Legally - where do I stand? Faulty car

[k-ink]

I'd appreciate some advice on a recent used car purchase. The car was sold by an independent dealer only a few days ago. It was verbally described as faultless. I checked everything over and it seemed fine. HPI was good. It just had a recent main dealer service. So I paid cash and bought it home - a rather long way I might add.

Now one day later it seems there is a fault. None of the remote key fobs work at all. Putting new batteries in makes no difference. The car does not respond at all. So now the car is sat with no alarm at all. I can only open and close the drivers door manually with a key. Also the battery drains quickly so it could leave me stranded.

I rang the warranty company today to seek advice. It seems the cover does not include electrical items!

Now all I can do it take it to the main dealers to get a proper diagnosis and repair. I wish to keep the car as it is lovely aside from this issue.

Where do I stand legally? What would you advise? Is the dealer responsible towards the costs? Or should I just return it?

Thanks!

Edited by k-ink on Wednesday 29th September 20:02

[james_tigerwoods]

So if the car is stood, the battery drains? Sounds like a serious enough fault to me - Contact the seller and see what they say - the sooner you tell them, the better....

As for the keys, that may be a linked problem - Not that I want to cast any dispersions, but didn't you check them when you bought the car?

[edo]

k-ink said:

I'd appreciate some advice on a recent used car purchase. The car was sold by an independent dealer only a few days ago. It was verbally described as faultless. I checked everything over and it seemed fine. HPI was good. It just had a recent main dealer service. So I paid cash and bought it home - a rather long way I might add.

Now one day later it seems there is a fault. None of the remote key fobs work at all. Putting new batteries in makes no difference. The car does not respond at all. So now the car is sat with no alarm at all. I can only open and close the drivers door manually with a key. Also the battery drains quickly so it could leave me stranded.

I rang the warranty company today to seek advice. It seems the cover does not include electrical items!

Now all I can do it take it to the main dealers to get a proper diagnosis and repair. I wish to keep the car as it is lovely aside from this issue.

Where do I stand legally? What would you advise? Is the dealer responsible towards the costs? Or should I just return it?

Thanks!

Edited by k-ink on Wednesday 29th September 20:02

You first have to tell the trader about the issue and give him the opportunity to rectify the issue.

[k-ink]

It was the one thing I did not check. The car was open when I arrived. I was advised the car was absolutely faultless in every way. So when I discovered this issue a day later I wrongly assumed it was just the batteries.

I spoke to the dealer today. He advised:

1. Phone the warranty company - see above.
2. Perhaps involve a local car electrical expert.
3. He asked that I phone back to let him know the situation...

I am not filled with confidence letting any local alarm fitter to play around with it. I'd only want a main dealer to go near it. The car has a full main dealer history after all and I do not wish to ruin this. The recent main dealer service and full main dealer history is why I bough it in the first place.

[edo]

Ok, so get the dealer to quote to sort the issue, and then request the selling dealer pays the dealer direct.

[k-ink]

Ok I will do so. Thanks

[Herbs]

Funnily enough I had to do this to the mrs car today. Her battery died in the remote and after replacing it - it still didn't work. You need to resync he remotes and then see if this rectifys the problem.

It might not be so serious as first though hopefully

[john_p]

Have you tried moving the car to a different place just to see if it's some radio interference or something?

[k-ink]

Yes, it made no difference unfortunately.

I hope it's just a reset issue. I will report back when I know more...

[john_p]

What car is it? some do lose synchronisation when the battery goes flat and generally you can get the details of the procedure online.

[samxjx]

Also have faulty car, Bought it early August and have had nothing but trouble. Master cylinder on clutch has snapped twice costing me over £500. Needed mot so Vauxhall asked me for service history which did not come with the car so decided to do some digging. I found a direct gov website through google where you can see all previous mot's and have found out that in April 07 the mileage was 123000 and a year later was 67000. Obviously been clocked. Trader is not accepting any responsibility for repairs or clocking. I have contacted consumer direct and i am going to try and take it to a small claims court but if trader dosent turn up and dodges the courts for long enough I may never get any compensation! Anyone got any advice? :-(

[redgriff500]

samxjx said:

Also have faulty car, Bought it early August and have had nothing but trouble. Master cylinder on clutch has snapped twice costing me over £500. Needed mot so Vauxhall asked me for service history which did not come with the car so decided to do some digging. I found a direct gov website through google where you can see all previous mot's and have found out that in April 07 the mileage was 123000 and a year later was 67000. Obviously been clocked. Trader is not accepting any responsibility for repairs or clocking. I have contacted consumer direct and i am going to try and take it to a small claims court but if trader dosent turn up and dodges the courts for long enough I may never get any compensation! Anyone got any advice? :-(

Court can work but as you said many just never pay up.

Alternative is to either forget it or take direct action.

I recently took the latter and whilst it turned out OK there were definitely times I wish I hadn't.

[edo]

samxjx said:

Also have faulty car, Bought it early August and have had nothing but trouble. Master cylinder on clutch has snapped twice costing me over £500. Needed mot so Vauxhall asked me for service history which did not come with the car so decided to do some digging. I found a direct gov website through google where you can see all previous mot's and have found out that in April 07 the mileage was 123000 and a year later was 67000. Obviously been clocked. Trader is not accepting any responsibility for repairs or clocking. I have contacted consumer direct and i am going to try and take it to a small claims court but if trader dosent turn up and dodges the courts for long enough I may never get any compensation! Anyone got any advice? :-(

Doesnt help you now, but do your digging BEFORE giving over the folding.

