Advice on dispute with used car dealer
Discussion
My partner bought a car from a very well known online car seller about 5 months ago which has now started intermittently throwing up various electrical faults (spurious warning lights, going into limp mode, tachometer going haywire, failing to start, etc.).
She only got a 90 day warranty but obviously CRA 2015 states that within 6 months of purchase the fault is assumed to have been there at the point of sale unless the seller can prove otherwise. So the onus is on the seller to provide this proof but what does one do when you don't agree with their proof?
The dealer has stated that as the car was (apparently) showing no diagnostic fault codes when sold and had passed all of their other pre-sale checks then that constitutes evidence the fault didn't exist at the time. As such they are now basically ignoring us completely, not returning calls or replying to emails.
What defines "proof" in this situation? There were various other faults with the car in the first few months which were evidently also not picked up and which they did acknowledge existed so clearly their checks are fallible.
She only got a 90 day warranty but obviously CRA 2015 states that within 6 months of purchase the fault is assumed to have been there at the point of sale unless the seller can prove otherwise. So the onus is on the seller to provide this proof but what does one do when you don't agree with their proof?
The dealer has stated that as the car was (apparently) showing no diagnostic fault codes when sold and had passed all of their other pre-sale checks then that constitutes evidence the fault didn't exist at the time. As such they are now basically ignoring us completely, not returning calls or replying to emails.
What defines "proof" in this situation? There were various other faults with the car in the first few months which were evidently also not picked up and which they did acknowledge existed so clearly their checks are fallible.
Thanks for all the replies, there's a lot to respond to here.
Regarding the car's usage, it was mostly doing a weekly 200 mile trip, not too many short journeys at all. I did wonder about the battery so got a free check at Kwik Fit which showed it was healthy. Of course that doesn't mean the connections are all good but nothing looks too heavily corroded (the battery is in the boot so nice and clean). For what it's worth the bloke who did that check reckoned these cars are susceptible to ECU hardware faults so that could be a possibility. I should reiterate this is intermittent, it has been absolutely fine with no warning lights and no issues for the last few days but could do it again at any moment so we can't really trust the car at all.
We are considering just getting it diagnosed and fixed but don't want to leave ourselves in a position where the seller can say we've gone off-script and the car was buggered up by another garage.
As I said before, the car had other faults which their checks missed and from our perspective it seems difficult to accept the idea that they can say the fault cannot have been present when sold if they have no idea what the fault actually is and are not willing to diagnose it.
The problem is they are just stonewalling us and repeating that line about the pre-sale checks. How do we go about making our counter-argument in that situation? Is the small claims court our only option?
Regarding the car's usage, it was mostly doing a weekly 200 mile trip, not too many short journeys at all. I did wonder about the battery so got a free check at Kwik Fit which showed it was healthy. Of course that doesn't mean the connections are all good but nothing looks too heavily corroded (the battery is in the boot so nice and clean). For what it's worth the bloke who did that check reckoned these cars are susceptible to ECU hardware faults so that could be a possibility. I should reiterate this is intermittent, it has been absolutely fine with no warning lights and no issues for the last few days but could do it again at any moment so we can't really trust the car at all.
We are considering just getting it diagnosed and fixed but don't want to leave ourselves in a position where the seller can say we've gone off-script and the car was buggered up by another garage.
As I said before, the car had other faults which their checks missed and from our perspective it seems difficult to accept the idea that they can say the fault cannot have been present when sold if they have no idea what the fault actually is and are not willing to diagnose it.
The problem is they are just stonewalling us and repeating that line about the pre-sale checks. How do we go about making our counter-argument in that situation? Is the small claims court our only option?
This isn't a case of us having 3 years of trouble free motoring then asking for a full refund because we've noticed the tyres have worn down after 50,000 miles. The car has had 6 tangible faults in less than 5 months, 3 of which are intermittent enough that we might easily have not picked them up within the 90 day warranty, none of which were picked up in their pre-sale checks and in fact 1 of which was literally caused by their preparation of the car. It's fair to say their checks aren't great and the car is something of a lemon.
Anyway, it sounds like our best course of action is to get the fault diagnosed independently which is what we assumed but I thought I'd ask the question.
I was tempted to just put a new battery on it but with it being so intermittent I'm not sure she'd have much confidence in the car even if it did seem fine at first. I'm also not sure if the array of symptoms could really all come from a faulty battery but here's a more complete timeline:
Maybe 5 or 6 weeks ago we got in the car, started it, pulled away and it immediately flashed up various warning messages (number plate bulb, front collision assist, ABS fault and others I think), drove for a few hundred metres then lost power (limp mode I assumed). We stopped, turned it off and on again and it was all fine. At no point did the EML come on during this. I just spoke to my partner and she said also for a few weeks before this it had been occasionally flashing up collision warning unavailable or showing spurious distance warnings which she'd just put down to dirt on the sensor given the gritted roads etc.
