Bought car from main dealer. Told it had FSH,1 owner. Untrue

[BertBert]

I think many of us have had it in our car buying lifetimes. Hopefully only once though. It's always my starting point now...V5 and history.

BTW can you buy a car without seeing the V5? Don't you have to put your name and address on it and sign it?

Bert

[allergictocheese]

If you've known about the lack of history and different number of owners yet continued to drive the car for a few weeks without rejecting it, there is an argument you've accepted the vehicle by your conduct.

If there is a knocking and a potential fault this does not affect your rights to have problems rectified under the Sale of Goods Act (in addition to any specific warranty offered by the seller).

[eps]

rolo0151 said:

We purchased a 3 year old jeep compass from the jeep main dealer.
24k miles & supposedly Full jeep history (salesman told us he appraised the car & had seen the service booked which was fully stamped from that dealership) booked had been misplaced so I couldn't check it. Also told us it was 1 owner, actually 2 owners.
Only from found out it had no history when I asked the service desk about it. Log book then turns up with 2 owners on it.
As expected they're dicking about now. They then call me to say they've got the service history confirmed by a local garage who the previous owner used but as expected there is no official record of it as it was done as a cash in hand job!!
It my wife's car & is the most we've ever paid for a car.
i told them I don't want the car anymore as I wouldn't of bought it knowing it had no history.
Car is back in the garage this week as its developed a knocking noise.
What would you do in my situation?

Cheers

If it were me, I'd write it all down, Dates, Times, Who, Where, When, What.

Then give them a call and ask for your money back. If they say no, inform them that you're going to their local newspaper with the story about how they've lied to you and that this deserves to be made common knowledge. Unless they offer to refund you the money say nothing apart from, wishing them a good day and put the phone down. Go to Watchdog as well and anyone else you can think of, Garage Ombudsman, Trading Standards and so on.

[anonymous-user]

We had a 3 year old car misrepresented when bought from a large, local VW dealer. Just under 2 years into ownership, a problem became apparent which was due to the salesman lying about it's previous history. Not just forgetting to tell us a crucial fact, but making up a completely ficticous story.

Got VW UK involved asap who were absolutely brilliant. They went way beyond what we expected. £3000 issue was resolved with no cost to us.

Try JEEP UK and you may be surprised. Good luck.

[Hainey]

eps said:

rolo0151 said:

We purchased a 3 year old jeep compass from the jeep main dealer.
24k miles & supposedly Full jeep history (salesman told us he appraised the car & had seen the service booked which was fully stamped from that dealership) booked had been misplaced so I couldn't check it. Also told us it was 1 owner, actually 2 owners.
Only from found out it had no history when I asked the service desk about it. Log book then turns up with 2 owners on it.
As expected they're dicking about now. They then call me to say they've got the service history confirmed by a local garage who the previous owner used but as expected there is no official record of it as it was done as a cash in hand job!!
It my wife's car & is the most we've ever paid for a car.
i told them I don't want the car anymore as I wouldn't of bought it knowing it had no history.
Car is back in the garage this week as its developed a knocking noise.
What would you do in my situation?

Cheers

If it were me, I'd write it all down, Dates, Times, Who, Where, When, What.

Then give them a call and ask for your money back. If they say no, inform them that you're going to their local newspaper with the story about how they've lied to you and that this deserves to be made common knowledge. Unless they offer to refund you the money say nothing apart from, wishing them a good day and put the phone down. Go to Watchdog as well and anyone else you can think of, Garage Ombudsman, Trading Standards and so on.

Good luck with that if it's a large group. The main daily rag in this area will never touch a story about the group I had an issue with, as they spend fortunes with them every week on multi page adverts. Money talks alright.

[Rude-boy]

allergictocheese said:

If you've known about the lack of history and different number of owners yet continued to drive the car for a few weeks without rejecting it, there is an argument you've accepted the vehicle by your conduct.

If there is a knocking and a potential fault this does not affect your rights to have problems rectified under the Sale of Goods Act (in addition to any specific warranty offered by the seller).

Sort of agree, OP sounds like he tried to give them time to 'find' it and might be in difficulty as a result of their forbearance.

One thing I can't over state enough though is how vital it is to ignore the sales patter and only rely on the hard evidence. Lost count of the number of times I have been told FSH only to find that cars are far from it. Okay on a 20 year old Porsche that has done 5k miles in 3 years at some point in life you can swallow that but when it's a 4 year old M car and has missed the first two services...

Likewise the number of owners is a frequent mistake made - I've even had a dealer make that mistake when they had the V5 in their hand...

