Car from dealer not maintained. Any

MerlinV90

I need a little help. This is my first post. I’ve read through older posts but nothing fits the bill. 

 So, I have a new partner. She purchased a lovely Ford Mondeo Titanium X 59 plate with just 38,000 miles on in August 2024 from a very small dealer. She knows absolutely nothing about cars, is on low income and was desperate for a car. This Mondeo came up locally, and she loved the car. Unfortunately she failed to perform any checks at the time of sale or ask the right questions, and drove the car away. She then realised it needed an MoT just 4 weeks from the sale. It failed on brakes of which she was landed with a £230 bill. 

I started seeing her just before Xmas and the car came up for discussion. Transpires it’s not had a service for 12 years! Yes, 12 years. I checked the service log and it was last serviced “apparently” in 2013. I called the Ford garage who confirmed all the stamps were fake as they’d never serviced the car. They informed me the timing belt was 100,000 or 10 years whichever the sooner. There is no evidence of this been done either. 

I contacted the dealer who was less than helpful. So we got a full service and new timing belt to the tune of nearly £700. An average cost after shopping around. I called the dealer again who basically said tough, he’s not paying for anything. 

Now, whilst I fully appreciate she should have asked at least about the MoT and service schedule, she didn’t. Forgetting to ask about timing belt is a mistake anyone could have made. 

So my question is this. Yes she should have checked, but should the dealer be liable at least for part of the cost of the vehicle repairs? Whilst I appreciate this is an older car, it’s very low mileage and in good condition. It’s far from a banger. What obligations does he have, and would we have a case should we take this further? She understands there is a lesson learned here, but she is far from being a car expert. If only I had known her then, it would have been very different. I’d have asked for 12 months MoT and at least a service. Because of this she’s now had to pay nearly £1,000 in essential repairs / maintenance, and she’s only had the car 5 months. What are people’s thoughts? Thank you

Arunmor

This is a 15 year old car, I think she needs to put it down to experience.  She will be a lot wiser the second time round, you really need to be on the ball at this end of the market.

You are not mentioning how the car is running so I assume it is running well sounds as if it is a bargain.  Check the tyres this car could have been laid up for awhile.

MattMattMattUK

MerlinV90 said:

I need a little help. This is my first post. I’ve read through older posts but nothing fits the bill. 

 So, I have a new partner. She purchased a lovely Ford Mondeo Titanium X 59 plate with just 38,000 miles on in August 2024 from a very small dealer. She knows absolutely nothing about cars, is on low income and was desperate for a car. This Mondeo came up locally, and she loved the car. Unfortunately she failed to perform any checks at the time of sale or ask the right questions, and drove the car away. She then realised it needed an MoT just 4 weeks from the sale. It failed on brakes of which she was landed with a £230 bill. 

I started seeing her just before Xmas and the car came up for discussion. Transpires it’s not had a service for 12 years! Yes, 12 years. I checked the service log and it was last serviced “apparently” in 2013. I called the Ford garage who confirmed all the stamps were fake as they’d never serviced the car. They informed me the timing belt was 100,000 or 10 years whichever the sooner. There is no evidence of this been done either. 

I contacted the dealer who was less than helpful. So we got a full service and new timing belt to the tune of nearly £700. An average cost after shopping around. I called the dealer again who basically said tough, he’s not paying for anything. 

Now, whilst I fully appreciate she should have asked at least about the MoT and service schedule, she didn’t. Forgetting to ask about timing belt is a mistake anyone could have made. 

So my question is this. Yes she should have checked, but should the dealer be liable at least for part of the cost of the vehicle repairs? Whilst I appreciate this is an older car, it’s very low mileage and in good condition. It’s far from a banger. What obligations does he have, and would we have a case should we take this further? She understands there is a lesson learned here, but she is far from being a car expert. If only I had known her then, it would have been very different. I’d have asked for 12 months MoT and at least a service. Because of this she’s now had to pay nearly £1,000 in essential repairs / maintenance, and she’s only had the car 5 months. What are people’s thoughts? Thank you

No they should not unless they have misrepresented the car, as long as it was sold with four weeks MOT then that was fine, if it did not state that it was regular servicing then that was fine. They were not to know the log book stamps were faked and in reality whether the car had bee serviced twelve years ago or not is an irrelevance, twelve years without a service is where the issue, not whether one was done thirteen years ago. My main thought would be that it should be a learning exercise, rather than attempting to blame someone else. 

fatbelly

Unless the dealer deliberately misrepresented the car, I don't think there's anything you can do.

