Valid rejection under Consumer Rights Act?

Mildly_Miffed

marcia_ said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

What age of vehicle are we talking about?

Suspension bushes are wear and tear consumables.
Is the tail light just a bulb?

Buyer's regret is not a factor in deciding whether a return is valid.

 Rubbish, Consumer Rights Act says he can return the car regardless if its not fit for purpose 

...tempered by reasonable expectations for age, previous use, apparent condition.

Goudy

Mildly_Miffed said:

marcia_ said:

Mildly_Miffed said:

What age of vehicle are we talking about?

Suspension bushes are wear and tear consumables.
Is the tail light just a bulb?

Buyer's regret is not a factor in deciding whether a return is valid.

 Rubbish, Consumer Rights Act says he can return the car regardless if its not fit for purpose 

...tempered by reasonable expectations for age, previous use, apparent condition.

Yes, this.

The law states the car should be of satisfactory quality and be of a standard that a reasonable person would expect considering it's age and mileage, for a second hand car. 

You'd need to take into account wear and tear and thing like consumables when weighing up the above.
Yes it shouldn't be faulty or broken but in reality there's a little more to it than black and white particularly as the car gets older.

These consumables and wear and tear items, like tyres, brakes, wipers should all "work" or be in an acceptable roadworthy condition at the time of sale, but the condition doesn't have to be as new or last long.
The sellers "standard" would probably be it passed an MOT, if it came to court.

The cars "faults" appear mainly to be consumables, except perhaps the rear heated screen but you'll come back to that.
The rear lights are either blown bulbs, which are consumables (but should have been working when purchased, though that can be debated) or an actual fault with the units or wiring. If the later is the case, then yes you have some ground there.

The bushes would be pure consumables unless they were defective from new or incorrectly fitted.
Where an argument in court might fail is the seller stating it passed a recent MOT or the other garage saying they needed doing soon or for the for it's next MOT. For a car this age, there's nothing unusual about that.

As for the rear heated screen, this would be under the "reasonable person would expect". In court that person wouldn't be you or your son but the judge.

A reasonable person might expect a 14 year old car which I presume didn't costs tens of thousands, to have a few minor faults, faults like a heated screen working or not doesn't effect it's roadworthiness, so it's kind of a thin argument.

I'm not defending the seller, I know it's not what you want to hear but it's just how things work. 

There's no real expected life of a car in law, but a reasonable person like the judge will take industry standards or averages into account.
These averages tend to be around 8 years or so then there are certain driving habits to take into account (these will be unknown, so won't ever be in your favour unless it was advertised as one former nun owner that only used on Sundays).

I would suggest seeking help with repair.
The tail lights need checking but if it's only bulbs, that's just a few quid.
The rear bushes need replacement as some point, the bushes themselves aren't expensive and with the proper tools aren't hard to replace, you might even consider fitting polybushes which will outlast the car.

The  rear screen might be fixable.
There are conductive pastes that can be used to bridge the broken elements if you can find them or just buy a heated screen kit that sticks on the window, then wire it up to the original wiring.

In all honesty, you are probably looking at a couple of hundred to put a 14 year old car right of the faults you know about, that's not to say anything about the ones that are yet to come or be found, I'm positive there will be plenty.
You can't guarantee otherwise even with a brand new car. 

Myci85

Thank you everyone for comments. 

Obviously the car is an older one, and things can go wrong at any time on a car, especially as they get older. It just really irks me that so many car dealers get away with doing this, selling cars that need things doing, promising to do them to make the sale and then not doing so and ignoring all contact, and constantly dissolving and rebranding their companies to escape any backlash and stop car buyers finding all the negative reviews. I've now found out he never transferred the v5, so he has outright lied to both my son telling him he'd do it online, and to me a few days ago telling me he had done it. Luckily he gave my son the full old v5 so at least won't have to pay for a new one. 

The company is not even listed on Google so no option to leave a review that might help future buyers be on their guard. 

Goudy

It's a minefield, it always has been but it could have been a lot worse.

See if you "buy" the seller before anything else, like a car. Do you/can you trust them as far as you can tell.
For a car dealer, check for reviews and check .Gov company information for details of the business.

I helped a colleague buy their first car last year.
It literally took days sifting through, not actual cars, but sellers.
All the "private" sales that asked Which Car? after phoning them up.
Others working from car parks or off the street.
And the Dealers with a string of different names or little history on .Gov.

Ended up with a nice little car sold by a man that runs a local MOT station for a good price.
He admitted straight away he makes a few quid sorting out and selling repossessions, which is why his prices are keen.
He was totally upfront with everything and insisted we run a vehicle check ourselves, which he'd then knock off the price of the car, that was even before we went to view it.

