Help required. Consumer rights/verbal warranty

[Flip 0]

Hi guys,

 

Before I start just bare in mind that i’m just starting out in this game so forgive me for what you’re about to read.

 

3 weeks ago a young man travelled 5 hours to fetch a big engined Volkswagen that had done just under 100k miles. Sale price 4K.

 

He went on to drive 300 miles home (and going on what he was telling me on the test drive) he was going back to show off how fast it was to his friends. 

 

This week I get a call to say the entire engines gone bang. Piston damage. 

 

My guess is that he’s done over 1000 miles since purchase.

 

A couple days before he bought the car he asked via text if it came with warranty, I replied that I usually just offer a month and he agreed. No discussion of what the warranty included. No mention of warranty on collection and no physical warranty document or emails exchanged. 

 

With this happening within a month he is obviously asking about the 1 month warranty.

 

Now the Warranty forms I’m using for the time being are just used car warranty pads which state :

 

Parts and Labour -

50% buyer 

50% seller 

 

Work to be carried out by the seller or their agents and is the responsibility of the buyer to get the vehicle to the agents.

 

Max payout by seller £1000. 

 

I guess my question after all of this is am I in any position to ask for the above? 

 

Or are my hands tied by the consumer rights laws anyway?

 

Is the fact he drove the car 300 miles home then drove the car for 3 weeks help me in arguing that the issue wasn’t there at the point of sale?

 

Car MOT’D and PDI checked 2 days before collection. 

 

 

Any help much appreciated.

Edited February 14, 2019 by Flip

[EPV 631]

You need a proper diagnosis. “Gone bang” doesn’t tell you much. If he’s been showing off to his friends, has he been ragging it shitless, red lining it beyond its capacity?

You need a proper diagnosis. 

Generally speaking though, with something like this, you’ll lose in court. Whatever the law says etc, someone has bought a £4K car from you and three weeks later it’s “gone bang” which is all that will be seen by a judge. 

Get a proper diagnosis done, full independent inspection and with any luck the report will say the punter ragged the nuts out of it, slipped it into second at 50mph, sent the revs through the roof and caused the “bang” 

 

[It's me 615]

38 minutes ago, Flip said:

Hi guys,

 

Before I start just bare in mind that i’m just starting out in this game so forgive me for what you’re about to read.

 

3 weeks ago a young man travelled 5 hours to fetch a big engined Volkswagen that had done just under 100k miles. Sale price 4K.

 

He went on to drive 300 miles home (and going on what he was telling me on the test drive) he was going back to show off how fast it was to his friends. 

 

This week I get a call to say the entire engines gone bang. Piston damage. 

 

My guess is that he’s done over 1000 miles since purchase.

 

A couple days before he bought the car he asked via text if it came with warranty, I replied that I usually just offer a month and he agreed. No discussion of what the warranty included. No mention of warranty on collection and no physical warranty document or emails exchanged. 

 

With this happening within a month he is obviously asking about the 1 month warranty.

 

Now the Warranty forms I’m using for the time being are just used car warranty pads which state :

 

Parts and Labour -

50% buyer 

50% seller 

 

Work to be carried out by the seller or their agents and is the responsibility of the buyer to get the vehicle to the agents.

 

Max payout by seller £1000. 

 

I guess my question after all of this is am I in any position to ask for the above? 

 

Or are my hands tied by the consumer rights laws anyway?

 

Is the fact he drove the car 300 miles home then drove the car for 3 weeks help me in arguing that the issue wasn’t there at the point of sale?

 

Car MOT’D and PDI checked 2 days before collection. 

 

 

Any help much appreciated.

your 50 50 warranty is worthless as it takes away consumer rights

he told you he was an arse  on the test drive,you really need to learn from this and not sell s/h cars to people with no mechanical sympathy that are going to break the toys 

in court you are screwed

sorry but you have broke every rule to make a sale

the help you ask is as said get inspected independently and if seen in your favour then run with possible court action but at 3 weeks old to customer be prepared to lose and dont forget additional charges can add another 2/3 costs to original claim of money back 

oh and welcome

[Flip 0]

34 minutes ago, EPV said:

You need a proper diagnosis. “Gone bang” doesn’t tell you much. If he’s been showing off to his friends, has he been ragging it shitless, red lining it beyond its capacity?