Obviously the suspicion is that he faked the service record but it could just as easily been the previous owner.

She now has a low mileage car with fresh MOT and cambelt. Could be worse.

Mildly_Miffed

No paperwork confirming a service is not the same as "ABSOLUTELY NO SERVICE EVER because the dealer says they haven't"

It's a 16yo car that came with less than a month's MOT, which she could have confirmed easily pre-purchase.
The paperwork she had the chance to view pre-purchase has nothing in the last 13 years?

What about the brakes caused the MOT fail?

I'm not seeing what grounds she has, tbh. Any dealer that would sell it without a service and without a new MOT is not one that's going to be giving any goodwill gestures lightly, especially after five months.

Caveat emptor.

born_again

How do you know it has not either been to a independent dealer or even self serviced for the period? 

Unless you have a copy of the advert & it says Full service history & MOT. Then there is no comeback against dealer.
But requiring a MOT 4 weeks later is a odd one as most dealers would MOT after sale so it would have a full 12 months. 
Clearly she is not to naive about cars, given realising it needed a MOT so soon after purchase.

I would expect if you pushed this & thought about legal action, they would just shut up shop, & open under a different name. Leaving you with no recourse to anything. Not that you have in reality anyway.

Herzlos

MerlinV90 said:

I started seeing her just before Xmas and the car came up for discussion. Transpires it’s not had a service for 12 years! Yes, 12 years. I checked the service log and it was last serviced “apparently” in 2013. I called the Ford garage who confirmed all the stamps were fake as they’d never serviced the car. They informed me the timing belt was 100,000 or 10 years whichever the sooner. There is no evidence of this been done either.

What was the oil like? I'd expect if it hadn't been services in 12 years it'd be like tar and the car would be running horribly.

I suspect it had been serviced but not by a main dealer and the book wasn't stamped. The garages local to me won't stamp the book unless it's been sat out.

Did the book have 'fake' stamps from Ford that turned out to not have happened? That's definitely a problem, but you've got no proof it was done by the dealer and not the previous keeper, so I don't think you can really pursue anything here.

Whilst it sucks, your girlfriend bought a car without doing any due diligence, so it's a lesson to be learned, and it seems the car itself is fine.

Arunmor

Herzlos said:

What was the oil like? I'd expect if it hadn't been services in 12 years it'd be like tar and the car would be running horribly.

I was going to say that but no mention of poor running, so as I said before if it's running sweetly and it was only serviceable items could be a great car for a few more years.

Any the work has been done. If the OP goes back to discuss with the dealer, what do they do when the garage says ok we'll take the car back and refund your money?

paul_c123

Plenty of large fleets service their own cars, with no record of doing so (except they reset the service interval on the dash). And plenty of older cars are serviced by their owners. If its really not been serviced for 12 years, it would have failed by now, so you can be reassured that's not the case. You don't know when and how frequently it was last serviced, but that's part of buying an older car.

I assume she got a decent price. 

Small dealer with premises, or Facebook Marketplace?

photome

I dont think you have any comeback as others have said

with that history and what sounds like a dodgy dealer I hope it was a good price

Not relevant but I bought an 08 Titanium X Mondeo just over a year ago with 32000 miles on it, I love it, one of the best cars I have ever had and I have been driving  multiple  new company cars for past 20 years

Nobbie1967

Getting a 15 year old car through the MOT for £230 spent on brakes is a result. Sounds like a decent car. As others have said, it’s almost certainly been serviced, but either the records weren’t kept or were lost by a previous owner. Some dealer has picked it up cheap because of the lack of service history and faked a service book full of stamps. I had this buying a Corrado many years ago. Luckily I checked with the dealer that was supposed to have serviced it. The dealer I bought it from was very quick to refund me when I pointed it out.