Compensation - re. Car sale

Fredthered24

We bought a car from Fords of Winsford, Trafford in August last year.
As we were on our way home we noticed the Cluster Unit, Parking Sensors and the indicator sound was not working.
The fault was reported the day after.
The car was booked in for a diagnostics for 4 weeks later.
After the diagnostics was done it was agreed that the Cluster was indeed broken and need a replacement.
We were advised that the part would take 11 weeks to arrive.
In the meantime we questioned why the car had been sold with such a fault.
The company looked into this and agreed that the fault was passed on by the engineer to the sales team but was not passed on to ourselves during the Sale of the vehicle and they agreed that this was there fault.  The car should have never left the forecourt.
Come January 2026 we took our car back for repair to be done.  We were advised that this would take 3-4 hours.  In fact it has taken 3 days and we still haven't got the car back.  We literally had to beg for an hire car after waiting over 5 hours on the first day.
We have been offered £100, tank of petrol and a valet in compensation for our trouble.
We do not accept this and want a more reasonable offer.  However, the General Manager is now off work due to ill health.  We have been told that he should be back in work on Monday.

Should we collect the car or wait until an agreed compensation has been met?

Mildly_Miffed

If you say "No, I don't want it back until the manager's back from being ill", don't you think that shoots your claims down of relying on it?

None of those faults you list make it in any way unroadworthy. They're a minor inconvenience that would have been apparent on your pre-purchase test drive.

paul_c123

The law says there is an obligation on the seller to fix items such as this (which they are doing) but it also mentions it must be done in a reasonable timeframe. Yes there's the 11 week parts delay but you had the car back then. 3 days isn't unreasonable, therefore you are entitled to nothing. Also you are not entitled to a hire car - if you got one they've already gone above & beyond. If they are offering £100, tank of petrol and a valet then I'd take that.

Mildly_Miffed

paul_c123 said:

The law says ... it must be done in a reasonable timeframe. Yes there's the 11 week parts delay

Which is outside of the control of the non-franchised used-car supermarket the OP bought from.

Even if they'd bought from a franchise dealer, if the parts delays are from the manufacturer and/or their importer...

MyRealNameToo

Fredthered24 said:

Should we collect the car or wait until an agreed compensation has been met?

What is the reason for the job taking longer than anticipated? 

If you were to claim £X per day you were without your car your claim would cease when your vehicle became ready to collect irrespective if you collect it or refuse to. Were I them I would also be ceasing the hire car as soon as your car is ready to collect with a reasonable amount of time to allow for the practicalities of collection. 

If you think you have a stronger bargaining position being without a car for a few days go ahead but you won't be compensated for a situation you created yourself by refusing to collect the car. 

Your main loss is having to have hung around for a few hours when the job overran. £100 cash and a tank of fuel doesnt sound that bad. 

sheramber

What do you consider a more reasonable offer? 

Aretnap

It sounds like their customer service could have been better, but in terms of compensation, what have you actually lost? I make it:

You spent a few weeks driving a car which had some minor faults but was functional;
You had a long wait while they were fixing it;
You had to expend some emotional energy arguing for a hire car when they couldn't fix it on the day;
You have the hassle of making a second trip to pick it up 

To be honest £100 and some petrol money doesn't sound wildly unreasonable. If you make enough of a fuss they might up it to £200 and some petrol. It's up to you whether that's with expending more time and energy to achieve: personally I would probably let it go.

As MyRealNameToo suggests, I'm not sure how refusing to collect it helps you with that process: if they wanted to play hardball they could just start charging you for storage and the hire car if you don't collect it within a reasonable timeframe.

born_again

Fredthered24 said:

We bought a car from Fords of Winsford, Trafford in August last year.
As we were on our way home we noticed the Cluster Unit, Parking Sensors and the indicator sound was not working.
The fault was reported the day after.
The car was booked in for a diagnostics for 4 weeks later.
After the diagnostics was done it was agreed that the Cluster was indeed broken and need a replacement.
We were advised that the part would take 11 weeks to arrive.
In the meantime we questioned why the car had been sold with such a fault.
The company looked into this and agreed that the fault was passed on by the engineer to the sales team but was not passed on to ourselves during the Sale of the vehicle and they agreed that this was there fault.  The car should have never left the forecourt.
Come January 2026 we took our car back for repair to be done.  We were advised that this would take 3-4 hours.  In fact it has taken 3 days and we still haven't got the car back.  We literally had to beg for an hire car after waiting over 5 hours on the first day.
We have been offered £100, tank of petrol and a valet in compensation for our trouble.
We do not accept this and want a more reasonable offer.  However, the General Manager is now off work due to ill health.  We have been told that he should be back in work on Monday.

Should we collect the car or wait until an agreed compensation has been met?

So you want compensation for being without car?

Yet are happy not to pick it up?

What does that say? To me you do not need the car. 🤷‍♀️

No idea is this is a new or 2nd hand car.

Mildly_Miffed

born_again said:

Fredthered24 said:

We bought a car from Fords of Winsford, Trafford in August last year.

No idea is this is a new or 2nd hand car.

FoW are a used-car-supermarket, not a Ford dealer.

MEM62

Fredthered24 said:

We have been offered £100, tank of petrol and a valet in compensation for our trouble.

A reasonable offer in the circumstances.  Take it, draw a line, move on and enjoy your car.