Rejecting car on PCP after just under 12 months

alex1407

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping to get some advice regarding my ongoing issues with a Mercedes vehicle I purchased new for £58,000 via their Agility finance/PCP. Within 6 weeks of driving it away, I noticed that the heads-up display (HUD) became inoperative. Since then, the car has been in the garage three times for this issue, but the repair has failed each time.

About 8 weeks after purchase, I also started experiencing intermittent Bluetooth connectivity issues, and the car has been in for repairs twice for this, but the problem still hasn't been resolved.

On top of this, the front left headlight frequently fogs up. Mercedes-Benz refused to fix this, stating that it’s due to the "laws of physics" and normal for the model despite the other one being completely fine and (obviously) in the exact same atmospheric conditions.

To complicate things, these faults are intermittent, making it nearly impossible to gather consistent evidence. However, on a few occasions, I’ve managed to capture footage of the HUD fault with a passenger’s help. Fortunately, the local garage has detailed records and job cards showing the car has been in for these issues multiple times, so the problem has been acknowledged by them.

Given how early these faults began and the repeated failures to resolve them, I’m strongly considering exercising my final right to reject the vehicle under the Consumer Rights Act, as I don’t feel it meets the "satisfactory quality" standard one would expect for a car of this price.

Has anyone else dealt with similar situations, especially regarding intermittent faults? If anyone can reference relevant case law or provide advice on how likely a rejection would be to succeed, that would be really helpful. I want to ensure I'm approaching Mercedes correctly with my claim for a refund (less a reasonable deduction for wear and tear), though I’d also be happy if they took the car back and offered to return my deposit so I could put it towards another vehicle instead.

Thanks in advance for any insights!

tacpot12

If you have home insurance, check to see if you have Legal Expenses cover. If you do, call the Legal Helpline provided by your insurer, and ask them to help you reject the car. 

You might have additional rights of rejection in your PCP contract, but I doubt it.  If you don't have Legal Expenses cover as part of your home insurnace, check your Motor Insurance to see if you have this cover and whether they will help. It might be outside the scope of what they deal with as this cover is usually provided to deal with accidents, but you might get lucky. 

If you don't have legal expenses cover from any source, you might need to hire a solicitor with expertise in civil litigation. 

tacpot12

The onus is on the person rejecting the vehicle to demonstrate that there is a fault, so you might need to persist in documenting the problems. I'm not sure that fact that the dealer has accepted the car for fault investigation and has records that they have tried to investigate the faults means that they accept that the faults exist.  

Keeping a diary might help confirm that there is a problem with the left headlight. You could purchase a thermometer like this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/Thermometer-Hygrometer-Temperature-Recording-Greenhouse/dp/B07ZCLRJ8D which has a hygrometer function to tell you the Relative Humidity. Your diary would record the date and time you noted that the headlight was misted. You will need good photos of both headlights taken at the date/time of each entry in the diary.

Documenting the problems with the Bluetooth interface might similarly be recorded in a diary. I would record the duration of the problem as well as the date and time. Clearly you will be limited as to the accuracy of the time recording as you will be driving, but if you stop at the first safe place to do so, you should build up a body of evidence that cannot be refuted. Technical analysis of the Bluetooth connection is also theoretically possible, but finding a specialist firm with the skills to do this will be hard work. With the right equipment, it should be possible to monitor and record the connection and parameters such as the Signal-to-Noise ratio to show that the connection keeps dropping out. A recording from another vehicle might be useful to demonstrate that the stability of the connection in your vehicle is abnormally unreliable.

A dashcam might be repurposed to capture the HUD failing repeatedly.

born_again

Not sure if PCP would fall under S75A (given this is over £35K)