EPV

Personally I wouldn’t mention a warranty. They are of no consequence in this situation and I think you just need to be factual. Dear xxx, BY POST AND EMAIL ONLY RE: VW Polo registration xxxxx Further to our most recent telecom, i’m afraid I will not be providing a full refund as you requested. It is my right under the CRA 2015 to make an adjustment to any refund amount, owing to usage. As you have refused to provide me with the mileage, I cannot make a fixed price offer of a refund but my offer will be in line with HMRC’s guidelines for expense claims of 45p per mile. As an example, if you have covered 3,000 miles the reduction would be £1,260. The mileage at the point of sale was 67,xxx. If this offer isn’t acceptable to you, I would be happy to receive the car back from you to diagnose what the cause of the EML is, which could be something very simple. EML’s cover thousands of codes and without a proper diagnoses it’s impossible for me to offer a resolution. Please note however that if the EML is indicating a fault that is a result of wear and tear, as this is excluded from the CRA 2015 I would not be legally obliged to rectify this. With that said, given your unfortunate run of luck with this vehicle, I would be open minded enough to help with the costs of the repair to some degree or another. As mentioned though I cannot do any of this without the car back in my possession for diagnoses. I am here to help if you will allow me and I am willing to stand by my obligations under the law and beyond if needs be, in order to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion for you and your daughter. Regards, selfy

Yep, he does seem to have an air of someone who wants to take on the nasty car dealer and fly to his daughters rescue. I feel sorry for his daughter, she's been unlucky and bought a pain in the arse car. But that's life isn't it, shit happens, you have to deal with it. Doesn't make you above the law and this fella is making himself look very unreasonable. Beans or no beans.

I'm willing to bet that if the billy about turns and says to the OP "ok, give me £2300 less £1500 for usage" then OP will find that £800 from somewhere...

There are easier ways to keep warm this winter...

Love it, first hand experience. I'm gonna take a guess that once the billy is in receipt of the OP's letter, he'll take advice, realise the OP is right and either take the offer of refund or bring it back for a repair/diagnosis.

I think it’s a classic sign of someone who has bought a cheap old car (well his daughter has) and he thinks he’s entitled to certain things he is not entitled to. He’s not as clever as he thinks because by refusing to hand over the mileage and refusing a repair he’s painting himself as an unreasonable person and trying to bully the OP into his unlawful demands. Dont give this character any credit, he’s trying to be a hard man in front of his daughter and actually tripping himself up.

Ok. Write to him stating that you are willing to offer a refund of the purchase price less a deduction of 45p per mile for the miles travelled since the sale. State you have drawn on the HMRC guidelines for the 45p per mile and used the CRA 2015 as your right to reduce the refund in line with usage. State if this isn’t acceptable to him you are prepared to diagnose the fault on the car and you MAY repair the fault based on the findings, however under the terms of the CRA 2015 you may not repair the fault if it is a result of wear and tear which is specifically excluded from the Act. Reiterate you are willing to help resolve this. He cannot refuse either of these options and imo you would be seen to be a reasonable person in the eyes of any sane judge should it go that way. Don’t enter into any further conversations after that and leave it and get on with your life. Saddle up, you may be in for a ride, equally he may accept your reasonable offers.

I reckon some of the clients we all deal with were created from a direct result of that

Not sure this would count as an end of life banger but either way the EML could be for a misfire for all we know, which would count as a major mechanical issue I expect. Anyway, it's not about the 30 day right to reject period, which has long since elapsed but I'm wondering if technically a judge could say "well it appeared after 3 days, it's now been on twice since you fixed it, it hasn't been fixed, so the punter has a right to refund/replacement" which is presumably why Dave was suggesting it's important to get proof it is a different fault, which I do agree with. If the fault is proved to be a different fault from the initial one, then there is only a repair available to the billy and even that may not be available if the fault is down to wear and tear, spark plugs for example. Most of this is all going to be lost in conversation between OP and billy I expect but I think it helps everyone if we can all learn from each other.

