Lied to over warranty being in place when purchasing a car, who to hold accountable?

CharlieEssex

born_again said:

CharlieEssex said:

In August 2022 I purchased a vehicle, with a deposit paid to dealer, and the rest via PCP with the lender Moneybarn.

This was on the premise of there being a six month warranty being in place.

In November 2022 I discovered the heater matrix was faulty, therefore I couldn’t use the car in any sort of cold spell. I presumed the warranty would cover such repairs, however at this point I discovered the dealer had lied and hadn’t even set me one up. Therefore I had to cover the cost of diagnostics, repairs, inconvinience etc myself.

Both Moneybarn and the dealer are refusing to admint the wrong doing is there and will not cover the cost of the work, leaving me out of pocket.

Where do I stand with this? From my perspective this is all stems from the dealer not setting me up a warranty as promised. However they’re saying the contract isn’t between me and them, but Moneybarn & I.

Who would you concentrate on perusing, and what route would you take?

Did you get any paperwork for warranty?
Was their a charge on your invoice for said warranty?

I've got proof of the dealership saying there'd be warranty in place via a phonecall with the lender if that helps?

CharlieEssex

Mainly I just need to know if a small claim against the dealership will suffice, or if they're correct in washing their hands of everything, should I be aiming for the lender instead?

Arunmor

From what you say it is Moneybarn who offered the warranty not the dealer.  So the dealer is probably out of the equation. And that's before you delve into whether the heater matrix was covered.  I think you'll struggle on this after all this time and if you decide to pursue it you will feel your knocking your head against a brick wall.  You will know the next time.

By the way most warranties are not worth the paper they are written on apart from perhaps manufacturers extended warranties.

lincroft1710

Ectophile said:

lincroft1710 said:

CharlieEssex said:

facade said:

CharlieEssex said:

daveyjp said:

You don't need a warranty.  Within the first 6 months any fault is deemed to have existed at time of sale unless the seller can show it didn't.

I’ve owned the car for more than 30 days  

You're entitled to ask for a repair or replacement.

If the repair or replacement is unsuccessful, or if the dealer fails to offer you either within a reasonable period of time, you're entitled to a refund.  This is called the right to final rejection. 

The car dealer can deduct ‘fair use’ from the refund after the first 30 days.

I've owned the car for less than six months

If you take the vehicle back within six months of purchase, the dealer should accept there was a problem when the vehicle was sold.

If the dealer doesn't accept there was a problem when the vehicle was sold, they'll have to prove this.

Interesting! Where do I stand now though, with regards to recouping such costs?

I don't think you can, you should have given the dealer the chance to fix it, and rejected the car if they couldn't/wouldn't.

You can try small claimsing them, but I suspect the dealer's defence will be that you incurred the expense because you didn't give them the chance to fix it, ( and the cost is unreasonably high, as they would have got the minimum wage kid to fix it for a hundredth of what the garage charged you.)

I did go to them and explained the issue, asked for the warranty details etc. They ignored me in the main.

Surely if I've been sold a vehicle, with the promise of a warranty, my consumer rights should come into it?

The time to have queried your consumer rights was back in 2022. It's too late now.

Except in Scotland, the Limitation Act allows 6 years to make a claim in court.  In scotland, it's 5.  2022 isn't that long ago.

It is out of time because it was a 6 month warranty, and the time to have made a claim about the apparent lack of a promised warranty was before the expiry of 6 months. 

lincroft1710

CharlieEssex said:

Mainly I just need to know if a small claim against the dealership will suffice, or if they're correct in washing their hands of everything, should I be aiming for the lender instead?

All you could claim for would be the difference in price between a car with a 6 month warranty and a car without a 6 month warranty providing you can evidence the dealer's price difference and providing you can evidence paying more to have the warranty. Plus you have to identify whether the dealer or lender offered the warranty.

Wonka_2

CharlieEssex said:

Mainly I just need to know if a small claim against the dealership will suffice, or if they're correct in washing their hands of everything, should I be aiming for the lender instead?

Where did the discussion about the car start - did you find the car at the dealer and then approach Moneybarn (or dealer suggested Moneybarn) or did you start at Moneybarn (or a broker) who then suggested you visited that dealer or that specific car.

As you're finding the dealers who use Moneybarn (and Moneybarn themselves) tend not to be 'customer service' focussed but are often there to get those with poor credit into a car.

You can start a complaint but suspect you'll be pushed from pillar to post and may get to the point where they'll end you complaint by showing that even if a warranty were in place the specific issue wouldn't have been covered.

The time to check was before you signed the order to check that you had the warranty documentation and that it covered the things you assumed.

IANAL but IMO a small claim will get you nowhere

user1977

Arunmor said:

By the way most warranties are not worth the paper they are written on apart from perhaps manufacturers extended warranties.

Indeed, the question I was about to ask was whether the warranty which didn't exist would have covered the fault in question anyway....