Car from dealer not maintained. Any

MerlinV90

Thank you everyone for your comments. As I said, the car was £4,000 and runs well. She’s happy with the car overall. It was purchased from a dealer with a small selection of cars for sale (16) not Facebook. 

With regard to the service, those of you suggesting it’s been done or would be running badly is not the case. I have a best friend that owns the same car & year in estate version and hasn’t had a service for 9 years and it runs fine. The argument it’s probably been serviced but not stamped isn’t really the issue here. The only way you can say it has been serviced is with receipts or stamps in the service record. 

What I’m getting at is that morally, he’s taken advantage of someone who was desperate, who trusted the dealer and essentially he’s taken her for a ride. If not legally wrong it’s certainly morally unacceptable. It’s all well & good saying she should have checked, but we can’t all be experts in everything can we? Had I known her then, asking for an MoT, & a service is something I’d have done or negotiated before the sale. Like has been stated though, it’s a learning experience too. 

Aside this, I apologise. I forgot to add in that the advert stated the car came with a “full service history” which is clearly not correct. 5 fake stamps, the latest in 2013 (I’ve checked with the Ford garage who is on the stamps) and no service for 12 years is not a full service history in any way shape or form. We have had a full service for £200. He also stated in the advert the car is been “reliable & well maintained.” Not replacing the cam belt (cost £400 to us) at the correct interval, and it being 5 years overdue at time of sale, plus it needing £230 worth of brakes sorting just one month after purchase is not well maintained in my book. 

So yes, it’s a learning experience for her for sure, but like I say, we are not all knowledgeable about everything are we. My main issue then is the advert, and misrepresentation, eg Full Service History, and “reliable & well maintained.” From having a read around, this may come under the Consumer Act for incorrect advertising. I would appreciate any comments you all have further. Thanks in advance. 

Mildly_Miffed

MerlinV90 said:

Aside this, I apologise. I forgot to add in that the advert stated the car came with a “full service history” which is clearly not correct.

What does that phrase even mean?

It could be a history of all the service work the car has ever had done.

Why do you assume that the vendor of this car is going to have chased up on every stamp? He's bought the car at auction, and turned it round.

But we're still back to caveat emptor. "The ad says full history - can I have a look at that paperwork?"

If you're only going by the service book, then remember that it's entirely possible that there were other invoices that have been binned because they had personally identifying information from previous owners, which is illegal under GDPR. Yes, they could be anonymised with a black marker, but this is a frequent occurrence.

Tucosalamanca

Playing devil's advocate, if the book says five services completed and the vehicle has only travelled 38,000miles, I think you could argue a case that it does have full history.

I'm also not convinced that the dealer has fraudulently stamped the book. Stamping the book to 2013 would seem to be a very odd tactic.

The vehicle also passed an MOT with only £230 of work required, again that doesn't suggest that the car is anything other than well maintained.

sheslookinhot

What are you hoping to achieve, in addition to having a discussion ?

Herzlos

MerlinV90 said:

What I’m getting at is that morally, he’s taken advantage of someone who was desperate, who trusted the dealer and essentially he’s taken her for a ride. If not legally wrong it’s certainly morally unacceptable. It’s all well & good saying she should have checked, but we can’t all be experts in everything can we? Had I known her then, asking for an MoT, & a service is something I’d have done or negotiated before the sale. Like has been stated though, it’s a learning experience too.

Oh absolutely, he's a dodgy car dealer that gives the industry a bad name and should be put out of business. I don't think anyone will disagree.

The point though is that given what happened and how long ago it was, the changes of you being able to actually do anything about it are slim.

You could report him to trading standards for selling a car with a faked service history, but how do they prove he faked it and not you or whoever traded it in?

You could take him to small claims court for the costs associated with the lack of history, but he'll argue that he was honest about the state of the car and your partner had the chance to check. If you somehow win, he'll close the business and start a new one on the same premises with a different name and you'll spend a fortune not recovering any money.

All you can realistically do is not buy any cars from him again and make sure none of your friends or family do.
You could also complain to your MP about the terrible state of car dealership regulation and the ability for companies to phoenix to get out of paying off debts.

If the car is safe (having passed the MOT) and have the service items sorted, then your partner just needs to accept it as lesson learned and move on with life.  It's not worth wasting any more energy on.

born_again

MerlinV90 said:

Thank you everyone for your comments. As I said, the car was £4,000 and runs well. She’s happy with the car overall. It was purchased from a dealer with a small selection of cars for sale (16) not Facebook. 

With regard to the service, those of you suggesting it’s been done or would be running badly is not the case. I have a best friend that owns the same car & year in estate version and hasn’t had a service for 9 years and it runs fine. The argument it’s probably been serviced but not stamped isn’t really the issue here. The only way you can say it has been serviced is with receipts or stamps in the service record. 

