Rejecting a used car within 30 days of purchase

TheMidnightSkulker

I should add - the 2007 Prius hybrid I'm going to look at tomorrow has 64K miles on the clock, which doesn't read like "nearly 100K" to me, but maybe it should... 

ETA: looking at the 2006 petrol car from the Toyota dealership, that has <50K miles on it but it also has failed its MOT repeatedly, most often on tyres with "ply or cords exposed". Also once each on "horn not working" and windshield wipers front and back not clearing the windscreens. I don't know how to interpret those.

TheMidnightSkulker

Hm, well, the dealer that was supposed to give me a video viewing this morning has not called. But I have been thinking about your suggestion to go to a Toyota dealer. I was despairing that everything was out of my price range.

But of course most people buy cars on finance, and although I don't know what I'm going to be doing in two months' time (I don't expect to be unemployed, but anything could happen). However, if I were unemployed, I wouldn't have spent my entire £5000 budget all at once, and would have enough left to keep up the monthly payments for some time. 

So that's what I'm looking into now, and thank you for helping me to think it through.

born_again

TheMidnightSkulker said:

ETA: looking at the 2006 petrol car from the Toyota dealership, that has <50K miles on it but it also has failed its MOT repeatedly, most often on tyres with "ply or cords exposed". Also once each on "horn not working" and windshield wipers front and back not clearing the windscreens. I don't know how to interpret those.

A owner has has Zero understanding of how to look after a car. If the visible bits are failing just what are the non visible bits like...

TheMidnightSkulker

Another update: even though I thought it was too late, the DVSA did acknowledge my report of the dodgy MOT test. 

Unfortunately I'm getting angry calls from the car dealer because after I closed the dispute, HSBC disputes refunded my (90%) credit card payment and the dealer accused me of trying to cheat them. I did actually manage to talk to someone who said they hadn't recovered any funds from the dealer and that all this was normal.

Because everyone I'd talked to up to then was so confused, I was afraid the (100%) refund the dealer had put in my current account would get messed up. They assured me that couldn't happen because this dispute was nothing to do with my current account. They told me to send an email, which I did, copying the retailer.

Today I get more calls from the retailer and the refund to my credit card hadn't been reversed, so I called HSBC to make sure they were going to close the dispute. The agent I spoke to told me that the refund to my current account would be re-debited and the refund to my credit card would stay. I freaked, because that would leave me £500 out of pocket, would mess up my cashflow and make me overdrawn, and it was the exact thing I'd been told would NOT happen 5 days ago.

They said the only people who could help me were the dispute team, so I got left on hold for a year. I'm told I'll get a call back within 6 days.

Meanwhile, I found a 2007 Prius with low mileage (I know I said I'd do finance, but I couldn't get my head around it) and I got it inspected for £187. (Pre-purchase inspections are great but once you've looked at 10 cars you might start to break out in a cold sweat.) The mechanic said it was in good condition so all I need to do is insist they fit a catalytic converter cover before delivery. I paid a deposit and committed to buy... Did I mention that this particular dealer only accepts payments by bank transfer? 

Now would be the worst possible time for HSBC to mess with my current account, so it is logical that that is what will happen.

[headdesk]

TheMidnightSkulker

In case anyone cares, an update: 

tl;dr I made an official complaint and HSBC finally reversed their own erroneous refund three weeks later.

They also sent me an email admitting, in plain language, that it was their mistake. This came in handy when the angry car dealer called me up the next day to again accuse me of fraud and threaten me with legal action. 

Seems like it's probably over.

Oh, and: I asked the HSBC guy what he was going to do about his agents' misstating my legal rights. He pretended not to know what I was talking about, then played dumb, and the apology email didn't mention that part. I would suggest to everyone to get corroboration of their actual legal rights when dealing with HSBC.

Grand_Benders

TheMidnightSkulker said:

Oh, and: I asked the HSBC guy what he was going to do about his agents' misstating my legal rights. He pretended not to know what I was talking about, then played dumb, and the apology email didn't mention that part. I would suggest to everyone to get corroboration of their actual legal rights when dealing with HSBC.

