Loss of bargain - could you use it in this situation?

[srichards]

So a friend of mine has bought a car via a dealer quite a distance away from where she is. It's a specific model with specific features that aren't always easy to find. She negotiated a couple of hundred off the sticker price and they were supposed to deliver it over 2 weeks ago. Since then it's been a catalogue of ignored phone calls, ignored emails and weak excuses. Apparently the car developed a fault which meant they couldn't deliver it but it took them nearly 2 weeks to pull their finger out and get it properly looked at and repaired. They have a main agent within 10 minutes of them but apparently they couldn't take it there and used their own garage that spent days trying to find out what was wrong when the main dealer could have stuck it on a machine and found out instantly. Issue is supposedly fixed now. I thought they were decent in actually not delivering it in its faulty condition but I wonder whether it was just an excuse not to go through with the deal.

Car was supposed to be delivered this weekend. It's not appeared. No explanation at all from them.

As the car was a certain specification would it be possible to make this dealer pay the difference if she cannot find one at the same price and also to make them pay for incidental costs ie insurance admin costs?

I think they regret selling at this price and are basically dicking her about until she asks for a refund. There aren't any more of this model in her price bracket that is anywhere near this one for full specification. Most are lacking either a tow bar or the leather interior or both. Can she force them to pay the difference if she has to pay more to get the equivalent specification?

 

[magicaxeman]

I'd take my money and run from a dealer acting like that but more to the point I'd never buy a car I hadn't looked at and test driven myself.

Class it as a lucky escape.

 

[bastic]

I'd take my money and run from a dealer acting like that but more to the point I'd never buy a car I hadn't looked at and test driven myself.

Class it as a lucky escape.

This.

Have they taken money from her already?

 

[srichards]

They have 90% of the money already. She's going up there if they don't deliver the car today.

Most car dealers I have had contact with think nothing of acting like this anyway. They constantly promise more than they actually deliver. Friends bought a car they saw in person then had to threaten the dealer with court to fix the issues that the sales person said would be fixed. They'd done virtually none of them.

I think she should force the dealer to uphold their end of the contract so they do suffer as a result. Letting them off with just a refund isn't on.

 

[MatBin]

They have 90% of the money already. She's going up there if they don't deliver the car today.

Most car dealers I have had contact with think nothing of acting like this anyway. They constantly promise more than they actually deliver. Friends bought a car they saw in person then had to threaten the dealer with court to fix the issues that the sales person said would be fixed. They'd done virtually none of them.

I think she should force the dealer to uphold their end of the contract so they do suffer as a result. Letting them off with just a refund isn't on.

So they have her money (or most of it) and they wont fix a car that has a problem and she still wants to buy it from them? I dont fancy her chances of getting anything fixed further down the line, presumably it has a warranty, which in this case sounds like it's not worth the paper its written on.

Take a refund and run away now, would be my advise.

 

[srichards]

It's par for the course for car dealers. I don't think I've ever dealt with one that did do what they said they would. She still has rights under SOGA. Dealer warranties are invariably meaningless anyway as they always exclude anything that may actually go wrong with the car.

They said the issue has been fixed a couple of days ago but have failed to deliver when they said. Hence the going up there and having it out with them. It's exactly what she didn't want to do but they've left her no other choice. I don't expect they'll give her a refund quickly either unless she goes up there and basically says she isn't leaving without either the car or the full refund plus costs.

 

[srichards]

Even better now they are claiming the car blew up on the way down to be delivered yesterday yet they didn't say yesterday and were avoiding answering phone for most of today. Total shower. Luckily they've offered a refund plus some extra to cover inconvenience.

Whether they will pay promptly is another matter. Unbelievable!

 

[Yves Geza]

It's par for the course for car dealers. I don't think I've ever dealt with one that did do what they said they would.

Blah, blah, blah!

As a garage proprietor, I, and probably all the other people on this forum who work in the motor trade, have met people like you too!

 

[Yves Geza]

Even better now they are claiming the car blew up on the way down to be delivered yesterday yet they didn't say yesterday and were avoiding answering phone for most of today. Total shower. Luckily they've offered a refund plus some extra to cover inconvenience.

Whether they will pay promptly is another matter. Unbelievable!

Ah! So they've offered a refund plus some extra to cover inconvenience. Who knows. Just maybe this company, whoever they are, have been telling the truth and are being helpful. In which case that sounds like a very fair offer, doesn't it?

 

[PaulF]

It's par for the course for car dealers. I don't think I've ever dealt with one that did do what they said they would. She still has rights under SOGA. Dealer warranties are invariably meaningless anyway as they always exclude anything that may actually go wrong with the car.

