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Hello,
I think you will find the sales person you have spoke with regarding "by law" he need's to speak you through these products is infact correct as this falls under the FCA rule "treating customer fairly"(why should one customer be made aware of the products yet another isnt)
Originally posted by Ryan Towers
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This simply isn't true. It is however a popular misconception (read "lie" - whether intentional or otherwise) often told by car salespeople.
If it was true, then it would be compulsory for every motor dealer in the country to sell (let alone GAP Insurance) every type of automotive related insurance product there is! However not every motor dealer in the country sells GAP insurance. It isn't compulsory, for them to sell it, therefore it isn't compulsory for them to mention it.
The only "law" which exists for the promotion of GAP insurance (and indeed any other add-on products) by Motor Dealers is the company's own rules on what their staff need to try to sell at the point of sale.
Nothing more, nothing less.
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Leading on to your second point regarding you are not able to buy a car for two days, i think you will find that you have put your own twist on this, the customer is allowed to purchase a car on whatever day you would like but this can not include Gap Insurance, you are also not allowed to take delivery of your new/used car until the 2 cleared days have passed this is to give you sufficient time to make an informed decision regarding the regulated products on offer, If you wanted to opt out of the Stage one and Stage two of the FCA regulations then you can do this by providing the dealership with a letter which mean's you can then take delivery of your car at your own freeweill.
Originally posted by Ryan Towers
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To be clear, the dealer can't hold on to your car until you've decided whether you want their GAP insurance policy or not... you can take delivery of your car whenever you want after you've committed to purchasing it (so long as the dealer can have it ready in time etc) - the 4-day rule applies
only to GAP insurance, nothing else.
E.g. if you want to collect your car with GAP insurance bought from the motor dealer in force, the dealership will have had to have first mentioned the GAP insurance policy to you at least 2-clear days prior to you taking delivery of the vehicle.
If however they only mentioned it to you on the day of you collecting the vehicle, the soonest you could buy their GAP insurance policy would be the day after (by way of you opting out of the 4-day rule), whilst the soonest they could raise the topic of GAP insurance with you again, would be 3-days after.
E.g. if they mention GAP insurance to you on a Monday, so long as
they don't initiate the conversation about GAP insurance again, you could opt out of the 4-day rule and purchase their policy on the Tuesday or the Wednesday but, the first time they could initiate a conversation about GAP insurance with you again would be the Thursday.
However in practice, most dealerships (and therefore their customers) haven't been affected by the 4-day rule by anything like the intended result and dealerships are still continuing to rip off the UK consumer for GAP insurance - which is why the FCA have just recently re-started their investigation in to the selling of GAP insurance by Motor Dealers.
E.g. if they mention GAP insurance to you (and supply you with the specific prescribed information) when you place the order for the car, and then you take delivery 7-days later, they can talk to you freely about the GAP insurance at the point of delivery and sell you their policy on the same day that you take delivery of the vehicle because this would then be in excess of 2-clear days from when they first mentioned it - what are the chances that in the excitement of ordering your next car, you remembered to research GAP insurance from an alternative provider?
It gets a bit woolly if there's a long lead-time between ordering the car (and the dealer raising the topic of GAP insurance with you) and then the delivery of the vehicle, because the 4-day rule has to start again if more than a reasonable amount of time has passed but, crucially, it's the motor dealer who has to determine what a "reasonable" amount of time is

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HTH