Used car compensation for " repairs"

bris

If its a track car, which you must have known it was, assuming it was road legal was your mistake.

Not every detail of a car needs to be advertised, you need to and it's highly recommended you do your own due diligence when it comes to buying anything let alone a car.

When it comes to stage 3 modifications which you obviously know about then the assumptions are that it is not road legal due to the heavy mods for track use.

It could be argued that you are savvy enough to know what you are buying accepting the fact that you knew it was a stage 3 modified vehicle so it's not all on them.

MovingForwards

More info in the other thread:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6299579/used-car-not-legal/p1

whatsthenews

ItsComingRome said:

whatsthenews said:

ItsComingRome said:

whatsthenews said:

From what you say, it would be quite a leap to assume that a car with that level of tuning is going to be road legal.

 
As per the info provided in their adverts, a  Stage 3 tuned vehicle may or may not have a cat. If it's road legal, which the majority of the information suggested it was , it had to have a cat. Even competition rally cars that are allowed to pass an MOT despite the absence of factory fitted items eg rear seats etc, have to have a cat and pass the emissions test. 

What suggested it was road legal?  It having an MOT is not an indication of that, nor is it having reg plates, or it being driven on the road.

It was stated as having "stage 3 modifications" which, if you didn't understand what that meant, should have been researched before purchase. There is no need for them to put "THIS IS NOT ROAD LEGAL" all over the ad, it is up to you to research what they said in the ad (Stage 3 mods) or ask questions about it.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.
If they say they were selling it as a track car (which judging by  their response to our email in their book means missing both cats), then why didn't they clearly list the exact modifications the car had in the ad's, plus why did they provide 2 MOTs? 
 I'm trying to look at this from a consumer rights perspective,as opposed to a car enthusiasts. 
As I said ( and you said) ,there is no accepted meaning to the tuning stages. I just googled and another company are saying it's not until  Stage 4 that a vehicle becomes  a non road legal track car. 

They sold it as having stage 3 modifications, which basic research appears to be what constitutes a track car.  Them providing 2 MOT's doesn't mean much, an MOT only means it was road legal at the time the MOT was done.  It doesn't mean it's road legal now.  This is basic knowledge for any driver.

I'd accept that if you bought the car from a general car dealership like say, Arnold Clark, that there would be more of a general belief that the car is just an everyday road car (despite its flashy looks.) If you bought from a firm specialising in rice burners it's caveat emptor.

As I just said in my previous post, a site I looked at said it's not until Stage 4 that a car becomes a non road legal track car. None  of the modifications were made under the sellers ownership. They were all done before they got it ( or so they said, and evidence we've found seems to back that up)
That being the case , how did it pass 2 MOTs without a cat? 

mattyprice4004

Stage tuning is just a way to dumb things down for the general public - anyone that knows an ounce about cars will tell you that it’s not a ‘set’ system and it was mainly created so the McDonalds car park ‘enthusiasts’ can willy-wave to each other. 

Find out exactly what’s missing, but if it’s sold as a track car I can’t see you getting a brand new cat fitted at their cost. 

A reasonable solution would be them fitting a used item, as you have bought a used car. 

whatsthenews

bris said:

If its a track car, which you must have known it was, assuming it was road legal was your mistake.

Not every detail of a car needs to be advertised, you need to and it's highly recommended you do your own due diligence when it comes to buying anything let alone a car.

When it comes to stage 3 modifications which you obviously know about then the assumptions are that it is not road legal due to the heavy mods for track use.

It could be argued that you are savvy enough to know what you are buying accepting the fact that you knew it was a stage 3 modified vehicle so it's not all on them.

As I said ,they're CLAIMING  they sold it to us as a track car , however ,as I also said, it wasn't advertised as such. 
The only place it mentions that term is on the invoice. 
You say " not every detail of a car needs to be advertised" , but surely an advert shouldn't be misleading on such a major issue? 
As I've also said ,Stage 3 isn't synonymous with non road legal and that the adverts included text that lists what may or may not be done to a vehicle exhaust system at Stage 3. 
I've also asked the question  of how it passed the 2 MOTs they provided us with if it doesn't have a cat? 

TonyMMM

Cats can be replaced to get through the MOT and removed again afterwards, or the work could have been done after the last MOT.

It is clear that their angle is that they sold a track car (as per the invoice). You will dispute that, so it will come down to what was said/discussed at the time of purchase , and who a judge believes.

Manxman_in_exile

I find it very hard to believe that a car dealer can sell a non-road legal car to a member of the public without specifically drawing to the buyer's attention that the car cannot legally be driven on the road in it's current state.  I don't think it's enough for the dealer simply to say that the the car is "stage 3 tuned" or "stage 3 modified" and leave it to the buyer to work out what that means.  I'd expect the dealer to have to be making that clear - whether in the advert or during the sale.  (I'm assuming that if the previous MOT was done either by the dealer or when the car was in their possession, then they must have known that the Cat had been removed by the time they sold it to the OP's young relative - or that there was something wrong with the previous MOT).

Having said that, it's not clear to me why it's not street legal.  Is it simply because it's failed its MOT for emissions and for not having a cat, or is there something else involving the "tuning" or "modifications" that is causing the problems?  If it's just the missing cat then - from the other thread - sounds like it ought to be simple enough for the dealer to put it right, which I think they ought to be doing.

But I can't understand why - if the buyer did not know they were buying a track car - they didn't immediately query the invoice description with the seller at the time of sale.  That, together with the dealer specialising in "performance" cars (according to the other thread), does make me wonder if the buyer knew pretty much exactly what they were buying...

Also (again from the other thread) has the buyer notified the modifications to their insurance company?  I don't see how that could have been done without asking the seller how the car had been modified in the first place if it wasn't obvious from the advert.  And surely you'd ask that question before buying it?  So either the seller gave the buyer duff info, or the buyer must have known?  Only the buyer (not their older relative) knows this.

JJ_Egan

Buyer would be better off getting proper legal advice .

MarvinDay

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or if it has, I've missed it) is that it's illegal to sell an unroadworthy vehicle or a vehicle that has been modified as to make it illegal under the "construction, weight or equipment of vehicles by regulations" unless the seller reasonable believed that it wouldn't be used on the road.

If they have sold the vehicle concerned without confirming what it would be used for, they have committed the offence.

Manxman_in_exile

MarvinDay said:

One thing that hasn't been mentioned (or if it has, I've missed it) is that it's illegal to sell an unroadworthy vehicle or a vehicle that has been modified as to make it illegal under the "construction, weight or equipment of vehicles by regulations" unless the seller reasonable believed that it wouldn't be used on the road.

If they have sold the vehicle concerned without confirming what it would be used for, they have committed the offence.

That's what I think.  I can't believe a dealer can sell to a member of the public a car that the dealer knows is not road legal without explicitly pointing that out to the buyer before completing the sale.  Just putting "track car" on the invoice would not be enough in my view*.

But it's also not clear to me what's wrong with the car that makes it not road-legal.  Is it actually not roadworthy or has it simply failed its MOT?  (Does failing an MOT automatically make it unroadworthy, or does there have to be something more significant wrong with the car?).  Is a remedy simply replacing the cat or is a lot more (possibly expensive) work required?

*And I suppose being a "track car" does not automatically mean it would fail an MOT or be unroadworthy?  Maybe the OP (or rather their relative) does need proper legal advice - but I think they'll need to be a lot clearer about how the purchase came about and what is actually wrong with the car.