If you feel strongly about proving this point, you could always make a Subject Access Request including recorded phone calls.

photome

Interesting read, did you buy the 2007 Prius, just realised the OPs last comment was over a month ago

TheMidnightSkulker

Oh, hi. Glad this discussion has been of interest to some people.

I did buy the 2007 Prius. Have had some minor, but solvable, problems with the car; and a few continued grumbling issues with HSBC. Overall I am happy, but it took some time and effort to attain this state.

Details below for anyone still curious:

THE CAR ITSELF
=============

The main problem was that the boot wouldn't open. It was hard to open from the outset, but within the first few times driving it, it became impossible. 

Research shows that this is a mechanical problem caused by melting of the rubbery material of the latch and trim over time. 

However, I took it to the local Toyota dealership to get a proper diagnosis. They quoted £650: £325 for the latch, and £325 for the trim. Apparently that's what I get for buying a 14 year old car.

I explained that I simply did not have that kind of money, and they conceded I could probably find the parts online and figure it out from there. At least I have confirmation that it was purely mechanical.

(They charged ~£70 to tell me this, but they cleaned the car inside and out in the process, so hey.)

I found the latch for £51 including shipping from the USA, and will find the trim in due course. Theoretically I could do the repair myself, but I think I'll just ask my preferred garage to do it. I'm not at all good with my hands.

I'll have to do it before the next MOT, but that's not till August.

----

The alarm was highly sensitive and kept emitting what seemed like false alarms. 

Research showed that putting metal items in the sunglasses compartment could trigger the alarm. I had put plastic sunglasses in there, but plastic sunglasses have metal screws. I took them out but...

It was still going off so I took it for a good long drive in case the aux battery was discharging, which, following some tests I found online, seemed to be the case (the dealership said the battery was OK though).

That didn't seem to help, but after a third long drive I only ever heard the alarm go off once, and I saw one car passing very close to it and, at the same time, another trying to park close to it.

I think it's possible someone was trying to open the doors when I first parked it on this street. I've tried to get into the wrong car myself, since all cars look the same now, and my number plate is similar to someone else's. Or maybe a passing thief was trying their luck.

But nothing since, which means either it's resolved itself or the alarm is broken. Whichever is the case, I can live with it.

----

Besides those teething problems, I absolutely love this car. It might look like a wheelie bin to everyone else, but to me it is unbelievably luxurious. 

It may be badly repainted according to some assessments, but my previous car had magnetic strips melted onto it from when I used them to attach P-plates, and then couldn't get them off.

This apparently was every passing stranger's cue to treat my paintwork with active disrespect, to an extent I couldn't afford to keep up with, so I gave in and let it return to the soil whence it came.

I asked a few people to quote for repairs to the body, they said £1000 but they wouldn't do it because it wasn't worth it. 

By the time that car reached the end of its life, I had long given up trying to clean it to an adequate cosmetic standard, inside or out, because nothing was ever going to be enough.

As for the Prius' fuel efficiency, unfortunately for me I mostly do mixed town and motorway driving, which averages out no better than my previous petrol car.

When it worked, I mean. A few months before I scrapped the petrol car, its fuel efficiency dropped by at least 35%.

So the Prius' fuel efficiency on the kinds of journeys I do is about the same as the petrol car *should have been*.

I won't likely keep to the same journey pattern for the entire time I own this car, though.

And it's the absolute best I can do, given my circumstances.

=====

HSBC AND MISCELLANEOUS

As for HSBC: I kept getting daily emails telling me to sign off my complaint.

They seemed to be automated, and said the situation would be left at status quo if I hadn't signed by a certain date.

I chose to leave well alone.

After that date I still kept getting emails.

Then one day the text of the email changed, saying they were going to re-debit the refund if I didn't sign.

So I signed, wording my response carefully so they wouldn't take it as a cue to somehow re-debit the refund anyway.

I waited for something to go wrong, but it didn't.

I then - after I had stopped clenching and started believing this was all behind me, and while I was in the middle of that high-pressure work situation - got an email from Trading Standards.

They said they were going to do an investigation somehow, and asked if they  should raise my complaints with the dealer.

I told them the dealer had resolved everything from my point of view, so they said they would leave me out of it. 