Sorry for the issues your friend is having but I must correct you on this point.
I've had numerous things sorted under warranty when I've taken my cars for service. Had a clutch replaced by Audi because a slight over normal wear was noticed while the car was in for something else. During another service, the glove compartment was sorted as it wasn't lowering quite as smoothly as it should, I hadn't noticed.

The one time I needed to use the warranty when the A4 decided to cut out while in the third lane of the M6, Audi assist got the RAC out, took me home. Audi then had the RAC take my car to the garage I normally used (Preston, about 35 miles away), booked a taxi to take me to pick up a hire car. All at no cost to me. Once fixed I just dropped the hire car at the garage when I collected my car.
When the A3 needed the turbo gate thing sorting it was out of waranty but as I had phoned Audi Assist (still covered as the MOT was done at Audi) when the error showed on the dash Audi provided a nice A4 quatro as a hire car at their cost!

My general advice, buy only from more reputable dealers. Main dealers if possible, a bit more costly but in my experience worth the extra cost.

P.s I don't work for Audi or any other garage in any way what so ever

 

[srichards]

Blah, blah, blah!

As a garage proprietor, I, and probably all the other people on this forum who work in the motor trade, have met people like you too!

Please don't insult me. I've always treated car dealers fairly but they choose to treat me and friends like DIRT. I now have this attitude due to experience!

 

[srichards]

Ah! So they've offered a refund plus some extra to cover inconvenience. Who knows. Just maybe this company, whoever they are, have been telling the truth and are being helpful. In which case that sounds like a very fair offer, doesn't it?

Yes. If they actually pay. They promised to deliver car 4 times and failed every single time.

 

[srichards]

Sorry for the issues your friend is having but I must correct you on this point.
I've had numerous things sorted under warranty when I've taken my cars for service. Had a clutch replaced by Audi because a slight over normal wear was noticed while the car was in for something else. During another service, the glove compartment was sorted as it wasn't lowering quite as smoothly as it should, I hadn't noticed.

The one time I needed to use the warranty when the A4 decided to cut out while in the third lane of the M6, Audi assist got the RAC out, took me home. Audi then had the RAC take my car to the garage I normally used (Preston, about 35 miles away), booked a taxi to take me to pick up a hire car. All at no cost to me. Once fixed I just dropped the hire car at the garage when I collected my car.
When the A3 needed the turbo gate thing sorting it was out of waranty but as I had phoned Audi Assist (still covered as the MOT was done at Audi) when the error showed on the dash Audi provided a nice A4 quatro as a hire car at their cost!

My general advice, buy only from more reputable dealers. Main dealers if possible, a bit more costly but in my experience worth the extra cost.

P.s I don't work for Audi or any other garage in any way what so ever

That's manufacturer warranty not dealer warranty on an older car. Unfortunately budget isn't there to pay another grand or more for a main dealer sourced car.

 

[Matt]

Please don't insult me. I've always treated car dealers fairly but they choose to treat me and friends like DIRT. I now have this attitude due to experience!

but it does seem that you feel that all car dealers will pull the legs off spiders and the wings off flys during their lunch break, before conning kindly old Mrs Simpkins out of some money for unnecessary car repairs....

**i DONT work for a car dealer**

 

[srichards]

but it does seem that you feel that all car dealers will pull the legs off spiders and the wings off flys during their lunch break, before conning kindly old Mrs Simpkins out of some money for unnecessary car repairs....

**i DONT work for a car dealer**

I've used the same repair garage for 10 years. Took quite a few bad experiences to find them. Wouldn't take mine any place else now.

Talking of unnecessary work friends took their car in for an MOT. It apparently failed on loads of items which came to about 800 quid. They took it elsewhere as it seemed odd that all these things had suddenly failed and it went through another MOT only needing one of them. That happened only a few months ago.

For some reason car sales and repair seem to bring out the worst in people.

 

[Yv]

I've used the same repair garage for 10 years. Took quite a few bad experiences to find them. Wouldn't take mine any place else now.

Talking of unnecessary work friends took their car in for an MOT. It apparently failed on loads of items which came to about 800 quid. They took it elsewhere as it seemed odd that all these things had suddenly failed and it went through another MOT only needing one of them. That happened only a few months ago.

For some reason car sales and repair seem to bring out the worst in people.

So, your blanket insult of all dealers/repairers was perhaps a little too general if you yourself have found somewhere decent that you trust?