You need a proper diagnosis. 

Generally speaking though, with something like this, you’ll lose in court. Whatever the law says etc, someone has bought a £4K car from you and three weeks later it’s “gone bang” which is all that will be seen by a judge. 

Get a proper diagnosis done, full independent inspection and with any luck the report will say the punter ragged the nuts out of it, slipped it into second at 50mph, sent the revs through the roof and caused the “bang” 

 

Thanks for reply. 

In terms of getting a diagnosis done, is this something I demand from buyer? Which will then he added on to the final settlement amount? (If i lose and gets that far) 

Regards

[Tony911 79]

Hi, from experience just get the car back pay customer his money and move on. Welcome to the motor trade

[Lucas 9]

Looks like within 30 days after sold. It's all on seller, no matter how perfect the pdi or condition was on collection. Is that right? Tough!

Edited February 14, 2019 by Lucas

[EPV 631]

22 minutes ago, Flip said:

Thanks for reply. 

In terms of getting a diagnosis done, is this something I demand from buyer? Which will then he added on to the final settlement amount? (If i lose and gets that far) 

Regards

Put it like this. 

Unless you can prove the “bang” is down to misuse you’re going to lose. The CRA tells us that within 30 days a reverse burden of proof exists meaning the customer has to prove the fault was existing at the point of sale. That doesn’t really matter from what I have read from old heads who have been to court. The judge will look at you like someone who has sold a fucked car to a poor unsuspecting member of the public. So for now, get the car inspected, on your pound note and if you can happen to prove it went bang due to misuse, be glad that all it cost you was £250 or whatever the inspection costs. 

It would be different if the customer was trying to reject a car because he got a puncture. You have sold him a car, it’s gone bang within a few weeks. This only end up with one winner. 

Take charge, get it inspected and go from there. 

A fellow trader off here, who has become something of a mentor to me, once said “you can be completely in the right at times yet still be wrong”

Never a truer word spoken I think. 

[CCC 31]

22 minutes ago, Tony911 said:

Hi, from experience just get the car back pay customer his money and move on. Welcome to the motor trade

This. Fighting it in court will cost you a lot of money on top of costs of repair. 

My guess would be snapped cambelt or chain, unless you’ve got proof it was done.

 

[justina3 518]

Once any judge sees you trying to wiggle out of your rights with this 50/50 dribble you will be skating on thin ice.

[whitestone679231 113]

Get the car back and see for yourself what is wrong before parting with any money,  a private saying an engine is fecked could be anything.... sort it or refund him..then rip up your warranty forms they make you look like a 70,s Arthur Daley you can’t legally treat a customer like that, if he buys a car from you and it is not fit for purpose you can’t expect to get away with going halves with him to make it fit for purpose and if it’s over a grand expect him to cough up the rest you are taking away his legal rights. 

[MrC 142]

T's&C's of a warranty verbal or otherwise mean sweet FA. 

[trade vet 703]

Hi Flip

Its all part of the learning process.Listen to the pros on here.Get the car back and check it out.It could be registered as a taxi or been modified and used for motor sport,never believe punters.Be prepared to negotiate a refund.Dont even think about going to court because the claimant could embellish the claim with consequential damages.The bottom line is,if you lose you have about a month to settle and if you default you get a big CCJ against you which will effect you for years to come.I have to tell you that worse things than this will happen in your first 18 months in this job.

[James01 21]

100% Listen to all the advice above.

You need to get the car returned back to yourself and get an expert to carry out an inspection to ascertain what, why and whom is at fault. It is important that you take back control of these sorts of situations.

Until you have established what the fault is you are just working on hyperthicals. 

[AutoJacob 34]

If you have only just started trading and are a ltd company, dissolve the company before a court case is filed and start under a new name but don't repeat the same stupid mistakes as you did this time round.

