EPV

You’re a little bit awry on this one mate. If you can prove (and I mean prove beyond doubt) that the car did not have the fault at the POS then you’re not liable to provide a fix. Forget warranties and goodwill and customer service for now, i’m talking what the law says. Of course, proving it isn’t simple. A gearbox could be failing before sale, during the sale, 2 months after the sale before it gets to the point it becomes undrivable. A car stalling because of a faulty idle regulator (i’m not a mechanic don’t quote me on the finer points) that clearly wasn’t stalling when sold and hasn’t stalled for 4 months is a fault that has developed and you’re not liable. The customer has been unlucky. Again, forget whether you would as a course of goodwill or customer relations or guilt, fix it for them. I’m speaking purely about entitlement under the law.

That’s a grey area. How can you prove that a gearbox wasn’t failing gradually or a set of rings weren’t deteriorating gradually? I wouldn’t hang your hat on that one. But yes, I agree, you shouldn’t be fixing all faults carte Blanche so if that’s the wording, best avoided imo.

Looks pretty standard to me and nothing the CRA doesn’t already state.

I think it’s at any stage mate. If someone puts 2,000 miles on a car in 3 weeks it’s hardly reasonable to give a full refund?

I dunno mate, that one is black and white in the CRA. Difficult for even a bad tempered car dealer hating judge to negotiate around black and white law. The amount though is most definitely a finger in the air.

Well yes, he can make a fair offer and it’s all negotiable at that point. If they refuse and want the full value back at that point they are in the wrong and i’d then say my offer is final and refuse to correspond any further. It would then surely come down to a judge to determine the amount the OP has to refund.

He’d lose in court. All day long. I do but only if they want to be worked with. Based on what’s been said, they have spoke directly to the finance company who are technically the owners of the car. If they’re going down that route it seems the billy doesn’t want to be worked with. Pointless trying to pretend this is anything but a nailed on long drawn out battle ending in a very quick loss for the OP.

I think you may have missed my point squire. Yes you CAN make those margins but you are unlikely to sell 4 cars on the bounce with those sorts of margins on. You may make £2,000, £750, £100 and a £200 loss. The point I was making is, it’s not as simple as selling 4 cars with £2k instead of 8 cars with £1k.

This is essentially the legal side of things in a nutshell. I think whether the fault was there at the point of sale is a moot point here, something like valve stems failing doesn’t happen overnight and could have been failing before, during and after the POS. A judge could easily be convinced the fault was there at the POS. So that leaves you in a position where you sold the car with a fault, whether you did or didn’t, is academic. It can’t be proven. What matters here is whether the consumer put 2000 miles on and then complained of the fault or whether they put say 500 miles on and then complained only to put another 1500 miles on. The difference being in the first instance you could deduct a thousand pounds off for usage, the second you could deduct usage and a bit more for the fact they have potentially made the car worse by continuing to use it. There’s nothing in the CRA to define what you can deduct for usage, just that you can, and your offer to buy it back cannot be trade value. Given what you’ve said, it seems very unlikely that in the time between sale and the complaint, that’s the car would be using oil so much that it became low enough to cause issues. It would need to be an oil leak which although you may argue they should have noticed, it shouldn’t have been leaking oil in the first place. The answer to your question is yes you can make a deduction for the 2,000 miles covered but i’d also be offering them a couple of hundred quid over book price on the basis of them driving the car and possibly causing more damage. If they did drive it on after the complaint.

Is anyone else a bit fucked off with these “this is my first post and i’ve got a major headache can anyone help?” type posts? We had one last month, the op got loads of free helpful advice and was shortly never to be seen again.

Sounds lovely but let’s be honest, no one is selling 4 cars on the bounce all with that sort of margin across them. Certainly not run of the mill or 8 year old stuff.

That looks like a generic code to me, what diagnostics tool are you using?

Correct. The images are scaled down. You can still get some great photos but for me it’s more about correct lighting, right distance from the car etc than having super high definition.

Proper blast from the past that one

Do a search on the forum mate there’s loads about this subject.

Great to hear mate, that upgrade in package is making the difference...

Obviously we all have our own experiences but I was just using Autotraders top 10 list of most searched cars and 7 from 10 are German cars. I also realise AT aren't the be all and end all but the fact is they are by some distance the most viewed platform in the industry so I'd say if 7 from 10 of their most viewed cars are German, that makes German cars extremely popular. Of course we all have our own view and preferences and worse at times, our own experiences! For balance, I had a pair of polish lads rock up last night, bought a 9 year old C Class Estate with 103,000 miles on, bought it with a few cosmetic issues I'd told them I'd sort (they wanted the car ASAP for work) and didn't mention a warranty. Paid and gone within the hour.

Speak as you find as Mark says. If you deal in one type of car sooner or later you will get comebacks. The fact remains that German cars are extremely popular. As a dealer it’s risk vs reward. For me i’m happy to take the risks as I know the margins are generally better and the speed of sale quicker.

I’m going to stick my neck out and say they’ll try their best but they’ll still be miles behind AT.

Have you had it back? Is it 100% diagnoses?

Cazanas pricing is too often wildly wrong imo. i pay AT £3.50 per check plus £1 for mileage guarantee.

I did an inordinate amount of reading about this one because I was looking at buying a car with a stop start fault light on and all roads led back to the battery

Naturally I don’t think you can sell a £7k car with the boot not operating properly. Or the CD player jammed. But on a £3k car, that is otherwise mechanically sound, I point it out, write it on the PDI sheet and billy signs it.

I had a lengthy email conversation with a chap who’s spoken English isn’t good. The only time I would entertain it. Any other time it’s a couple of emails and then “ring me” anyway he’s back and forth about the price of the car, then the valuation of his gem of a 12 year old Mazda, before going quiet. I had another enquiry the following day so I chased the initial bloke up out of courtesy to be told “i’ll let you know this afternoon” well blow me I took a dipper off enquiry number 2 and one hour later received an email off billy number one proudly telling me he will take the car. Erm, you won’t sunshine...

Ridiculous. If I sell a car with lightly lipped discs and 40% pads and a Customer buys a car and hoons it around like Lewis Hamilton on Amphetamines for 2 months he’s not entitled to feel hard done by. I’m selling a used vehicle. Every part of it is used and susceptible to wear and tear. Everything. Why should I put new pads and discs on if they’re lightly lipped or 70% worn?