I checked the number plate bulb and it was indeed out so that was a genuine warning, I replaced the bulb and the car then showed no issues for over a week and a couple of hundred miles so I thought possibly the bulb going had for some reason caused the ECU to throw up all those other errors. She then drove the car to her office in Oxford but when leaving at the end of the day the EML came on amber. The car drove fine and she made it home but the light stayed on. I read the fault codes with a cheapo ELM 327 I had and P0152 came up, O2 sensor high voltage, but also P00aa and B2aaa which I googled somewhere and may come up because the reader can't actually read the fault codes properly. I checked the O2 sensor wiring but didn't remove it and cleared the codes (maybe I shouldn't have done!) which did turn off the EML. I started the car and it ran ok and didn't reproduce the EML or P0152 but the other 2 codes remained (and have done throughout).
The next day I started the car and it immediately flashed up similar warnings to before plus a new one about reduced steering assistance and a Service ESC message. The engine was idling steadily but the rev counter was bouncing up and down between 0 and 4,000 or so regardless of what I did with the throttle. It then settled on the "stop" position despite the engine still idling. I turned the car off but the dash and everything stayed on so I turned it on and off again and it did actually turn off this time. I then tried starting it again and it did nothing, didn't even turn over the starter, no weak starting sound.
The day after I checked the battery with a multimeter, it showed 12.17 so a bit low but not terminal (I hadn't charged it or anything). I fiddled around a bit with the battery wiring to check for corrosion, checked the fuses but didn't do a great deal however the car then started and ran perfectly with no apparent issues at all. The battery voltage was over 14 when it was running so it is charging and I then drove it to Kwik Fit to get a proper battery check which showed it to be healthy. We've since driven it one more time a short way and it's absolutely fine, the EML never came back on and no repeat of the P0152 fault code but I highly doubt this is just due to me moving the wiring around a bit as I didn't even disconnect anything. I strongly suspect the issues will reoccur and understandably my partner is in no mood to drive the car all the way to her Oxford office on the assumption she'll actually make it home again.
One more thing I do remember is that a few months ago we pulled into a petrol station with an indicator on and the indicator sound seemed to take over the android auto spotify that was playing so we got a very distorted quiet radio station and a weird sort of distorted electronic indicator relay clicking sound over the speakers (not sure how else to describe it!). It was very odd and has never happened again but obviously now I wish we'd reported it to the dealer as it was within the warranty period and could possibly be related to whatever electrical issues the car has.
Anyway, it sounds like our best course of action is to get the fault diagnosed independently which is what we assumed but I thought I'd ask the question.
I was tempted to just put a new battery on it but with it being so intermittent I'm not sure she'd have much confidence in the car even if it did seem fine at first. I'm also not sure if the array of symptoms could really all come from a faulty battery but here's a more complete timeline:
Maybe 5 or 6 weeks ago we got in the car, started it, pulled away and it immediately flashed up various warning messages (number plate bulb, front collision assist, ABS fault and others I think), drove for a few hundred metres then lost power (limp mode I assumed). We stopped, turned it off and on again and it was all fine. At no point did the EML come on during this. I just spoke to my partner and she said also for a few weeks before this it had been occasionally flashing up collision warning unavailable or showing spurious distance warnings which she'd just put down to dirt on the sensor given the gritted roads etc.
I checked the number plate bulb and it was indeed out so that was a genuine warning, I replaced the bulb and the car then showed no issues for over a week and a couple of hundred miles so I thought possibly the bulb going had for some reason caused the ECU to throw up all those other errors. She then drove the car to her office in Oxford but when leaving at the end of the day the EML came on amber. The car drove fine and she made it home but the light stayed on. I read the fault codes with a cheapo ELM 327 I had and P0152 came up, O2 sensor high voltage, but also P00aa and B2aaa which I googled somewhere and may come up because the reader can't actually read the fault codes properly. I checked the O2 sensor wiring but didn't remove it and cleared the codes (maybe I shouldn't have done!) which did turn off the EML. I started the car and it ran ok and didn't reproduce the EML or P0152 but the other 2 codes remained (and have done throughout).