Some people might not agree with the above but in the real world this happens on a daily basis, it's no worse than PLCs hiring workers on a zero hour contract, minimum wage and getting rid of them whenever they please.

 

[Kes 7]

Just an idea- check this guy on social media. Maybe there's footage of some rough or competition use? Just saying...

[Tony911 79]

That is a brilliant idea selling cars as trade and using a invoice to state repairs bill is split 50/50 and max £1000 you wont get far providing service like that.. Just saying 

[It's me 615]

i remember 30+ years ago buying the books at the auction gate that covered engine and box but no bearings at a 50/50 rate

this was before prontaprint at 4 new pence a copy or the soon to come desktop publishing

[Dave2302 387]

Agree with everything said, just get it back to base, if it's fucked refund the twat, minus 50 pence per mile he's driven it, and do not sell to self confessed wankers like this again

[Nick M.K. 574]

2 hours ago, tradex said:

PS don't let this go close to a court. With your t&c's you will be fucked straight out of the gates

As I understood it there were NO written Ts & Cs as it was all verbal. 

Had there been written terms (1 month, 50/50, £1000 limit) it would've been worse for the OP as the document would be seen as trying to limit the consumer's rights.

[andymc1973 199]

3 hours ago, Dave2302 said:

Agree with everything said, just get it back to base, if it's fucked refund the twat, minus 50 pence per mile he's driven it, and do not sell to self confessed wankers like this again

you can't within 30 days 

6 hours ago, AutoJacob said:

If you have only just started trading and are a ltd company, dissolve the company before a court case is filed and start under a new name but don't repeat the same stupid mistakes as you did this time round.

Some people might not agree with the above but in the real world this happens on a daily basis, it's no worse than PLCs hiring workers on a zero hour contract, minimum wage and getting rid of them whenever they please.

 

so you're just going to bump the guy?

[BHM 994]

7 hours ago, trade vet said:

Hi Flip

Its all part of the learning process.Listen to the pros on here.Get the car back and check it out.It could be registered as a taxi or been modified and used for motor sport,never believe punters.Be prepared to negotiate a refund.Dont even think about going to court because the claimant could embellish the claim with consequential damages.The bottom line is,if you lose you have about a month to settle and if you default you get a big CCJ against you which will effect you for years to come.I have to tell you that worse things than this will happen in your first 18 months in this job.

More sage words from the Yoda of used retailing 

Tbh you are absolutely correct. I got a right kick up the arse after grafting for 12 months & realising I’d made sweet f.a. - this game can be very hard to master (not that I’ve mastered it) & it’s no wonder many wrap in within their first year. 

Ahhhh...you’ve brought back happy memories of my first difficult customer (a pair of right c**ts), my first shitter of a car, my first absolute shitter of a car that I resubmitted at the block (only for Manheim to insist on lotting it up as a non-runner), mistakenly getting involved in repairing a knackered autobox rather than taking a hit upfront, my realisation that other traders helping me with p/xs weren’t being entirely honest.......I’ll stop now before I jam up Car Dealer Magazine’s computer server with a virtually endless list.

[Tony F 38]

7 hours ago, Kes said:

Just an idea- check this guy on social media. Maybe there's footage of some rough or competition use? Just saying...

Good idea above. You never know... if u find nothing then you're bolloxsed..technically & legally speaking of course.

Friend of mine had an arshole cust giving him grief over an imprezza. He found footage on facebook of customer ragging the car. So he told him to fuck off!

[Mojo121 229]

9 hours ago, AutoJacob said:

If you have only just started trading and are a ltd company, dissolve the company before a court case is filed and start under a new name but don't repeat the same stupid mistakes as you did this time round.

Some people might not agree with the above but in the real world this happens on a daily basis, it's no worse than PLCs hiring workers on a zero hour contract, minimum wage and getting rid of them whenever they please.

 

Edited February 15, 2019 by Mojo121

[AutoJacob 34]

3 hours ago, andymc1973 said:

so you're just going to bump the guy?

Why have any sympathy if he has blown it up as a result of his own daft actions.

[Stalker 180]

I wouldn’t bother arguing, the op has already done a runner by the looks of it