Private used car sale

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The car is fit for the purpose of safely transporting persons & luggage from A to B, bent pulley, heavy clutch and whining noises won't affect that. It hasn't even broken down!

There has been no suggestion that the car was unroadworthy at the point of sale which would affect you as selling, even in all innocence, an unroadworthy vehicle is an offence.

If she pays her £100 or so to small claims you, you will receive a pack from the court setting out her claim. You must respond explaining why you don't owe her any money. If you don't respond she can request a judgement and may win.

If you do respond, chances are it will goto court, and you have to attend to explain (again) why you don't owe her the money. If you don't she can win and you pay her back plus the court fee plus the claims fee.

Stokiest75

They said to wait and see if she instigates court action then to contact them. 
My partner says to give her a refund and put it behind me but be very thorough next time I sell car privately. Have sold a few over the years but never had 1 wanting money back before. If I have it back it puts extra number of owners on v5, plus spending money to put it right I will lose out on hundreds of pounds. 
Am sceptical of this pulley issue as they cannot be seen normally and its bugging me as to the statement of
"while checking air con, noticed pump pulley was damaged". Garage I use say they don't rate Halfords as they have a fair few customers who have been to Halfords and ended up going to them as Halfords have misdiagnosed things. 

Grumpy_chap

Stokiest75 said:

Am sceptical of this pulley issue as they cannot be seen normally and its bugging me as to the statement of
"while checking air con, noticed pump pulley was damaged". 

You are quite correct to be sceptical.

You sold an older, high mileage car for a relatively modest sum.  Private sale of your private car.

A week later, the buyer returned saying they'd had an inspection and there were faults. 
The time for any inspection was prior to purchase.
There may or may not be faults - from what has been said those faults don't prevent the car from working "fit for purpose" but may mean it is less smooth / more noisy than it would otherwise be.

IF (and I recommend you don't) you were to give a refund, how would you know you got your own car back and fully intact with all the original parts?
It is possible that the buyer bought your car, swapped out good parts from your car for bad parts on their own, now wants to return you the car with the bad parts and get a refund.

Stick to your guns.
Refer the letter received today to the legal helpline you have.

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I'd forgotten the air con.

Likely Halfords have told her it will cost many hundreds to get it working (which is true- I have a note and the air-con will cost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds to get working again, and it is a real pain having the windows mist up all the time from the water leaks that all notes have), and as air-con is vital to her, and she knew it wasn't working she wants you to refund her so she can buy a car where it does work.

I think that inspecting the cambelt on the note involves removing the engine mounting to lift the top cover.

No way do you do that to check the aircon pump, which is underneath the car, either Halfords have decided to inspect the cambelt despite it being changed last year and worked hard to see that pulley, or it is made up.

If you do take the car back, there is no guarantee that she hasn't broken something or swapped parts (even the engine) to repair another car.

Think of it as a challenge to fight and win, but now you know why old jaded cynics either scrap their cars or sell them to WBAC, selling privately when you are honest and let them know your real name, address and phone number is too much hassle to get an extra £1000 or so.

HillStreetBlues

Stokiest75 said:

I have received a letter this morning from the buyer unless I refund or repair the car she is going to start court action on the grounds that the car is not fit for purpose under CRA of 2015.
She should have a refund as clutch feels heavy now as well plus garage says diesel pump pulley is damaged not running true, also making a whining noise as well, but its totally enclosed so how would you see that normally, saying dangerous to drive.
So she wants dealer/trader rights on private sale.
She drove the car and didn't question the clutch and how would I know about this pulley issue when it is under covers. This is getting to me now feel like giving in, I sold the car quite inoccently and in good faith now I'm getting all this aggro.
Rac legal helpline told me as long as I didn't misrepresent the car it is up to buyer to satisfy themselves, she should have got it inspected before hand not after. 

Seems like they are well suited to each other, she deserves the car.


Don't be threatened, stay strong.

Stokiest75

Yes am puzzled as to why when belt was changed in 21 why you would take covers off as proof was there as being done. She says the cars dangerous to drive as pump could fail, it's done 17000 miles since belt changed, garage I use say they have never had a fuel pump bearing fail on a renault engine. 

LunaLater

Stokiest75 said:

The only thing that bothers me is that it could come to small claims court and I don't want the hassle of that as I been reading about a view on this forum over the last couple of hours and not necessarily in seller favour either. 

It’s a reasonable concern, but really very unlikely, and if it does happen you’re not going to have to actually go to court, you’ll just send in your defence, which is going to be a copy of your advert and what you posted in your original post.

WellKnownSid

There was a thread recently where Kwikfit employed a 'tyre whisperer' who was able to see 'inside' the tyre just by touch and could deduce that a tyre needed to be replaced even though it looked perfectly safe "from the outside".

I suspect suspect your buyer has found a similarly trained individual... able to sense worn engine components simply by their laying on of hands

From experience, sixth-senses like these are generally heightened by phrases such as "I've just bought this car, can you give it a really good look over and tell me if it needs any work doing?"

STICK TO YOUR GUNS and if you have access to legal cover, they will be able to help you out and ensure that you respond correctly every step of the way.

Stokiest75

I wonder why cam belt and pulleys etc were scrutinise when it nhad been replaced with invoice to prove so seems unusual to me, says dangerous as pump could fail but funny how car drives OK and has done 17000 since belt replaced. 

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Assuming the fault actually exists

(I suppose that the engine they have swapped in could have crash damage that bent the pulley or the pump shaft which is why they would know, or it could be that your car had a replacement engine or injection pump from a crashed vehicle with the bent part- the 1.5DCi is either the best most reliable engine ever made or a bag of unreliable rubbish prone to fuel system failure or a rod coming out the side depending on whether the person you ask has had one fail or not, Renault has made gazillions of them, a few million failures is only a small %) I still agree that it is very odd to dismantle the engine to check, I'd understand it if you could just release a clip and lift a cover, but garages don't get the spanners out for nothing.

It isn't dangerous in the sense that the car will set on fire, the steering wheel will come off, the brakes will fail or all the passengers will be thrown out.

It just means that the engine would lose power completely if the belt came off, and likely seize due to valve contact.

They always say it is "dangerous" because you could have your child in the car* and be doing 90 on a crowded motorway, panic, wave your hands in the air, turn the car over** and cause a horrific multi-car pile-up.

Or you could simply put your foot on the clutch and coast to a safe stop, like the thousands of people who break down every day.

*makes any minor crisis into a full scale emergency needing compensation

** modern cars always turn over. I have no idea why, just keep an eye out when driving, there are cars on their side all over the place, I always wonder how they manage it in the middle of a town or on an arrow straight road....