------

Grand_Benders said:

TheMidnightSkulker said:

Oh, and: I asked the HSBC guy what he was going to do about his agents' misstating my legal rights. He pretended not to know what I was talking about, then played dumb, and the apology email didn't mention that part. I would suggest to everyone to get corroboration of their actual legal rights when dealing with HSBC.

If you feel strongly about proving this point, you could always make a Subject Access Request including recorded phone calls.

I had made a SAR, and during the phone call he specifically asked me whether, being satisfied, I wanted to call off the SAR. 

I said yes, because I just wanted it all to go away. But it obviously isn't impressive on HSBC's part.

Because of these shenanigans, I have closed my most frequently used HSBC bank accounts, and transferred them to First Direct.

Which of course is also HSBC, so I doubt that the bank as a whole is devastated by this loss. 

However, I'd banked with HSBC all my life, and as a retail bank I had always experienced them as being adequate at worst, great at best.

Now they're staffed with meebling confused people who seem to be getting what information they can find from unreliable sources.

If anyone I talked to knew anything for certain, it was that they couldn't help and the department that could help was unavailable.

====

ADMIRAL

In the middle of switching to First Direct (11 days before the scheduled switch) I cut my losses on my massively expensive Churchill policy. 

They had charged massively for admin fees around the two changes of vehicle, and with two months to go, the premiums + fees would have been as much as I'd otherwise paid for the whole year.

So I took out a massively expensive Admiral policy (which apparently is what I deserve for buying a 2007 Prius).

I asked if the timing of the bank account switch would cause a problem and Admiral said "no".

However, while I was at that massively pressured work event, and at the same time as I got the email from Trading Standards, I also got hectoring emails from Admiral, saying I hadn't made my DD payment and I'd better sort this out because I was a dirty agreement-breaker.

First Direct said they hadn't had paperwork from Admiral to switch the DD from HSBC to First Direct, but that it wasn't clear whether the mistake was Admiral's or HSBC's.

I called up Admiral and the recorded message said I'd be charged £25 for fixing this over the phone, but only £9.50 for fixing it online.

I tried going online and spent a number of hours trying to navigate the website, only to ultimately discover that you can't correct your DD payment details online.

I documented the process and sent it to Admiral as feedback about the usability of their website and the offensiveness of (apparently) making a mistake and (apparently) charging me to correct it.

They sent back an email saying "You can't do that online. Here's the relevant page" with a link to a page that I hadn't encountered in several hours of methodically navigating their website, and which I couldn't test without logging in. (One of the issues I'd found was unexpected logouts without notification.)

By then I'd spent enough time on their website's usability issues, and had already sorted the presenting problem over the phone, so I didn't bother testing the page they linked.

Earlier that day, at the earliest opportunity during business hours, I'd called Admiral to fix the DD, and they told me they DON'T charge an admin fee for this kind of change.

It was not at all apparent that I wouldn't be charged, because their website and phone menu were telling me I was going to get charged fees at every turn. 

tl;dr Admiral's website is not at all usable, they essentially force you to use their website in order to conduct any transactions with them, and they constantly warn you about fees which might or might not apply to the action you want to perform.

They received my feedback (which represented several hours of free consultancy) with exactly as much enthusiasm as you'd expect.

By then I'd gotten acculturated to spending hours online, documenting the same issues over and over again, so I mostly just wanted to get it off my chest.

But, you know: free expert consultancy, Admiral. You're welcome.

----

I should also add that I went to Admiral through this site, which had a shopping voucher incentive for signing up with them.

The online signup didn't work and I dialled the phone number shown on the "this didn't work" page to sign up instead.

The agent I spoke to said I would get the voucher, but of course I never did.

The voucher isn't the reason I signed up, but I came here looking for value for money and by the time I'd set up a policy equivalent to the one I'd had before, it was over 60% more expensive.

And I didn't have a good experience interacting with them either. 

So all in all I'm wishing I hadn't chosen Admiral. I hope I don't have to make any claims before I switch to someone else next year.

Ectophile

If you want a temporary fix for sticky door seals, try talcum powder.  Johnson's Baby Powder seems to work on my Fiat, and shouldn't contain anything that would cause damage to the rubber.

TheMidnightSkulker

Really? That's interesting, thanks Ectophile. 

How do I apply it if I can't get the hatch open, though?