Do I have any legal recourse against a used car purchased Oct 2020

avro5859

In short, I purchased on HP, an Audi RS5 from a used car dealer, on 31 October 2020, which had 6 months MoT left on it. When put through an MoT in May, it failed due to high emissions which after further investigations, by my local Audi dealership, it was discovered that the engine has been remapped.

Further investigations by a motorsport specialist firm, indicate that the catalytic convertors may also have been modified and damaged or even removed altogether and as a result is now unroadworthy and I assume, wouldn't have been roadworthy at the time of purchase, even though it had 6 months left on the MoT!

At no time was I told by the salesman, that the car had been modified nor is there any paperwork to indicate any modifications so my question is, am I likely to have any legal recourse against the dealer who sold me the car?

Thanks for any advise offered!

Tony

AdrianC

Can you prove the modifications were present at the time of purchase?

No great surprise that something like an RS5 has been modified, really. Get some cats put back on it, job jobbed.

What pre-purchase due diligence did you do?

avro5859

AdrianC said:

Can you prove the modifications were present at the time of purchase?

No, I purchased the car based on the service history (which made no mention of any modification) and its condition plus, how would I be able to physically check, if a car has been chipped or if it in the same condition, as it left the factory?

AdrianC said:

No great surprise that something like an RS5 has been modified, really. Get some cats put back on it, job jobbed.

Really, my previous car (an Mercedes E63 AMG), wasn't modified, nor were any of my other cars (Jaguar XF-SV8, Subaru Impreza and Legacy amongst others) so why would I, when buying a car off a Used Car forecourt, selling family, executive and sports cars, expect a car to be modified and is it not down to the seller to confirm any modifications have been made? However I accept your comment about putting cats back on, please can I send the bill for £2000 to you 

AdrianC said:

What pre-purchase due diligence did you do?

Physical checks of the car, an online search for potential issues, a check of the service history and a check on the company selling the car.

Thanks for your input

Ibrahim5

The catalytic converters may be modified or they may be damaged. Maybe there aren't any. Sounds like a strange report.

AdrianC

avro5859 said:

AdrianC said:

Can you prove the modifications were present at the time of purchase?

No

And therein lies your showstopper.

and is it not down to the seller to confirm any modifications have been made?

Did they say it hadn't been?

What pre-purchase due diligence did you do?

Physical checks of the car

Do go on...

tacpot12

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 does give you a right to have the car repaired if it is faulty and the fault was present when you bought the car, and the emissions issue with the remapping and catalytic converters is a fault. Note that the dealer only has to repair the car so that it can pass an emissions test, so just reverting to the factory mapping may be sufficient.

The Consumer Rights Act is consumer legislation. I would say that it unreasonable to assume that the consumer would know how to tell if the car had been chipped or that the cats had been tampered with. If a "motorsport specialist firm" can't be sure, what chance does Joe Consumer have? The average used car dealer is also not an expert, so while it seems a little unfair that the dealer is required to repair the car, this is the nature of the Consumer protection we have in the UK and dealers price this into their asking prices. As the dealer did not put the  car through an MOT themselves, they have not been dishonest with you, so you should be polite when asking them to repair it. 

I would say you can reasonably expect the dealer to repair the car, to the extent described above, and you have a legal right to this. If you have home insurance, check whether you have legal expenses cover. If you do, talk to your insurer's legal helpline before you do anything further.

One final thought - if the dealer wants to assert that it is you that had the remapping and cat work done, it is up to them to prove this. I would take photos of any bolts around the exhausts to show how rusty they are now. If they are very rusty this suggests the work must have been done more than six months ago. Look to see if there is any sticker on the ECU to say you remapped it. If you find such a sticker, you might be able to get the company to confirm the date that the remapping took place.

The remapping and cat change may have invalidated your insurance, so the remapping needs to be reversed asap. I would give the dealer a couple of days to decide what they want to do, and ask them if they have a courtsey car you can use while they get it sorted.  

Ditzy_Mitzy

I think we need more detail.  Have the catalytic converters actually been removed or gutted?  

tacpot12

I've found that Audi dealers (and possibly an independent VAG specialist mechanic) may be able to tell you when the ECU was remapped by pulling a date from it, however the date is taken from the Infotainment system, so if this wasn't up to date, the date on the mapping might be incorrect. It could be worth seeing a date can be retrieved. It the date is before you bought the car, this could be useful evidence for you.  

Jenni_D

AdrianC said:

avro5859 said:

AdrianC said:

Can you prove the modifications were present at the time of purchase?

No

And therein lies your showstopper.

and is it not down to the seller to confirm any modifications have been made?

Did they say it hadn't been?

What pre-purchase due diligence did you do?

Physical checks of the car

Do go on...

Just to pick up on the bold bit ... As they are considered to be the experts in such a consumer transaction then they are expected to know if modifications have been made / the vehicle is non-standard. Even if they didn't know, they can't hide behind that to avoid their liabilities.

In this case, as it is more than 6 months since purchase then (if the seller requires it) the consumer must prove that the non-conformance was present at the time of sale. If the OP can then the seller is obliged to provide a remedy (repair, replace, refund - which can be reduced to account for the time of ownership by the OP).

Herzlos

Was the dealer a sports/prestige specialist?

It might be worth asking if they know anything about it, as they may be able to ask the previous owner.

You'll need to get someone to take off the cat and inspect it, and if you don't want the map, then it'd be worth contacting a local remapping company to see if they can put the stock map back on.

You may not need to do both to pass the MOT, but you'd need to declare the remap to your insurance company now that you are aware of it (unless of course you have it undone).

It might also be worth getting Audi to check that nothing else was modified - suspension, air intakes, etc.

k3lvc

avro5859 said:

In short, I purchased on HP, an Audi RS5 from a used car dealer, on 31 October 2020, which had 6 months MoT left on it. 

Does anyone nowadays not get 12m MOT on a car they purchase - especially from a dealer ?

Even if it doesn't come with one then, assuming I was dead set on that car, for sake of £55 I'd be getting one done on the way home