Consumer rights gone mad
Discussion
I work in a used car dealership anyway I get a call from a customer today complaining about a used car he purchased from us 2 1/2 years and 40,000 miles ago (2012 Vauxhall Astra) . He says that since purchase it’s had an intermittent fault that has now failed completely and has proof that it was faulty when purchased as the fault codes stored on the ecu date back to before he purchased it. He wants us to pay a £2000 quoted bill from a main dealer for a new ECU and BCM.
Does he really have a valid case here?? This is his first contact with us since purchasing the car.
Would appreciate your views
Chris
Does he really have a valid case here?? This is his first contact with us since purchasing the car.
Would appreciate your views
Chris
Thanks guys I’m not worried about it. The car was actually sold on finance so the finance company will have to deal with this one.
I strongly suspect though that the customer will end up getting some sort of recompense for this which is crazy.
The reason I quoted Consumer Rights Gone mad is that Citizens Advice told the customer that he should contact us and make a claim.
It seems that s
te doesn’t just happen anymore and if it does it’s someone else’s fault and they should pay.
Chris
I strongly suspect though that the customer will end up getting some sort of recompense for this which is crazy.
The reason I quoted Consumer Rights Gone mad is that Citizens Advice told the customer that he should contact us and make a claim.
It seems that s
te doesn’t just happen anymore and if it does it’s someone else’s fault and they should pay. Chris
Edited by chris52 on Wednesday 7th August 07:38
55palfers said:
I expect every dealer will now be making sure all the fault codes are wiped prior to sale.
I would assume that is already part of the internal check-list all dealerships go through.With fault code readers ten a penny on Ebay, I know if I was selling cars there would be no fault codes listed when it left me.
can't remember said:
Oh dear I forgot sarcasm doesn't work on the internet. Well, not with some anyway.
Unfortunately, enough people actually do believe such nonsense that making any kind of mockery of it come across as such is hard work.Poe's law, basically.
I mean, if someone on a "my out of warranty used car borked after 2.5 years" thread said "take it back to the dealer and demand they sort it", you'd take that to be deliberately hyperbolic piss-taking, wouldn't you?
Yet here we are.
chris52 said:
The reason I quoted Consumer Rights Gone mad is that Citizens Advice told the customer that he should contact us and make a claim.
Any dealings I have had with them, they have always ben very flaky.
Doesn't the CRA say that you can make a claim for up to 6 years after purchasing? If you can prove the fault existed when purchasing the car then they might well have a course to have the car repaired. Although how much they would frown upon driving the vehicle to destruction I don't know. If they've known about the fault since they purchased it, they should've brought it back under warranty instead of driving the vehicle further.
S11Steve said:
Does anyone know what the employment criteria is to work at CA? I get the impression it is mainly volunteers who read from vague scripts and are more interested in other peoples business than giving out sound advice.
Any dealings I have had with them, they have always ben very flaky.
have worked at CAB when I was at law school. Can confirm branches are mostly staffed by well-being volunteersAny dealings I have had with them, they have always ben very flaky.
if as inferred its been intermittent and he's not given the dealer any opportunity to actually diagnose or fix it before claiming £2000 years later I'd hope he'd be laughed out of court should he take it that far.
right or wrong in my head he's failed to give the dealer an opportunity to resolve it and it could possibly have been a cheap fix. A fault code doesn't tell you the issue it give you somewhere to look. A bad wire can could pence to fix and be intermittent. The fault code could potentially be the same as when the £200 sensor on the end of that wire fails. If that sensor is inside the engine/gearbox and requires removal then you're looking at far higher repair cost.
Even if the ECU has failed, on a 7 year old car you'd not reasonably fit a brand new from manufacturer part, their will be countless refurb/remanufacture/2nd hand parts available for far less.
right or wrong in my head he's failed to give the dealer an opportunity to resolve it and it could possibly have been a cheap fix. A fault code doesn't tell you the issue it give you somewhere to look. A bad wire can could pence to fix and be intermittent. The fault code could potentially be the same as when the £200 sensor on the end of that wire fails. If that sensor is inside the engine/gearbox and requires removal then you're looking at far higher repair cost.
Even if the ECU has failed, on a 7 year old car you'd not reasonably fit a brand new from manufacturer part, their will be countless refurb/remanufacture/2nd hand parts available for far less.
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