The next day I started the car and it immediately flashed up similar warnings to before plus a new one about reduced steering assistance and a Service ESC message. The engine was idling steadily but the rev counter was bouncing up and down between 0 and 4,000 or so regardless of what I did with the throttle. It then settled on the "stop" position despite the engine still idling. I turned the car off but the dash and everything stayed on so I turned it on and off again and it did actually turn off this time. I then tried starting it again and it did nothing, didn't even turn over the starter, no weak starting sound.
The day after I checked the battery with a multimeter, it showed 12.17 so a bit low but not terminal (I hadn't charged it or anything). I fiddled around a bit with the battery wiring to check for corrosion, checked the fuses but didn't do a great deal however the car then started and ran perfectly with no apparent issues at all. The battery voltage was over 14 when it was running so it is charging and I then drove it to Kwik Fit to get a proper battery check which showed it to be healthy. We've since driven it one more time a short way and it's absolutely fine, the EML never came back on and no repeat of the P0152 fault code but I highly doubt this is just due to me moving the wiring around a bit as I didn't even disconnect anything. I strongly suspect the issues will reoccur and understandably my partner is in no mood to drive the car all the way to her Oxford office on the assumption she'll actually make it home again.
One more thing I do remember is that a few months ago we pulled into a petrol station with an indicator on and the indicator sound seemed to take over the android auto spotify that was playing so we got a very distorted quiet radio station and a weird sort of distorted electronic indicator relay clicking sound over the speakers (not sure how else to describe it!). It was very odd and has never happened again but obviously now I wish we'd reported it to the dealer as it was within the warranty period and could possibly be related to whatever electrical issues the car has.
Edited by T0MMY on Wednesday 28th February 09:58
Edited by T0MMY on Wednesday 28th February 10:04
The car is a Vauxhall Astra 1.0 petrol, 2016. I have looked on various Astra forums but can't find any consensus on similar sort of symptoms, not that I've seen any threads with the full array that we seem to have.
I might use her car for work the rest of this week and see how I get on. At least if it lets me down the RAC can have a look at it for me!
I might use her car for work the rest of this week and see how I get on. At least if it lets me down the RAC can have a look at it for me!
OutInTheShed said:
How much does it cost for a Vauxhall dealer to scan the car?
Are there any 'indy' Vauxhall specialists?
That's the trouble with 'ordinary' cars, if it was an Alfa or a BMW, there is a world of enthusiasts and specialists to help you.
I know, I was a bit surprised there even was a forum for Astras! Not sure on main dealer cost but the local garage I use seem pretty savvy and do it for £100 or so. They managed to diagnose the cause of a DPF fault with her last car that the main dealer missed completely.Are there any 'indy' Vauxhall specialists?
That's the trouble with 'ordinary' cars, if it was an Alfa or a BMW, there is a world of enthusiasts and specialists to help you.
stevemcs said:
But the dealer can say, we carried out a service, there were no fault codes stored, no warning lights and the customer was happy on the test drive. That meets there obligation to prove there were no faults at time of purchase.
Their checks presumably also covered such things as, "does the clutch MC bleed pressure until the car starts rolling forward even though you have your left foot to the floor", "is the geometry so far out its immediately obvious to a lay person with no interest in cars that it doesn't drive properly" and "do the tyres not hold air due to incorrectly fitted valves (bodged with PTFE tape) on two wheels from the new tyres we just put on it". These were all things we had to tell them about and get fixed so you can imagine I have little faith in their checks. Besides that, the idea that it's impossible for the root cause of a fault to have been present before the main symptoms appear is demonstrably untrue so why would we not pursue this given there's potential legal provision to do so?
popeyewhite said:
Ask the dealer to look at it. If not satisfied
Get an independent report.
Ask the dealer to act on the independent report if legitimate faults are found..
If dealer refuses then get it mended yourself and take the dealer to Small Claims - all done via the internet (except the actual hearing obvs).
I have followed this procedure three times now with good result.
Very helpful, thank you. This is the route it looks like we'll be taking with it.Get an independent report.
Ask the dealer to act on the independent report if legitimate faults are found..
If dealer refuses then get it mended yourself and take the dealer to Small Claims - all done via the internet (except the actual hearing obvs).
I have followed this procedure three times now with good result.
Should I assume the proper battery load tester Kwik Fit would have used is infallible and that the battery is indeed fine or could it still be faulty despite what they told me?
For what it's worth the car has never shown a battery warning light and the start/stop has never been disabled for any great length of time.
For what it's worth the car has never shown a battery warning light and the start/stop has never been disabled for any great length of time.
It was 12.17 I measured it at, not 12.7 so that did seem low. I just nipped out and checked it again at 11.98 which really does seem low!