And this is not a dealer bashing post, many, many private sellers are even worse and one of the reasons I have only ever bought one car privately. In the case of that car I spent an hour with the paperwork before I even looked at the metal.

[V8 Fettler]

Where's the advert?

[rolo0151]

Some good advice given & confirmation of my own thoughts throughout the thread.
Yes, foolish of me to trust them but lesson learnt.
I got Jeep uk involved & wrote a letter with all the events/dates etc.

They've offered to replace the vehicle without any real resistance.
Happy with the outcome.

[edo]

Super. Well done.

[silentbrown]

Curious to see how this works out for you.

Never used it, but the "30-day exchange" seems to have flaws:

1. You have no car now, so you've got to do something quickly
2. You're limited to whatever stock the dealer may have
3. Hopefully you'd negotiated a discount off the first vehicle: you have to go through that hoop again
4. But this time you now have zero bargaining power, as the dealer has your money and your old car.

The chances of paying over the odds for a car that you don't really want seem pretty high. I'd seriously be looking to reject the car as substantially "not as described" and get a full refund. But that can also take time...

[Cooperman]

Although not one to have much sympathy with Main Stealers, one might ask whether those complaining about less-than-frank descriptions of cars they are thinking of buying are equally frank about any issues or faults with the ones they are trading in.

[silentbrown]

Nobody's being asked to be "frank" here. Simply not to tell blatant lies.

But I don't think any dealer gives a st what a customer trading in a car actually *says*, becasue they have so little comeback. Their P/X valuation will be entirely based on book value, physical inpection and HPI checks etc.

[V8forweekends]

Cooperman said:

Although not one to have much sympathy with Main Stealers, one might ask whether those complaining about less-than-frank descriptions of cars they are thinking of buying are equally frank about any issues or faults with the ones they are trading in.

There's a simple difference between incorrectly claiming a certain numbers of owners and a FDSH vs. not highlighting every known fault though.

[lbc]

The op buys a car without checking service history in December, and only now decides he does not want the car.

It sounds like the Op just doesn't like the car, and is looking for an excuse to return it.

[pingu393]

rolo0151 said:

Some good advice given & confirmation of my own thoughts throughout the thread.
Yes, foolish of me to trust them but lesson learnt.
I got Jeep uk involved & wrote a letter with all the events/dates etc.

They've offered to replace the vehicle without any real resistance.
Happy with the outcome.

Sounds like a good advert for Jeep UK.

Most other companies would have put up some resistance. I wonder if the franchise has history.

[Hainey]

Great result Rolo, glad they are sorting it. As has been said, I wonder if this franchise have a noted history of these kinds of shenanigans.

[rolo0151]

O

lbc said:

The op buys a car without checking service history in December, and only now decides he does not want the car.

It sounds like the Op just doesn't like the car, and is looking for an excuse to return it.

Absolutely not the case. We've been on at them from day 1 for the history & if another car "like for like" was available we'd happily go into that.

[rolo0151]

silentbrown said:

Curious to see how this works out for you.

Never used it, but the "30-day exchange" seems to have flaws:

1. You have no car now, so you've got to do something quickly
2. You're limited to whatever stock the dealer may have
3. Hopefully you'd negotiated a discount off the first vehicle: you have to go through that hoop again
4. But this time you now have zero bargaining power, as the dealer has your money and your old car.

The chances of paying over the odds for a car that you don't really want seem pretty high. I'd seriously be looking to reject the car as substantially "not as described" and get a full refund. But that can also take time..

Just got off the phone to the general manager. They have some cars that are way over priced. Once a car has been offered I'll some research.

[edo]

rolo0151 said:

silentbrown said:

Curious to see how this works out for you.

Never used it, but the "30-day exchange" seems to have flaws:

1. You have no car now, so you've got to do something quickly
2. You're limited to whatever stock the dealer may have
3. Hopefully you'd negotiated a discount off the first vehicle: you have to go through that hoop again
4. But this time you now have zero bargaining power, as the dealer has your money and your old car.

The chances of paying over the odds for a car that you don't really want seem pretty high. I'd seriously be looking to reject the car as substantially "not as described" and get a full refund. But that can also take time..

Just got off the phone to the general manager. They have some cars that are way over priced. Once a car has been offered I'll some research.

If you post up the spec/miles/age of the car you bought, and what you paid, we can help on what they are offering. Just dont let them talk you into paying any difference, or fob you off on a car that is "worse" in any way!

[Tri-Star]

What happened in the end?