I have always worked in the motor trade and even now, as a full time snapper, I am still a partner in a garage business and I have seen all manner of fiddles, dodginess, rip offs and downright crooks, enough to make your toes curl. However, I know a lot more that are genuine, honest and try their best to do right by their customers. It is for those people that I feel slightly offended by your blanket insult and not surprised my beloved bit back - can you imagine how many times hard working and genuine business hear this kind of thing? Hard to say on the surface of it, whether these guys your friend is dealing with are trying it on, or have just made errors and are trying to resolve it in the best way they know how - there are always two sides to every story. There are, at the latest figures I quickly googled, 34.5 million vehicles on the roads in Britain, all of which will have been bought/sold, maintained and in most cases, repaired at some point by a garage of some description. So, even if you just count up one sale and one service for each, thats some 70 million transactions - lets guess that even if 99% of those transactions have been perfect, that is still a HUGE amount left that weren't, but you won't hear about the 99% of sales/repairs that complete daily without a hitch, only the 1%.... like everything, there are lots of good and a few bad plumbers, electricians, gardeners, builders, etc and they get the same deal, so everyone assumes they are all bad. :shake:

 

[fracster]

Bloke who owns the garage who looks after my Patrol is a bloody gem, i recommend him to everyone I know.

I suppose the car trade is like the photography trade, some good some bad, some assholes and some diamonds.

I would love to see the reaction if some mechanic came on here and tarred all photographers as thieving DIRT!

 

[MWHCVT]

Bloke who owns the garage who looks after my Patrol is a bloody gem, i recommend him to everyone I know.

I suppose the car trade is like the photography trade, some good some bad, some assholes and some diamonds.

I would love to see the reaction if some mechanic came on here and tarred all photographers as thieving DIRT!

In my village we have an absolutely wonderful garage, the guys that own/run it are the best you could ask for several times they have got me out of a jam by coming up to my house and fixing my various cars over the years, often if I need it one of the guys will come and grab my car to save me taking it to them and then drop it back to me...nothing is too much for them..they know me and I know them...I've had a lot of work done where they refuse payment....

 

[srichards]

I didn't call them dirt. I said secondhand car dealers think nothing of treating paying customers like dirt!

Other trades aren't much better but they're not currently upsetting a friend of mine.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2010/27-10#.UjeS4su9KK0

Above doesn't seem to be working at all. Autotrader is full of ads without proper dealerminformation eg address of seller, full info about car. If its not in black and white then its hard to prove later that a customer has been misled.

My dad and grandad ran an auto repair business. So did my great uncle. They'd despair at how a lot of customers are treated.

 

[PaulF]

I didn't call them dirt. I said secondhand car dealers think nothing of treating paying customers like dirt!

Other trades aren't much better but they're not currently upsetting a friend of mine.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/news-and-updates/press/2010/27-10#.UjeS4su9KK0

Above doesn't seem to be working at all. Autotrader is full of ads without proper dealerminformation eg address of seller, full info about car. If its not in black and white then its hard to prove later that a customer has been misled.

My dad and grandad ran an auto repair business. So did my great uncle. They'd despair at how a lot of customers are treated.

Making allowances for your friends current experience (the dealer there may be being truthful for all we know yet) you are basically saying most car dealers are not that honest, happy to treat their customers unfairly with the exceptions of the repairer you use for the last 10 years and a few members of your family!
The figures in your link aren't backing you up too much. Of the faults reported within 3 months nearly 30% aren't dealt with or over 70% are dealt with correctly. I'd agree that nearly 30% is way too high though.
Clocked cars? who buys a car these days without having it checked and with no service history? quite easy to spot a car that has been clocked, not saying there are no dodgy dealers doing it but I would say they are in a minority.

Autotrader is basically classified ads with both trade and private sellers, the trade ads I have looked at always had a link to the traders website. How many private sellers on TP put their address details in their ad?

Buying a car is one of the biggest purchases people tend to make so always best to check everything before parting with cash. Having said that I did once commit to buying a car over the phone, paid deposit, without actually seeing the car but that was an ex Audi demo car from a main dealer less than 10 months old, turned out it had a lot more extras than was advertised

Hope your friends gets the refund sorted ok.

 

[TheNissanMan]

Regardless of the fact that I work in the motor trade I am dumbfounded that someone has the stupidity to buy a vehicle without seeing it.

Yes all garages should have a duty of care to their customers, some do this better than others but there are two sides to every story...

 

[npinks]

I think they regret selling at this price and are basically dicking her about until she asks for a refund.