I think we need a WIKI buyers guide - what to do before you hand over the cash?

[300bhp/ton]

k-ink said:

It was the one thing I did not check. The car was open when I arrived. I was advised the car was absolutely faultless in every way. So when I discovered this issue a day later I wrongly assumed it was just the batteries.

I spoke to the dealer today. He advised:

1. Phone the warranty company - see above.
2. Perhaps involve a local car electrical expert.
3. He asked that I phone back to let him know the situation...

I am not filled with confidence letting any local alarm fitter to play around with it. I'd only want a main dealer to go near it. The car has a full main dealer history after all and I do not wish to ruin this. The recent main dealer service and full main dealer history is why I bough it in the first place.

Just an idea, but I'd also not be too aggressive with the trader. They do have some legal responsibilities to fulfill, but it is down to the buyer to enforce them, which if it gets ugly can become very costly and there's a good chance the law won't side with you.

So my advice would be to try and work with them, rather than against them. It's very possible they didn't know of the issue, or that the issue only occurred on your journey home (I recently had alarm issues on my car, I've owned it for 4 years. And had been out and about in it all day. Stopped one place, got back in and it started acting up. So such issues can just occur without prior warning).

And think of it another way, while you've bought a car, the trader is working, it's their livelihood. Having to sort out an issue will cost them. For instance (don't know what job you do), but if there was an issue at your work, would expect to have to pay some of your pay packet back out to customer and would you be happy about it?


I guess, all I'm saying is, go gentle at first as I feel you'll get more in return.

[wolf1]

OP it realy would help if you could identify what make model etc you are talking about. It may be just a simple reset or fuse which is going to save you running around trying to get a simple fault fixed.

[300bhp/ton]

samxjx said:

Also have faulty car, Bought it early August and have had nothing but trouble. Master cylinder on clutch has snapped twice costing me over £500. Needed mot so Vauxhall asked me for service history which did not come with the car so decided to do some digging. I found a direct gov website through google where you can see all previous mot's and have found out that in April 07 the mileage was 123000 and a year later was 67000. Obviously been clocked. Trader is not accepting any responsibility for repairs or clocking. I have contacted consumer direct and i am going to try and take it to a small claims court but if trader dosent turn up and dodges the courts for long enough I may never get any compensation! Anyone got any advice? :-(

My advice - drop it.

Without proof you'll lose and you'll pay costs too. And based on what you've said above I'd be placing a hefty wager that you wouldn't be a winner.


1. BTW - what do you mean by master cylinder snapper?? If it was replaced once, then the 2nd fail would have nothing to do with the trader but who ever supplied and/or fitted the part and fixed it first time.

2. If it needed an MoT (which is common as all vehicles over 3 years old need them annually), so this should have been expected and was your responsibility to check.

3. Service history is not required for an MoT

4. It is your responsibility to check for a service history before buying. Trader has done nothing wrong.

5. Clocking cars is not illegal. It can become illegal depending on how it is advertised or claimed to be accurate. But the act of clocking and selling a clocked car is fully legal.

Some examples to clarify:

- Series Land Rover only has a 5 digit odometer. So you buy one with 50k showing on the clock. So is this 50,000 or is it really 150,000?? Chances are the seller won't be the original owner, so it would be fully legal for them to sell the vehicle stating it has 50,000 miles on the clock.

- A car with 120k on the clock. The speedo stops working. A 2nd hand speedo assay with 86k on the clock is fitted. Car is sold once or twice. Then the current owner who doesn't know the speedo assy has been changed, now with 92k displaying puts the car up for sale and advertises it has 92k on the clock


I think to stand a chance of winning you'd either need to prove the trader clocked the car, or had knowledge that the car had been clocked and then advertised it at a lower mileage in order to deceive or inflate the price. This I suspect will be very difficult. Did the seller guarantee the mileage? And did they claim the HPI was clear?

Actually have you since HPI'd the car? Does this show up?


And at the end of the day, you are 18 and a legal adult and you have to be responsible for your own actions. As in, you inspected the car, agreed the sale and handed over the money.

[k-ink]

The car is all working now. I took it to the main dealers and they diagnosed the problem straight away - for free. One of the three keys was a fake copy, most likely bought from ebay by the previous owner.

The copy was not exactly the right shape, so caused all these issues above. Essentially the key could be removed without "clicking" the cars electrics fully off. So the car thought a key was still in the ignition barrel. This caused the remote key fobs and alarm system to fail to activate, plus caused the electrical drain over night. Now this fake key has been binned all the other keys and gadgets work perfectly.


Moral:

Don't be a cheap pikey moron who buys fake copies from ebay. Thanks for wasting my time, the sellers time and the main dealers time.

[A911DOM]

I hope you ground the 'fake' key in half so as your local binman cant just open the car and drive off with it


Sounds like a good result - nice to hear a happy ending for a change

[randlemarcus]

k-ink said:

The car is all working now.

Good to see its all resolved

Worth a bottle of something Scottish if the dealer has looked like he'd do the right thing? Might pleasantly surprise him.

[k-ink]

I'll definitely will be sorting the lads out there

I'm also putting some work their way too - just cosmetic stuff but worth a few quid to them.