What I’m getting at is that morally, he’s taken advantage of someone who was desperate, who trusted the dealer and essentially he’s taken her for a ride. If not legally wrong it’s certainly morally unacceptable. It’s all well & good saying she should have checked, but we can’t all be experts in everything can we? Had I known her then, asking for an MoT, & a service is something I’d have done or negotiated before the sale. Like has been stated though, it’s a learning experience too. 

Aside this, I apologise. I forgot to add in that the advert stated the car came with a “full service history” which is clearly not correct. 5 fake stamps, the latest in 2013 (I’ve checked with the Ford garage who is on the stamps) and no service for 12 years is not a full service history in any way shape or form. We have had a full service for £200. He also stated in the advert the car is been “reliable & well maintained.” Not replacing the cam belt (cost £400 to us) at the correct interval, and it being 5 years overdue at time of sale, plus it needing £230 worth of brakes sorting just one month after purchase is not well maintained in my book. 

So yes, it’s a learning experience for her for sure, but like I say, we are not all knowledgeable about everything are we. My main issue then is the advert, and misrepresentation, eg Full Service History, and “reliable & well maintained.” From having a read around, this may come under the Consumer Act for incorrect advertising. I would appreciate any comments you all have further. Thanks in advance. 

So it has not oil or other fluid changes. Not had any work done at MOT time such as brakes or bushes?

WellKnownSid

My son regularly sees cars with fake / missing service history.  Some owners also "correct" the mileage, usually because they are on PCP for 6,000 miles a year but are actually doing 24,000.  The interior of most modern cars is such that most people wouldn't be able to tell an 18,000 mile 3 year old car from one with 72,000 miles on it - and as long as it's clocked before the first MoT no-one will find out.

Obviously a main dealer selling a £50,000 second hand car is going to have the time and equipment to check and prepare the car with a fine toothed comb - and there will be enough profit in it to be able to write off the cars that do get picked up.

Your backstreet dealer flogging a £5,000 motor just isn't going to be able to do that - and at that end of the market it's pot luck.

Bigwheels1111

Every car I've had in the past had over 100k on the clock, I never asked for history.

I drove it, Did it start and stop, Yes, have an mot, yes, sold.

My car is a 66 plate with 26k on the clock and will have FMDSH history until its 10 years old.

Then I will change the oil etc, A service history will not make any difference.

Nor will there be any record, I will keep the parts bills.

MOT was a Boo Boo.

Live and learn, she won't make that mistake again.

MerlinV90

Thank you everyone for your comments. 

Regarding the service history, a FSH definition is a car that has been serviced at regular intervals in line with the manufacturers recommendations, eg every 20,000 or 12 months, whichever the sooner. When each service is completed, the book is stamped with date & mileage by the garage. Although not essential, I’d like to see paperwork to corroborate this, so any receipts or invoices pertaining to work done on the car. This might be indeed the service itself, tyres changed, brakes replaced etc etc. However I do note comments about GDPR, and why these may be missing these days. If however you are a prudent vehicle owner like myself, I keep all receipts and MoT tests for my car. Having said that, I buy nearly new cars from main dealers and have servicing done there so there is a paper trail of work done should anyone wish to follow this up in the future. When buying a car 2,3,4 years old and paying £20-30,000, this is what I want to see. 

Regarding the fake stamps, I never suggested that this dealer faked them at all. I never pointed the finger, just simply highlighted the fact there was no evidence to support the stamps in the book. All stamps were Ford Preston, who after selling the car had never seen it again. The service schedule (as advised by Ford) was followed to 2013, and then nothing, that is if you were to go on stamps alone. This is why other documentation is important in my view. As an older car, if the owner did it himself, he could have documented this very simply. Some of the arguments presented here by forum members are worst case scenarios, or unlikely events at best. Yes it may well have been serviced in the last 12 years, but if there is absolutely no paperwork to support this, then it’s not been done in my opinion. FSH then? Indeed not. 

I don’t think anyone could argue this car has a FSH. We all know what it means, and it didn’t have it. The ad was misleading. The only way you can confirm any maintenance is via service stamps, paperwork, or talking to the garage that performed the work. Saying it is well maintained is nothing to do with how well it runs on the day. Correct maintenance of the car should be as per main dealer recommendations such as when timing belts are to be replaced. This advice is there for a reason, and anyone who ignores major repairs of this nature is walking a thin line in my opinion. 

I understand some of you feel that it’s just a lesson to be learned by my partner, which indeed is partly true. However I despise shady second hand car “dealers” that take advantage of people with no/little knowledge about cars, and I shall peruse this matter at least in the short term. My aim will be to recover at least some of her losses from the timing belt and service (£600). For £50 it’s worth a letter to him via the small claims court, if only to make him sweat a little and maybe make him think about his poor moral standing in the future. I have had numerous successes via this route, and think it’s worth the gamble. If I lose the £50, then no big deal for me. What I’m really hoping is that I appeal to his better nature if he has one, and simply offers to cover some or all of the costs incurred. 

Thank you everyone for your comments. 

paul_c123

......Except its not your fight.