New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

[vickydumbell]

After consulting the manufacturers website and referring to a brochure given to us by the dealer, we ordered a brand new car in July to our specification (the first time we have ever been in a position to do this) and we collected it at the end of September.

The day after collection one of my kids said mum you said we would have electric windows in the back and we haven't.

I phoned the dealer who blamed the manufacturer. The manufacturer says it was up to the dealer to tell us that there had been a change in the specification of the model we orderded and that in the small print it says that the manufacturer may change specifications at any time.

The manufacturers website was still stating 12 days after we took delivery that our model came with electric rear windows and I have a printed copy of this and a screen shot of the web page as proof.

I am now going to send a letter recorded delivery to the dealer asking them to put it right under the Sale of Goods Act 1979.

Some people may think I am being petty when it is just electric windows but when you get all excited about having ordered a car with what you want and look forward to it being built and then delivered, it kind of takes the skin off the top of the excitement. Instead of enjoying our first brand new car I am having to argue for what I ordered. I am getting a bit p****d off at people being mugged off.
The issue I have is what do I do about the finance company also as the agreement is a Conditional Sale agreement and as far as we are concerned we did not receive the goods we ordered.

Does anyone have any further advice as to what we can do.

[Caspar]

Re: New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

This covers most of what you will need to know under the Sales of Goods Act. Most importantly, if the goods do not 'confrom to contract' it is the sellers responsibility and not the manufacturers.

[ARCHIVED CONTENT] Sale of Goods Act Fact Sheet - BIS

As regards the Conditional Sale Agreement, there should be a clause about cancellation in it. I think you are on more dodgy ground here having signed and thus agreed to the contract. You can hand the car back to the seller, but the seller is likely to entitled to half the payments due under the contract.

I would suggest that the best route to pursue is that the goods do not conform to contract as thr act says goods must be as described and yours are not.

[vickydumbell]

Re: New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

I am not trying to get out of the agreement as I fortunately got a 0% apr so I am happy on that score, it is just that when I spoke to Consumer Direct they said that I should also inform the finance company but I am unsure as to what I should be saying to them as I am not too sure what a Conditional Sale Agreement means.

[Caspar]

Re: New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

For Basiscs: Hire purchase and Conditional sale

For a bit more detail: Conditional sale agreements: a guide for consumers

Hope this helps.

[vickydumbell]

Re: New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

just posting this as further reading incase anyone else comes to the site looking for help regarding a similar issue and will post as and when I have more news.

I sent a letter requesting a refit of the electric windows and received a phone call with their reponse which you can read about in the letter below that I am about

RE: The Sale of Goods Act 1979 (as amended)

I have been advised by Consumer Direct to keep all communication by way of letter and I would appreciate it if you could do the same

I write further to our telephone conversation regarding the vehicle which was bought on the 30 Sep 2011 which was not as described.

We are not happy with the offer of either, after sales fit electric rear windows or rear parking sensors as neither of these are what we wanted when we placed the order for our car. You stated that after sales electric windows will compromise the cosmetic look inside the vehicle and that they would not be covered by the warranty we currently have on the vehicle as they are not manufacturer windows and that we may want to choose something different so as not to compromise this and this could be something like rear parking sensors which can be quite useful on a large estate car

The two main features that we particularly wanted when we placed our order were electric rear windows and the ergonomic sports seats and is the reason we chose the A model over the B model as according to the information we had regarding the specifications of both models, you could not add these features as an extra onto the B model. Both of these features were also mentioned to sales exec when we were deciding between the 2 models and there was never any mention of the fact that we would be ordering a 2012 A model that would not come with electric rear windows and had to be added as an extra or that the new specifications for a 2012 B model states that you can add both of these features that we wanted as an extra at a saving of approximately £1700 and the only additional extras we would get for this £1700 on the purchase of the A model would have been tinted glass, aluminium pedals and the letters A on the side, which would have meant that we could have added other luxury extras like front and rear parking sensors and still had money to spare

By not informing us that we could have had the features that we wanted and which we stated that we wanted to sales exec, as extra’s on the B model as we would have been ordering a 2012 model and the specifications for each model had changed, it would appear that we were knowingly sold a more expensive model as a result of not informing us of specification changes to either model.

After sales fit electric windows are a cost saving measure for yourself as when you were asked why manufacturer windows could not be fitted you stated that it would be too expensive to fit (approximately £1000 when prompted for a figure). You then went on to say that you would not fit £1000 worth of extras to the vehicle

We are not asking you to fit £1000 worth of extras to the vehicle, this is not about trying to get one over on you as it feels you have done to us by not informing us of the specification changes, at a cost of approximately £1700 to ourselves, it is about having what we placed an order for based on the specifications for this model which stated that it had electrically operated rear windows

Under the Sale of Goods Act 1979 as amended, so as not to compromise either the interior of our car or our warranty and in accordance with the description we based our purchase on, which was still stated on the internet 12 days after we took delivery that electric rear windows were fitted as standard and which I have documentary evidence of, along with the fact that it appears that we were knowingly sold a more expensive model, we do not think it is unreasonable to claim a refit of manufacturer electrically operated rear windows to our vehicle and if necessary we will seek this refit through the courts along with damages and costs

We look forward to your response forthwith

Yours faithfully

[teaboy2]

Re: New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

Looks good to me, though it would be easier reading if you fixed the issues with the fonts scripts appear in your post, best way is to edit your post and highlight it all and change the font to a single font. Which should work

Keep us updated anyway.

[vickydumbell]

Re: New Car Not As Described Sales Of Goods Act

Fixed