Prestige cars - not so prestige dealers? damage/warranties

[Binjamin81]

Hi there,

We've just had an unexpectedly bad experience buying a sportscar (3 year old, low mileage) from an approved dealer and I'm wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with pre-sale checks?

We went to collect the car on Saturday morning after "final preparation" by the dealer and spotted three cosmetic issues that hadn't been obvious on the test drive - a chip in the windscreen, a big stone chip on the bonnet and some overspray marks around the rear lights. I flagged these to the dealer in the showroom, particularly the rear paint marks as these indicated the car had been repaired. The dealer confirmed they had known the car from new, the previous owner was a good customer and it had never had any repair work or been in an accident. The dealer agreed to fix the windscreen and to look at the paint marks but only after a heated discussion.

On getting the car home, we took a closer look and realised the paint marks around the lights was just the start. We could see poor finishing and overspray marks right around the whole lower boot edge. Not quite a bodge job but certainly not the best smart repair - they left visible scratches in the topcoat and over sanded one of the boot edges so that it rounded off a square edge on the panel! We've since spoken to the dealer who confirmed there was a record of a smart repair after all but they didn't have details.

We are still trying to work this out with the dealer (who we trying to get to do the right thing) so I'm not going to name and shame anyone just yet. I'm just struggling to work out how the dealer didn't spot these issues when he bought the car. This is an approved dealer of a prestige brand (e.g. Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini), so I assumed they carry out extensive checks but this suggests otherwise - the cosmetic issues were all pretty obvious if you took a moment to look. Has anyone else had a similar buying experience?

If anyone here is in the trade, do you think this could be affected by the warranty position? As an approved sale, the car comes with a manufacturer's warranty for the new owner. Do you think this could prompt a dealer to delay fixing issues pre-sale if the work can be done under the customer warranty instead? I can understand that commercially but I think it crosses a line to ignore evidence of potential crash damage and repair.

Thanks to all

[Auto810graphy]

Manufacturer approved / extended warranties would not cover any paint defects unless it was still covered by the initial new car paint or corrosion warranty but this is void on any areas that have been repaired outside of an approved bodyshop.

There are also different types of approved cars, some can be manufacture approved e.g “Jaguar Approved” used cars may have to achieve a paint standard where as others could be e.g “Stratstone Approved” where they are sold as is. Even in the former the brand will often advise you to talk with the dealer.

The reason for delay is a poor smart repair is probably harder to sort out than doing the job properly in the first place so the dealership is probably trying to work out who is paying the bill (if they decide to repair it).

Good luck

[Trevor555]

Binjamin81 said:

The dealer confirmed they had known the car from new, the previous owner was a good customer and it had never had any repair work or been in an accident.

You've been miss sold.

At the point of sale they said it's never had any repair work.

Now they're saying there is history of a smart repair.