You say they sold it for a couple of hundred of the screen price, taking in to account the travelling there and back when/if they deliver it to her, I still think they will make a profit on the sale as they will have more than a couple of hundred in the car.

Unless you were talking a £500 banger, then with the issues and the fault I would be hoping she would walk away and find something closer to home and working.

I bought a car unseen bar photos, 180 miles from home, they took my trade in on my description and upon arriving i found a few in scratch on the lower door, they agreed to pay for the repair and i went on my merry way. sent them the bill and they paid up straight away, no hassle at all. Some dealers bend over backwards to make their clients happy

 

[srichards]

Regardless of the fact that I work in the motor trade I am dumbfounded that someone has the stupidity to buy a vehicle without seeing it.

Yes all garages should have a duty of care to their customers, some do this better than others but there are two sides to every story...

DSR actually protects you much better at buying something you haven't seen than standard SOGA ironically... trading standards said not to change it to face to face once she started having problems as her rights were stronger. Otherwise I think she would have gone up there in spite of the cost and having to take a couple of days out to do it.

I said several times to find a local car but there just weren't any that were any good. I looked as well. The car she went for was the best one for the money she had. One owner from new, longish MOT, decent service history, verifiable mileage, no advisories on last MOT, some tax remaining, correct specification. Decent and thorough photos. Unfortunately dealer has turned out to be less than great. If you are at the banger to older end ie anything under about £5k car dealers aren't the same.

 

[Yves Geza]

My dad and grandad ran an auto repair business. So did my great uncle. They'd despair at how a lot of customers are treated.

Okay. I beat you! I'm fourth generation in the motor trade. In fact my grandfather had stables for horse-drawn carriages before the carriage trade was motorised! It means my family was in the motor trade long before it became craven.

But at a very early age my father told me that for every garage that "takes on" the general public, there are a hundred people who regard all garages as fair game! Which is really how you described your attitude at the beginning!

You also said -

For some reason car sales and repair seem to bring out the worst in people.

- and that's very true! But it holds from the other side too!

I sometimes look in Money Saving Expert's forum and in the motoring section, even the expert "Psycho-Consumers" there repeat in new thread after new thread that peoples' expectations are way too high and that, for example, a twelve year old, £1000 car purchase is not required by law to have all brand new tyres and brake pads that never need replacement.

So let me ask a sincere question to you - and to everyone else who swears by the perfect local garage they use. Sooner or later your garage is likely to encounter a problem that they cannot resolve easily or cheaply or that recurs. What will your reaction be then? That they're every bit as caring and trustworthy as a doctor or a vet but like the doctor and the vet, they are human and fallible or that they were Charlatans and incompetent rogues all along like all other garages, but it has taken a long time to find out that truth? In thirty years of garage ownership, I've encountered both reactions!

With regard to your opening post, Suz, it's conceivable that the vendors decided that they sold the car too cheap and wanted to get out of the deal, but if they were that clever, wouldn't they have been clever enough to "blow up" the engine immediately, rather than tie up their DEPRECIATING stock for weeks before they could sell it for a better price? "We" really crooked car dealers are really quite quick thinking you know!!

I suspect, reading between the lines, it's more likely they bought cheap, sold cheap and found it was a pig in a poke! So they've desperately been trying to sort it out before they delivered it to a customer and were liable under the Sale of Goods Act.

Either way, as explained, your friend has been offered a bit of compensation, so they're getting a bit of interest on the money they tied up for two weeks - which is better than the banks give!

Of course, it could be there's no car at all and it has all been a complete con-trick, and your friend will never see their money again, but in that case it is straightforward, criminal fraud; obtaining money by deception, and nothing to do with car dealing and car dealers! After all, there's even a "Disputed Trades Forum" here. Even one or two TP members seem to have committed outrageous frauds on the back of pretending to deliver something another TP member wanted!

Which leads me to -

I would love to see the reaction if some mechanic came on here and tarred all photographers as thieving DIRT!

It turns out that most of you bloody idiots put up with it!

You still come round to my house and thieve my food and drink though! :razz:

 

[fracster]

I`ll answer you bud. I bought a ten year old Nissan Patrol, paid a fair sum for it, I thought. Day one the oil cooler pipes blew. The local trader picked it up and fixed it. It appears the guys who fixed it just bypassed the oil cooler. Not happy,at all. But, and it is a big but, he told me to take it to the garage I have used for all my 4x4s, get it fixed to my standard and he would foot the bill, this happened and ,true to his word, he picked up the bill,circa £350 IIRC. So any money he made on that car he lost most if not all of it.

