Motor dealership - unsatisfactory goods

[jonevns1990]

Hello all,

We purchased a vehicle around 4 months ago, in that time we have experienced 3 notable issues with the car that the dealership have openly recognised and made attempts to fix.

However, due to losing faith in the reliability we have stated we reject the vehicle under the Consumer Rights Act, specifically Chapter 2.

The dealership have offered a new PCP
agreement with a similar vehicle however this is £50 more per month, we are just not in a position where we can afford this.

We have stated this and the dealer principle directed us to their contracted T+Cs, stating;

'In the event that the Customer is a consumer and rejects the Goods pursuant to Chapter 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015, we reserves its right to make a deduction from the refund payable to the Customer to account for the Customer’s use of the Goods, pursuant to section 24(8) of the Consumer Rights Act 2015

Where do we legally stand with this? We have purchased a car in good faith which the dealership have recognised has multiple faults. Does the dealership have the right to leave is out of pocket and should they realistically supply us with a PCP that meets our needs and expectations of the initial vehicle we purchased?

Thank you for your help all,
J

[Pezza54]

Provided you are a consumer and you haven't used the car for business, you can reject the car within 6 months if a serious fault presents itself and the dealer is unable to fix the fault
The dealer is correct, he can deduct from the refund for the customer's use of the car. The court normally calculates this deduction at 20p-40p per mile, depending on the value of the vehicle.

[R0b]

I suspect you have fallen into the same trap as many other consumers. If the car has been financed such as a PCP arrangement, the dealership owes no obligation to you and you may be barking up the wrong tree.

A car sale that is financed on a hire-purchase arrangement (PCP a type of hire-purchase) means that the dealership is not the seller and you are not their customer. It is effectively a 3 way agreement where the dealership agrees to sell the car to the finance company who in turn then agrees to contract with you as a consumer under the hire-purchase agreement. In effect, your contract is with the fiance company and not the dealership who was merely acting as the agent when the paperwork was done.

You need to contact the finance company directly as that is who your contract is with, otherwise, you remain in a legally binding contract and not following the correct process could be very costly to you.

I would recommend that you contact the finance company who your contract is with (you may need to check the paperwork as to who this is) and write to them explaining the situation. Most finance companies will ask you to go to their preferred dealership but you can say in your letter you have already done this several times and the dealership has openly admitted the issues. These issues despite having attempted repairs continue to remain unresolved and under the Consumer Rights Act you are entitled to reject the goods if the issue is not resolved at one repair attempt. Therefore you are seeking to terminate the agreement with immediate effect and ask them to confirm the same by return.

The more information you give them the better so make sure to include names of the dealerships, their address, the people you have spoken to and any paperwork or emails that you have received from them to back up your story. It may be that the finance company asks you to go back to a different dealer for another opinion before they agree to terminate the agreement and quite honestly I don't think you can refuse, because you didn't go to them in the first place and decided to bypass them to try and get it repaired, you didn't actually communicate to the finance company there was a problem so this will be the first time they have heard of it.

[Manxman]

This is why I think any car "purchase" scheme which is not an outright purchase is a really bad idea unless the consumer knows exactly what their rights are under the agreement, and exactly whom those rights can be enforced against

[R0b]

This is why I think any car "purchase" scheme which is not an outright purchase is a really bad idea unless the consumer knows exactly what their rights are under the agreement, and exactly whom those rights can be enforced against

You do get this information, but many people choose to ignore and then make assumptions.

Any financial credit transaction with a consumer requires the creditor to produce a summary sheet with the key information called the pre-contract information or otherwise known as SECCI document (Standard European Consumer Credit Information). It is a prescribed document and should detail the creditor and information as the first point.