Bought vehicle from used cars trader and it failed MOT 2 days later

TheElite

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

neilmcl

TheElite said:

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

Well tbh it's not your choice, it's your dad's, he's the one who purchased and any statutory rights are with him. If he really wants to reject it then he needs to write a letter before action explaining that he's exercising his short term right to reject under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as the vehicle purchased is not of satisfactory quality and is unroadworthy for which the garage is actually committing an offence, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to sell.

Out of interest, what vehicle is it and have you been making sure to keep the hand brake switch pressed until it fully engages.

macman

Why did you buy it with less than 2 months left on the MOT? You must have been concerned about it's condition to arrange your own MOT just 2 days after purchase. Why didn't you ask the seller to MOT it before sale?

AdrianC

The handbrake doesn't need to lock the wheels on the test, and the required efficiency is very low - 16%, compared to 50-58% for the footbrake. "Not good enough for MOT" really is "won't hold car on anything but the flat".

So how far short of that minimum efficiency was it?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-inspection-manual-for-private-passenger-and-light-commercial-vehicles/1-brakes#section-1-4-1

nottsphil

macman said:

Why did you buy it with less than 2 months left on the MOT? You must have been concerned about it's condition to arrange your own MOT just 2 days after purchase. Why didn't you ask the seller to MOT it before sale?

This a salutary lesson for those considering buying a vehicle that needs an MoT. Why wait until after you've handed over the money? Agree a price, then ask them to take it for local MoT at your expense - after all, you'd be paying out this fee anyway. If it fails, all you've lost is the fee (and only then if the dealer won't rectify). If they refuse your offer, then alarm bells should be ringing. 

TheElite

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

Well tbh it's not your choice, it's your dad's, he's the one who purchased and any statutory rights are with him. If he really wants to reject it then he needs to write a letter before action explaining that he's exercising his short term right to reject under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as the vehicle purchased is not of satisfactory quality and is unroadworthy for which the garage is actually committing an offence, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to sell.

Out of interest, what vehicle is it and have you been making sure to keep the hand brake switch pressed until it fully engages.

It's a wheelchair van. The electric button is an on/off type one, so it's either on or off.

TheElite

macman said:

Why did you buy it with less than 2 months left on the MOT? You must have been concerned about it's condition to arrange your own MOT just 2 days after purchase. Why didn't you ask the seller to MOT it before sale?

We wanted to do an MOT for peace of mind. Wasn't concerned at all, and never thought it'll fail.

neilmcl

TheElite said:

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

Well tbh it's not your choice, it's your dad's, he's the one who purchased and any statutory rights are with him. If he really wants to reject it then he needs to write a letter before action explaining that he's exercising his short term right to reject under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as the vehicle purchased is not of satisfactory quality and is unroadworthy for which the garage is actually committing an offence, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to sell.

Out of interest, what vehicle is it and have you been making sure to keep the hand brake switch pressed until it fully engages.

It's a wheelchair van. The electric button is an on/off type one, so it's either on or off.

What make/model of WAV is it?

Speaking from experience the electric hand brake switch on most WAVs is progressive and requires to be held down fully for a few secs whilst the handbrake fully engages, the longer you hold it the more it engages just like a standard brake lever.

chrisw

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

Well tbh it's not your choice, it's your dad's, he's the one who purchased and any statutory rights are with him. If he really wants to reject it then he needs to write a letter before action explaining that he's exercising his short term right to reject under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as the vehicle purchased is not of satisfactory quality and is unroadworthy for which the garage is actually committing an offence, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to sell.

Out of interest, what vehicle is it and have you been making sure to keep the hand brake switch pressed until it fully engages.

It's a wheelchair van. The electric button is an on/off type one, so it's either on or off.

What make/model of WAV is it?

Speaking from experience the electric hand brake switch on most WAVs is progressive and requires to be held down fully for a few secs whilst the handbrake fully engages, the longer you hold it the more it engages just like a standard brake lever.