There's always Match or eHarmony you know TG, if you're hard up

Yes but the only way I can see this being a refund is if OP cannot prove the fault is a new one not the same pre-existing one that first fired up a few days after sale. Under the CRA you have one go at fixing a fault and if you can't, the billy has further rights and can seek a replacement or refund. Seems unlikely it's the same fault but as Dave was alluding to, a yellow light is a yellow light to a judge, he may take a view that the car has a persistent fault that wasn't fixed from day one and as OP has had a couple of goes at it now, the billy has the right to a refund/replacement.

I imagine what Tradex is getting at is the contract here for the ECU is between OP and the garage. If it were between the billy and garage then OP could just refer the billy to the garage he chose as it’s someone else’s repair, or words to that effect.

Good luck mate, you seem to be trying to do the right thing by the car and customer and you’ve been unlucky and now the customer is trying to lead you by the nose. I think everyone on here wants to see you come out with a good result.

I’d also say thoroughbreds are easier to predict than cars as well!

I kind of feel like this is going round in circles mate. To be fair you’ve had a lot to take in. Read the thread again in the morning. IMO he isn’t entitled to a refund at all. If you do make an offer it will be to suit you not him (quiet life) If he mellows and wants a fix then tell him to bring the car back to you, you will diagnose and depending on the diagnoses you MAY repair but if it’s down to wear and tear you will not repair and he’s on his own. I do agree with Dave here on the point that if you do get to the diagnosing the fault stage you need to have good evidence that the new fault isn’t the previous one resurfacing. That’s important. Pretty much pointless looking past that at this stage who knows how it will go for you. Incidentally there’s nothing wrong with something along the lines of Nick’s letter but if you want to be covering your arse in the event of going long haul on this then you need to know the correct way to cover yourself imo.

My dad also used to bet but he’s pretty fucking bad at it so luckily I never took after him. It’s quite similar to auctions. You need to know when the prices are wrong and act on it.

I get the feeling once you tell him he’ll be getting a refund less £1500 (assumptions made on my part there) he won’t be accepting it anyway. So you may not have any choice on the quiet life/noisy life front.

I love a bet. This time last year I had 12 people putting bets on for me as I couldn’t get a bet on in my own name. In the end it became too stressful, I started losing me Barnet, lost half of what I won and quit well in front. I then used my winnings to start funding a car sales business. Chip pan and fire eh?

Citizens advice? Why? They give consumers bad advice, what makes you think you’ll get better advice as a trader? You still haven’t actually told us what you want to do. Quiet life; refund less hmrc guidance for 45p per mile. If he rejects reply saying you will diagnose the fault if he returns the car to you and subject to the findings you MAY repair if you’re obliged to do so. Noisy life; Respond saying you won’t be refunding as you’re not legally obliged to do so but you will diagnose the fault if he returns the car to you and subject to the findings you MAY repair if you’re obliged to do so. Don’t bother debating anything else. Those are his choices.

Which is what I asked OP initially OP, again, what do you want? A quiet life or do you want to be putting this customer on the back foot and in control of the situation, even if that means more headache and possibly a court appearance?

But I thought the customer insisted on a refund? This is what I was saying earlier, all the facts are needed to offer proper advice. So does he want a repair or a refund?

What do you mean Oh dear? The consumer is past the 30 day right to reject. He MAY be entitled to a repair depending on what is broken. He is not entitled to a refund whatsoever. He hasn’t asked for a repair (yet) and if he does the OP will have to at least get it diagnosed. Could you explain how it’s even possible the consumer could successfully take the OP to court and win a refund based on what we know? I appreciate you have been to court Dave but we are advising someone on whether a consumer is entitled to a refund here. He isn’t.

But that’s what the point is here. The OP is asking if the punter is entitled to a refund. The answer is, no he fucking well ain’t. The punter needs to be told that If the punter then takes OP to court for a refund he will lose. If however the punter tempers his expectations and instead asks for the problem to be fixed then yes, as I posted above, the punter needs to get the car diagnosed and then the OP can make a decision on whether to help or not.

Ok well that’s not what you said mate, you said about the OP going to have a non commital look, inspecting the oil etc. Anyway, don’t you think, based on what we know, assuming that the car has done a couple of thousand miles since the ECU was replaced, that IF it did go to court (punter looking for a refund) OP would walk this? The punter is not entitled to a refund. At all.

I think to use Arfur’s analogy you’ve given an inch and he’s taken a mile. You’ve done the job right I think mate.