Mildly_Miffed

Myci85 said:

Obviously the car is an older one, and things can go wrong at any time on a car, especially as they get older. It just really irks me that so many car dealers get away with doing this, selling cars that need things doing, promising to do them to make the sale and then not doing so and ignoring all contact, and constantly dissolving and rebranding their companies to escape any backlash and stop car buyers finding all the negative reviews. I've now found out he never transferred the v5, so he has outright lied to both my son telling him he'd do it online, and to me a few days ago telling me he had done it. Luckily he gave my son the full old v5 so at least won't have to pay for a new one. 

It's a 14yo car.
The average age of a car when it's scrapped in this country is 13yo.
The average car on UK roads is 8yo.

No trader would ever sell a car that old if consumers had the right to enforce every single issue to be fixed at the trader's expense. it would simply be massively loss-making for them. And, yes, the traders at that end of the market inevitably tend to be those of flexible ethics... They're the ones scraping to stay in business, flogging cheap cars with next-to-no margin. Spending hundreds of pounds fixing every car? Not going to happen.

The basic tenet of consumer rights is reasonable expectations. If you'd owned that car from new, would it be reasonable for these issues to crop up?

On a 14yo car, is it reasonable for suspension bushes to be worn, a bulb to fail, the rear window element to have failed?
Saying that it is not reasonable to expect that is, frankly, not realistic.

Herzlos

There's stuff you can expect to be a bit iffy on a 14 year old car, and there's stuff a dealer should have sorted before sale. This seems to be the latter. You'd expect a reasonably well looked after car to have working brake lights, for instance.

It sounds like your son has been sold a lemon by a dodgy dealer, so his options are limited. Legally, he could go to court and force a refund, but the dealer has form for rebranding to avoid that.
He could take the car back to the dealer, park it and make a scene in front of any existing customers about getting a refund for an unfit car and see what happens.

How long is left on the MOT?


The big lesson to be learned here is to assume the dealer is lying and never hand over money for the car until all the problems have been fixed to a satisfactory standard. I knew as soon as you mentioned the rear window being booked in after sale exactly the trouble you'd have. Once the dealer has your money he's got no incentive to do anything.

Another thing worth doing is getting an independent inspection done, either by a local mechanic or the AA/RAC. A good dealer will be quite happy for that to happen, a dodgy dealer won't.

paul_c123

My recommendation would be to check over the car as thoroughly as possible when you collect it (after paying a deposit to secure, but before paying the full balance). And for an older car, keep £200-300 back for possible repairs.

In the grand scheme of things, if its just a heated rear window and a couple of bulbs faulty, you've done okay. Yes in theory, you could reject the car but there's a likelihood you'd be searching and searching for ever for the perfect unicorn car if you took that path.

One avenue is to strongly remind the dealer you can reject it, but want the things fixed ASAP and with no inconvenience suffered.

angrycrow

From the sound of it you have a dodgy dealer who will close the business rather than pay up. There are a lot like that at this end of the market. 

Might be best to treat it as a learning experience and move on.

Rear screen heater might be an easy fix. If it's a few of the lines that don't heat up use a conductive paste to repair, sold in Halfords. If the whole element fails to heat it will almost certainly be a break in the wire where it goes through the flexible tube between the body and tailgate. These wire breaks are expected at this age and easy to solder back together restoring the heater. If most of the heater elements are damaged get a good replacement tailgate from a scrap yard in the right colour and swap it out. 

If the rear light cluster is completely dead it will likely be an earth fault on the multi plug. Really common on Peugeot and Renault cars. Try cleaning the contact in the plugs first. I have in the past added an extra ground wire link between the light cluster and earth point in the boot to solve this on Peugeot's.

The rear bushes may well be good for several more years and be the garage hunting for work. Get a second opinion. 

Doing the minor fault finding and repairs could be a good learning exercise for your son and will save him hundreds on repairs.

Myci85

Update:

If anyone is interested in the outcome, we took the car back to the garage this morning letting them know that we were rejecting it for a full refund and not leaving until the money was received. 

We did not get a very welcome reception, he threatened to lock me in the car I was looking at (had to arrange to view a different car to make sure he was there), threatened to call his mate to sort the situation out, told me how many times he'd been taken to court so knew the consumer rights act inside and out and had won most of those times etc etc. 

His son was present and managed to diffuse the situation and eventually we left with the money refunded to my son. Hopefully a learning curve for my son, but without wiping out his savings. 

jimjames

That's a great outcome. Unexpected but very good news