Private Car Sale Transaction, Car Unroadworthy.

eskbanker

honestgaz said:

From what the majority of you are saying, it is all my own fault and I have no legal basis to challenge the seller.

I don't believe that anyone has said that's it your fault as such, but the issue is whether or not you can hold the seller liable - not being anyone's fault is undoubtedly a possibility.

GDB2222

caprikid1 said:

"Full working order means more than drivable for 15 minutes. "

Can you provide citation for this legal definition ? Or is this just merely your opinion ?

I think an "Expert" would consider that an alternator like a bulb can fail and instantly. So the fact that no warning lights were on at time of departure could be "Fully Working" whether that is 10 mins or 10 weeks.

Feel free to quote the case law you are basing this on with a comparable situation so the OP has a clearer idea of his chances of successful litigation.

Clearly, a car can be in good working order one minute and fail the next. But, that's a bit of a coincidence in this case, and the messages from the seller sound as though he knew about the issues. 

So, if there was a major fault the car could not be validly described as being in working order. For simple contracts like this, ordinary words have their ordinary meaning. 

In this case, it took 15 minutes for the fault to manifest itself, which raises the (faint) possibility that it occurred suddenly. The OP would need to identify the cause, and get a mechanic's report before commencing proceedings. The court would then decide on the balance of probabilities whether the fault existed at the time of sale. 

pinkshoes

honestgaz said:

I have taken onboard everything that has been said.
I am trying to delete this thread altogether but cannot, and not happy of some of the hostility towards others.
Thank you for all your contributions, I understand now that it is what a good idea to post on here. Will seek advise legally, but again thank you.
From what the majority of you are saying, it is all my own fault and I have no legal basis to challenge the seller.
Lesson learnt

The car still needs to be as described, but the issue is proving that the seller was aware of the problem. 

If you can get evidence from a garage in writing stating that the seller would have known about the problem, then that's a good starting point. 

Look through the paperwork and any receipts that might imply that it had a similar problem in the past. 

It also might be the case that the cost of fixing it isn't so bad, so probably best just to pay. 

We had almost the same with a motorbike - the motor blew a few days after we bought it. We were quite sure the owner must have known something was going wrong, but couldn't prove it, so we just had to buy a reconditioned engine and replace it. 

akm2018

honestgaz said:

...

When I messaged the seller advising the car had broken down after 20 mins, he replied with "Can you imagine (Laughing face emoji)"

...

In all the fun (...) of remotely diagnosing the failure, no one seems to be talking about this? I mean, "sus" doesn't even start to describe it...

born_again

akm2018 said:

honestgaz said:

...

When I messaged the seller advising the car had broken down after 20 mins, he replied with "Can you imagine (Laughing face emoji)"

...

In all the fun (...) of remotely diagnosing the failure, no one seems to be talking about this? I mean, "sus" doesn't even start to describe it...

While we can all think that the sellers reply means they maybe knew. As far as goes court it is not proof. Just paints the seller in a bad light.

GDB2222

The car was described as being in working order. Not 'the seller believes it is in working order'. So, no, the OP does not need to prove the seller was aware of the fault. 

The OP just needs to prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the car was faulty when sold. 

Ditzy_Mitzy

GDB2222 said:

The car was described as being in working order. Not 'the seller believes it is in working order'. So, no, the OP does not need to prove the seller was aware of the fault. 

The OP just needs to prove, on the balance of probabilities, that the car was faulty when sold. 

That said, proving the car was faulty when sold is nigh-on impossible without a diagnosis of the fault and likely difficult if the aforementioned fault is mechanical failure that could have occurred post-sale.  The alternator failing to charge the battery could be caused by something as simple as a blown fuse.  If said fuse wasn't blown when the car was taken away, then the car wasn't faulty when sold.

Furthermore, one can't reasonably expect a car to remain 'in working order' indefinitely.  How long, on the balance of probabilities, do you think it should have worked for?

I'm still of the opinion that this one will have to be chalked up to experience.  Something similar happened to me, years ago: bought a Ford Fiesta second hand, privately, and the water pump failed on the journey home.  I didn't try to hold the seller responsible; I didn't even consider him to be responsible, on the basis that the cooling system was functional when I test drove the car and mechanical failure can happen at any point.  It may even have been brought on by my driving the car on a fast A road.  

GDB2222

The seller was silly to respond to the op like that. It implies strongly that he knew there was a problem. It seems rather unlikely that the problem occurred for the first time in the 15 minutes after the op drove off. 

However, I agree that he needs to find out what the problem is. 

onomatopoeia99

caprikid1 said:

I would normally expect a faulty alternator to mean the battery light comes on at the point the car is started as I believe it measures charging not the battery condition.

I have a Twingo which shares a platform with the Smart.  The alternator failed last November and the battery light only came on about two minutes before there was insufficient charge in the (two week old) battery to run the car.

Now, it was 11pm and I was running the lights heater and rear demister, which I turned off immediately on seeing the battery light (I figured I could make it the four miles home on streetlights + DRLs.), but the warning lights for the ABS and ESP also came on a minute later, indicating the voltage was falling further, and it conked a minute after that. So it seems like the battery warning light on the Twingo version of that platform is triggered at something quite a bit lower than the 14V I would expect and lower than the 11.8-12V a non-charging battery with no load would sit at.

Alderbank

honestgaz said:

However, when testing with a Multimeter. The battery returns 13v, with the engine turned on it does not increase at all to 14V+. So none the wiser

Interesting.

A current discussion topic on a Smart Roadster specialist site is 'Earth points and non-charging alternator'.

A recent poster there describes some work he did on the earthing straps and concludes 'Alt output went from 12.8v to 14.4v (so from a run ok but poor charge - to a alt that runs and charges well)'.

Are you that poster, @honestgaz?

Or intriguingly, is that the guy you bought it from? If it is, you know he was aware of the issue, although he believed he had fixed it.

http://www.theroadster.net/trc/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=30514