Are you sure? Why would it do that? Surely a handbrake is either on or off. I can't think of any situation where you might want to partially apply a handbrake.

neilmcl

chrisw said:

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

Well tbh it's not your choice, it's your dad's, he's the one who purchased and any statutory rights are with him. If he really wants to reject it then he needs to write a letter before action explaining that he's exercising his short term right to reject under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as the vehicle purchased is not of satisfactory quality and is unroadworthy for which the garage is actually committing an offence, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to sell.

Out of interest, what vehicle is it and have you been making sure to keep the hand brake switch pressed until it fully engages.

It's a wheelchair van. The electric button is an on/off type one, so it's either on or off.

What make/model of WAV is it?

Speaking from experience the electric hand brake switch on most WAVs is progressive and requires to be held down fully for a few secs whilst the handbrake fully engages, the longer you hold it the more it engages just like a standard brake lever.

Are you sure? Why would it do that? Surely a handbrake is either on or off. I can't think of any situation where you might want to partially apply a handbrake.

It's not a case of "partially applying a handbrake". You wouldn't use the same force to manually  engage the handbrake to hold your car on the flat as you would on a hill for example, if you did that it wouldn't last very long.

scrappy_returns

neilmcl said:

chrisw said:

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

neilmcl said:

TheElite said:

Hi all

My father bought a wheelchair accessible vehicle from a trader/used car garage in London 2 weeks ago for around £10,000 (paid on credit card). It's a few years old but it's in good external condition with low mileage. It's a mobility vehicle so has a lot of electronic components. One of the components is the electric hand brake and 2 days after we bought it, we put it through an MOT and it failed (Last MOT was in Jan 20' and it had passed). The rear wheels didn't lock on the rollers.

The garage we took it to adjusted the handbrake, replaced the rear pads, but it still didn't engage enough for it to be considered safe.

We took it back to the trader 90 miles away who took it their specialist garage. They advised us that the problem was rectified a few days later and we went back to collect it. Took it to our local garage for a demo MOT but it still showed as a fail as the rear wheels still didn't lock. Our local garage video-called their specialist garage and adjusted it as far as they could, increased the locking readings, but it still didn't lock.

We sent the trader an email saying that we would like to reject the vehicle as it was sold in unsatisfactory quality, and would like a full refund. The emails were ignored and so I called yesterday and they said that "they don't want to take the van back" and so we can take the vehicle to any main dealers and they will cover the cost to get the problem fixed. The main dealers that can take in this vehicles are 25 miles away, and they don't have any appointments until later in November or early December. I don't want to spend more time and effort (and money!) getting a problem fixed which we shouldn't have been having.

My father wants to give them another chance but if I'm honest, I'm just tired now. I've been taking time off work to help him with this, and getting a friend to come with me when I was taking the vehicle to the garage.

What can we do to make the garage understand that this is ridiculous and we want our money back?

Thanks

Well tbh it's not your choice, it's your dad's, he's the one who purchased and any statutory rights are with him. If he really wants to reject it then he needs to write a letter before action explaining that he's exercising his short term right to reject under the terms of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 as the vehicle purchased is not of satisfactory quality and is unroadworthy for which the garage is actually committing an offence, under the Road Traffic Act 1988 to sell.

Out of interest, what vehicle is it and have you been making sure to keep the hand brake switch pressed until it fully engages.

It's a wheelchair van. The electric button is an on/off type one, so it's either on or off.

What make/model of WAV is it?

Speaking from experience the electric hand brake switch on most WAVs is progressive and requires to be held down fully for a few secs whilst the handbrake fully engages, the longer you hold it the more it engages just like a standard brake lever.

Are you sure? Why would it do that? Surely a handbrake is either on or off. I can't think of any situation where you might want to partially apply a handbrake.

It's not a case of "partially applying a handbrake". You wouldn't use the same force to manually  engage the handbrake to hold your car on the flat as you would on a hill for example, if you did that it wouldn't last very long.

Really? I've always pulled my handbrake up to the top of it's ratchet on all my vehicles and can't remember ever having an issue with the handbrake.