Yes, I bought an old car and have had to have work done to it, but i`m realistic about that. If I wanted trouble free motoring,I should have bought a new car, not a ten year old one.

I was happy with how he sorted the problem out and was happy with the car and the price I paid. When my daughter needed a car, i went and bought a little Yaris off him, he remembered me and knocked me some brass off the Toyota.

No complaints, local trader and he sorted the problem out as quickly as he could.

Garage owner type chap who looks after the Patrol is good,damned good on 4x4s, is not overly expensive and goes out of his way to sort jobs out. We had a problem that took three visits to sort out, it was one of those "now and again" problems, he is human and makes mistakes, but his honesty and service is to be applauded.I would not take my car anywhere else.

When can I come for dinner?

 

[srichards]

The dealer themselves seem to check out. A friend phoned and asked about the car and they said it shouldn't have been on the site as it was sold waiting for a repair. Its also gone off autotrader. One of the sales people said they really wanted the car so I'm wondering if they promised it to them and another sold it and this is how the story of 'faults' has unfolded. She asked for proof of the repair and I don't think she's had any so I think there is something odd going on. The unexpected blow up could be down to them potentially using somewhere dodgy for timing belt and water pump changes. A suspicious number of theirs for sale seem to mention having that done recently and the failure was a classic sign of that either a) been done wrongly or b) not done at all and they were caught out. They did offer another one but more money at the end of the week but if they have bought a pup what's the odds of them having bought another?? I said run away with the money even though it will be hard work finding another. It took a couple of weeks to sift this one out of the dross.

I have reminded her several times she is buying an old car so it will have problems. Considering the last over priced ancient heap she bought when left to her own devices this slightly dodgy one is actually an improvement.

The garage I use at the moment has made the odd mistake. It's how they resolve it that matters. That's what keeps me using them. I don't get any BS. Others I have used have just dismissed mistakes out of hand so I don't use them any more. I don't get lied to. If they say something is needs replacing, it does. If they say it has X amount of life in it then it they're usually right. Once they stop behaving like that they won't be used any more either but I don't think they're that kind of people.

 

[big soft moose]

Ignoring all the coblers - did your freind pay any part of the price with her credit card - if so she may be able to invoke sect 75 which ought to scare a dodgy dealer into compliance

( I usually like to put the deposit on my credit card for this reason - i just pay it off straight away so it doesnt incur interest)

 

[srichards]

Ignoring all the coblers - did your freind pay any part of the price with her credit card - if so she may be able to invoke sect 75 which ought to scare a dodgy dealer into compliance

( I usually like to put the deposit on my credit card for this reason - i just pay it off straight away so it doesnt incur interest)

Sadly no. That's what I told her to do. I'm not entirely sure she has one though.

 

[big soft moose]

pity - in future she could use a prepay card like cashplus and still qualify

(the other thing is did she get a specific credit agreement .. if she did she can still invoke sect 75 - not for bankloans however )

 

[srichards]

pity - in future she could use a prepay card like cashplus and still qualify

(the other thing is did she get a specific credit agreement .. if she did she can still invoke sect 75 - not for bankloans however )

Never new that. I'll mention a cashplus card to her.

 

[MWHCVT]

pity - in future she could use a prepay card like cashplus and still qualify

(the other thing is did she get a specific credit agreement .. if she did she can still invoke sect 75 - not for bankloans however )

I'm not sure that a pre-paid card has the same protection as a credit card the card provider is not providing a credit facility and the may not be a credit agreement as part of the card account

 

[big soft moose]

yes and no - cashplus claim they provide the same protection - its not legal protection under sect 75 per se - but their terms and conditions make them jointly liable

see the bottom of the page here

 

[srichards]

Update.

Refund and extra money that was promised on Tuesday still hasn't materialised. Now they're wanting to post a cheque.

I can't see how they could be given any benefit of the doubt any more. It's very simple to refund money. They have her bank details so there is no reason why they couldn't have done it already.

 

[Simplythebeast]

I love the way people generalise about all car dealers . There are more than 12,500 of them in the UK so if you had bought 50 cars, each from a different dealer, you would still have only dealt with less than one half of one per cent of them. Im sure there must be one or two decent ones out there. In fact apart from the fact that I rarely get the part exchange price that I think I should get, I've only had poor service from a small per cent of those dealers Ive used over the past 40 years.

 

[cambsno]

Regardless of the fact that I work in the motor trade I am dumbfounded that someone has the stupidity to buy a vehicle without seeing it. Yes all garages should have a duty of care to their customers, some do this better than others but there are two sides to every story...

Totally agree.