The slip of paper from the Bosch battery tester Kwik Fit used showed these figures:
Voltage 12.14 V
Rated 800 EN
Measured 545 EN
IR 4.76 Ohms
Cranking power 68%
State of charge 42%
Any thoughts? The guy who did it didn't bat an eyelid, said it was fine. I assume they are encouraged to say the opposite if they can!
The slip of paper from the Bosch battery tester Kwik Fit used showed these figures:
Voltage 12.14 V
Rated 800 EN
Measured 545 EN
IR 4.76 Ohms
Cranking power 68%
State of charge 42%
Any thoughts? The guy who did it didn't bat an eyelid, said it was fine. I assume they are encouraged to say the opposite if they can!
OutInTheShed said:
It may be time to realise that an understanding of battery/alternator systems based on growing up with Cortinas is outdated!
I think I'm starting to realise that, having spent many years running unreliable kitcars for trackdays I thought I knew a bit about fixing cars but all this stuff is news to me.Anyway, I tried disconnecting the battery and the voltage jumped up about 0.2V to 12.2 or so. I'll try charging it and report back.
If it really does just need a new battery I'd be overjoyed, even though these start/stop ones are about 3 times as much as the last car battery I had to buy.
Incidentally I started the car just now and it's still seemingly fine, starts and runs perfectly, no warning lights. I didn't actually drive it but no doubt it'll be ok, right up until it isn't again.
Edited by T0MMY on Wednesday 28th February 16:24
GasEngineer said:
Feel a bit foolish / waste of time offering you advice OP when you had already done all this without telling us in your OP.
Most people are telling you its the battery. Either tell the selling dealer or get one fitted yourself to save hassle to fix the issue or eliminate it as the cause.
Apologies for that, the purpose of the thread was originally supposed to be more about the dispute side of it than diagnosing the issue hence not going into as much detail originally. I'm really not ignoring the advice that the battery could be the cause but if I'm honest, were it not for bizarre electrical faults, nothing would actually indicate the battery is struggling in as much as it never struggles to turn the starter motor, it never disables the start/stop or throws up any battery warnings, the Kwik Fit battery tester showed the battery was fine and when we have had the issues with the car it's as likely to have been after it's just been driven on a long journey as when it's been sat for a week or more in the cold. I definitely will try a new battery eventually though but I'd like to eliminate any easy/free things first.Most people are telling you its the battery. Either tell the selling dealer or get one fitted yourself to save hassle to fix the issue or eliminate it as the cause.
To that end, I used the car for work today which involved visiting several sites, multiple stops and starts etc. The car was fine all day (actually I quite enjoy driving it!) apart from at one point when I put it in reverse and it threw up the warning lights and messages and went into limp mode. That got me wondering about the parking sensors which are aftermarket and thus slightly bodged. I've disconnected the power supply to them and haven't had the faults since although that doesn't mean much at this stage, especially as before I did so I'd tried replicating it by reversing again multiple times without a reoccurence. I'll keep using the car for at least the next few weeks and see what happens.
Edited by T0MMY on Thursday 29th February 22:03
lord trumpton said:
So OP have you changed the bleedin' battery yet?
Sorry, no I haven't! Reason being that since I disconnected the rear parking sensors I had no issues despite using the car for several days and a couple of hundred miles. The thing is, I then reconnected them and still cant recreate the problem...the car is seemingly faultless.It leaves me none the wiser really...was there a dodgy connection that I fixed by disconnecting and reconnecting them? Or are the sensors a red herring and the issue has gone just because the car has had a different/slightly more frequent usage pattern? Or has the issue not gone at all and it's just too intermittent to have reappeared again yet? I really have no idea but it seems pointless to swap the battery at the moment.
Just thought I'd update this in case anyone with similar issues finds the thread.
We eventually persuaded the dealer to pay for a diagnostic which showed up no fault code history at all which sort of shot down their argument about it being impossible for the fault to have been present when we bought it. The garage who did it decided it probably was the parking sensors confusing the ecu and they're now disconnected.
On the basis that we paid for a car with parking sensors and now have a car without them the dealer refunded £450 which I guess is a good result really. Of course it's quite possible the fault might reappear if it never was the sensors in the first place but fingers crossed!
We eventually persuaded the dealer to pay for a diagnostic which showed up no fault code history at all which sort of shot down their argument about it being impossible for the fault to have been present when we bought it. The garage who did it decided it probably was the parking sensors confusing the ecu and they're now disconnected.
On the basis that we paid for a car with parking sensors and now have a car without them the dealer refunded £450 which I guess is a good result really. Of course it's quite possible the fault might reappear if it never was the sensors in the first place but fingers crossed!
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