pro bono to take our case on... we have no money to sort this out.

Help.   

Scrapit

Take them to court. Why have you waited so long? Why do you not want to do that?

badcardealers

we don't have the money and wife is seriously ill. 

waamo

You aren't going to see a penny without going to court. You've spent 3 years getting nowhere. Leave it much longer and you will be out of time to make a claim.

I can't see any lawyer taking this on pro bono.

Grumpy_chap

At what point in the past three years did you first realise this was all going wrong?
What steps did you take to minimise your losses (you just seem to have kept building up charges, irrespective of the "storage")?When did the garage re-sell the car?  You can't pay for storage past that.
You have spent £2k on legal costs - what does that Solicitor say?  I can't see anyone else wanting to take this on pro-bono.
What exactly do you want to claim for?

AdrianC

The sump plug "just fell out", 3k and 6wks after purchase? I'm not surprised they were reluctant to take the hit for that... It clearly isn't as if it'd been left loose after an oil change, because it wouldn't have stayed in that long. And quite how a sump plug "just falls out" without it being the sump plug to blame, but because of other (unspecified) issues, I have no idea.

So you rejected the car, and left it with them. They refused the rejection, and told you to collect it. You didn't.
Nor did you do anything more about the rejection, like launching a court claim for the money. So where did £2k for legal costs come from?
You said "it can sit on our drive..." but did you do anything about moving it?
They told you they were charging you storage.
Three years later, you're surprised they've sold it on?

Launch the court claim for the value of the rejected car. But if you lose, this is going to be expensive.

And, no, the cost of car hire and then leasing a replacement car is NOT anywhere near valid...

Scrapit

Not thought this through OP?

George_Michael

AdrianC said:

The sump plug "just fell out", 3k and 6wks after purchase? I'm not surprised they were reluctant to take the hit for that... It clearly isn't as if it'd been left loose after an oil change, because it wouldn't have stayed in that long

Exactly.
Sump plugs can normally be fully run up by hand with very little resistance and only seal when tightened up with a spanner or other tool.
If the plug on your car had been left loose, at the very least you would have lost all of the engine oil well before being able to drive 3000 miles but more likely, it would have fallen out somewhere not too long after originally leaving the garage.

Scrapit

Whos reporting the op as spam?

waamo

Scrapit said:

Whos reporting the op as spam?

That's a strange one. It doesn't sound like a made up story, it's to naive for that, and contains no advertising. This isn't spam.

photome

waamo said:

Scrapit said:

Whos reporting the op as spam?

That's a strange one. It doesn't sound like a made up story, it's to naive for that, and contains no advertising. This isn't spam.

Showing as 5 spam reports on OP profile.  It doesn’t look like spam to me either,