Dealer finds a fault after buying my car.

caprikid1

"The dealer has bought it from you, listed it on Autotrader, discovered there is this serious fault and seems more than confident they can reject it, get refunded and even bill you for transportation."

Seriously can you explain on what grounds an "Expert Car Buyer" in THIS situation can reject a car. The rules around rejection do not apply to dealers.

Please tell us or stop putting up bad advice on the internet.

The seller has done nothing wrong, this type of bullying tactic by dealers and private sellers is nothing short of harrasment.

Don't take the car back and if they contact you again report them for harassment, and YES I appreciate a car sale is not a police matter but harassment is.

Too many people on here actually suggesting the dealer has a point, he has non what so ever, he is just a drive trading chancer.

caprikid1

Incidentally the dealer threatening to return it is just him upping the stakes to get a discount, if you don't give me money back you will get the car back and be out of pocket.

If you want to put your car on my drive I will charge you storage, don't think for one moment I will give you a refund !.

Ebe_Scrooge

Goudy said:

Backtracking might be the only move.

The dealer has bought it from you, listed it on Autotrader, discovered there is this serious fault and seems more than confident they can reject it, get refunded and even bill you for transportation.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you - this has got SCAM written all over it.

When you buy a car privately, it's Caveat Emptor - one reason why you'll pay less to buy privately than you would to buy from a genuine dealer.  You're taking the risk that there may be faults with the car, with almost no comeback on the seller.

As was previously mentioned, unless the seller deliberately lied about the condition of the car, and could be proved to have done so, it's tough titties as far as the buyer is concerned.

The buyer has absolutely no right to return the car or request a refund, far less to try and recover their transport (or any other) costs.

Grey_Critic

Perhaps if the OP were to be upfront about it

*** I won't go into the details of the fault because that would possibly identify me to the dealer as searching/asking this,***

Then we could possibly have some sympathy but cynic that I am I believe there is more to this story than we are being told. He now claims to have agreed to tale it back - why?

Goudy

I have explained in my post,
If you don't want to reread it I will explain again.

The dealer bought the car from the OP.

We know the car was then listed on Autotrader..

This is when the dealer may have discovered the car was on an insurance database registered as a write off.
Autotrader automatically checks each car listed against MIB's database.
This may explain why the dealer didn't pay for it at the time, it was going to happen later, lazy I know.

(We could probably flesh this point out more.
The dealer listed it, saw there was a marker on it via Autotrader, contacted the seller telling them there was a serious fault. 
Then tried to clarify with Autotrader or another database to confirm before recontacting the seller for a refund)

If it wasn't made clear that it was perhaps a write off by the seller, for whatever reason, the dealer would feel more than confident to return the car for a refund as it was not as described, Caveat Emptor or not. A point already highlighed by others on the thread.

The OP have never revealed what this serious fault is, only that it doesn't effect how the cars drives, which sort of rules out 90%+ of "serious faults" cars can suffer and haven't even offered any explanation to why they have agreed to take it back.
There is obviously something more about this than we are led to believe.

Because of this I presume the fault is serious enough for the both the dealer and seller to agree this is the correct course of action and I can't think of another reason apart from the one above to why they have both come to this refund conculsion.

Yes, I agree there may be other reasons but after receiving so many posts of advise to tell the dealer to take a run and a jump (mine included) I find it logical some information has been missing for the OP's posts that perhaps lean towards a scenario explained above.

Also, there have been nothing suggesting the OP has been bullied over this.
Another assumption we can't prove.

The_Fat_Controller

Agreed, if the OP wants the correct advice they need to provide the details.

facade

If it were CAT-S, the V5 would be marked and the dealer's agent would not have bought it in the first place.(If there was no v5 at all the dealer should definitely never have bought it without a full check first e.g. carvertical.)

If it were CAT-N, and the write off happened whilst the op was the keeper, and the dealer asked if it had been written off and the op said no, then the dealer would have the right to undo the sale.

Have to say I was only thinking of mechanical/electrical faults.

Goudy

The dealer would has already received the sellers response regarding it's insurance status before they turned up at the door.

The OP stated they used "one of these websites" to sell to a dealer.

When using such sites you do have to confirm they have made various assumptions about the vehicle or select manually it either has or hasn't been written off.

It's usually something like  "It hasn't been declared as an insurance write-off or damaged in an accident"
(copied direct from We Buy Any Car website). 

This information will obviously be available to dealers making the offers, so they could claim it was misrepresented if the seller had confirm it hadn't when it in fact had been a write off.

They wouldn't even have to meet face to face and declaration is documented.

It's not like this doesn't happen.
I think I saw a referrence to a recent episode of the TV show Dispatches.
On the show was an owner who tried to sell his Mini that he didn't know was a write off until he tried to sell it.

As there are probably thousands getting repaired and going back on the road each month many of which might not even make it on the databases, it's more than likely lots of people will end up with one without realising it and they only find out when it's time to sell it on.

caprikid1

I appreciate all the assumptions being made about the car being a write off.

"The day after they contacted me telling me the car has a very expensive issue that needs to be fixed. "

Surely a marker cannot be fixed ? So this cannot be the issue ?

I think you are making incorrect assumptions.

I appreciate we are now wasting our time due to the lack of info from the OP who will most likely role over and pay up.

maxmycardagain

Perhaps Val would like to comment?