Nightmare £43k Mercedes S-Class Purchase - Seeking Advice

[Ex09053]

Hi everyone,


I'm hoping to get some advice on a tricky situation with a car purchased by a dealer in early October 2023.


We bought a 2019 Mercedes S-Class with 49k miles for £43,000 from a dealer and paid via bank transfer. This was a PCO registered vehicle for Private Hire use in London and was bought for the use in my father’s chauffeuring business. Unfortunately, the car started having issues on the same day we bought it. Here’s a timeline of events:


Timeline:

- 18 Oct 23: Car purchased

- 18 Oct 23 11pm: Engine management light came on

- Within that week: Got the car checked at a local garage as advised by the dealer - reported an AdBlue issue

- 6 Nov 23: Took car back to dealer, they said everything is fine

- 10 Nov 23: Collected car from dealer

- 13 Nov 23: Engine management light returned

- 25 Nov 23: Dropped car back to dealer; he said he'd been driving it and it's fine

- 2 Dec 23: Collected car again from dealer

- 3 Dec 23: Engine management light appeared again

- 13 Dec 23: Car went to dealer again

- 24 Dec 23: Car returned

- 29 Dec 23: Engine management light appeared again

- 9 Jan 24: Took car to Mercedes for a check; dealer advised using a local mechanic for cheaper repairs (verbally, no written record)

- 28 Jan 24: Engine management light came back after about 2 weeks of minimal driving

- 2 Feb 24: Car went to a different mechanic for repair

- 19 Feb 24: Got car back from mechanic

- 21 Feb 24: Engine management light appeared again

- 8 Apr 24: Car SORN’d and no longer in use

- 19 Apr 24: Sent letter before action via solicitor


Despite spending around £5k on repairs, the car still has faults and the engine management light remains on. Had the car been repaired, we would have called it a day and left it at that (regardless of the fact that the dealer has not reimbursed us for these repairs). The car has been used for private hire and therefore covered 10k miles between October 2023 and April 2024, but it hasn't been driven since April due to the ongoing issues.


The letter before action sent by the solicitor states that we want to recover the following monies as of 19th April 2024:

- £5k for repairs made

- £43k for the car and the car rejected

- £6k for loss of earnings as the car is a public hire vehicle and was supposed to be used for business

- £2k legal costs

- Total approx £56k


On 12th June 2024, after much back and forth, the dealer offered three options, none of which seem fair to us:


1. Exchange the car for another one of his cars and he will reimburse the £5k we paid for repairs (but he currently doesn't have a similar car in stock and god knows when he will).


2. We keep the car (still with engine management light on and therefore still not fit for purpose) and he reimburses £5k for repairs.


3. Dealer takes the car back, deducts mileage at 50p per mile, but does not reimburse the £5k spent on repairs.


All these options leave us worse off by a fair bit for something which was not our fault.


In my head, the next step should be a final offer to the dealer to try and settle the issue (we’d be happy with around £43k being reimbursed to us). However, if he rejects this then I don’t see any other option than to take the matter to court. However, I have not been through the process before so the costs involved are the main deterrent at the moment as we don’t know how much we’ll be able to recover from said dealer. The dealer is a mid size dealer and has been in business for about 12 years (has plenty of stock so isn’t going anywhere soon).


What would you suggest as our next steps? Any advice or similar experiences would be really helpful!


Thanks in advance!

[Pezza54]

Please read the article at http://www.dpfspecialist.co.uk/merce...agement-light/
You should take your car to a dpf specialist to obtain a diagnostic report.
The dealer is arguing there is nothing wrong with the car. To strengthen your claim you need a specialist report.
Hopefully the specialist will identify the fault and from the timeline above (the eml appeared on the same day you bought the car) you have proof that the fault was present at the time of purchase.
If this turns out to be the case, go back to your solicitor and ask for his or her advice. You bought an expensive prestige car that is of unsatisfactory quality and not fit for purpose (breach of Sale of Goods Act 1979)

[Ex09053]

Please read the article at http://www.dpfspecialist.co.uk/merce...agement-light/
You should take your car to a dpf specialist to obtain a diagnostic report.
The dealer is arguing there is nothing wrong with the car. To strengthen your claim you need a specialist report.
Hopefully the specialist will identify the fault and from the timeline above (the eml appeared on the same day you bought the car) you have proof that the fault was present at the time of purchase.
If this turns out to be the case, go back to your solicitor and ask for his or her advice. You bought an expensive prestige car that is of unsatisfactory quality and not fit for purpose (breach of Sale of Goods Act 1979)

Thank you for your reply.

I will give the DPF specialists a call this afternoon. However, there are a range of issues with the car, the DPF is one, there apparently is also a turbo leak which was discovered when the mechanic was repairing the DPF issue. Overall, the mechanic advised that the car has many issues and should be returned and no more money should be spent on it.

Our solicitor was advising us to accept the £38k offer made by the dealer, which to be honest we don't think is acceptable. This is why I am trying to get other's opinions on next steps and also an idea on potential costs of going to court/anything else to be aware of since it will be our first time.

[Pezza54]

I am surprised that the mechanic said no more money should be spent on a £43k car. Does he think it should be written off?
If you can strengthen your claim with a diagnostic report, I suspect the dealer may up his offer, fearing he could lose a lot more in a court judgement.
In my opinion you should refuse the dealer's offer and point out that as the car cannot now be used for hire, your claim is increasing day by day
To avoid the time consuming and costs of a court claim you should consider making a counter offer

[Ex09053]

I am surprised that the mechanic said no more money should be spent on a £43k car. Does he think it should be written off?
If you can strengthen your claim with a diagnostic report, I suspect the dealer may up his offer, fearing he could lose a lot more in a court judgement.
In my opinion you should refuse the dealer's offer and point out that as the car cannot now be used for hire, your claim is increasing day by day
To avoid the time consuming and costs of a court claim you should consider making a counter offer

The idea behind the mechanic's suggestion of not spending any more money on the car was that there could be multiple more issues with the car, so it is just best to reject the car and buy a different car - if possible.

Are you able to give a high level idea of what costs are involved if we end up in court and how much of the costs are generally recoverable if one wins?

Thanks again for your input.

[Pezza54]

Your claim being £25k to £100k is likely to be allocated to the Intermediate Track with fixed recoverable costs.
Calculating fixed recoverable costs is not straight forward and depends on the complexity of the case
You should speak to your solicitor. Your case does not sound that complicated. He or she may be of the opinion that most of the legal costs, if not all, we be recoverable for the winning party

[DE DOGS]

Question. Did you take the car to a main Mercedes dealer for diagnostics? This is the question in my mind,if not why not? they would give you a complete report as to service/milage and any faults on previous repairs, keep in mind those are the relevant questions you need to ask.

[Missimaxo]

Something that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is that you bought the vehicle for private hire use and therefore this is a business to business transaction and usual consumer rights therefore do not apply. I'm not sure you have the same rights as consumer to reject the vehicle and if this gets allocated and lawyers get involved I suspect this will become part of their defence

[Pezza54]

You are right, and that's why I mentioned the Sale of Goods Act and not CRA in post 2

[Ex09053]

DE DOGS Yes the car was taken to Mercedes dealership on 9th Jan after we told the trader we want to reject the car. He then said not to reject it and that we can take it to Mercedes to get it checked and potentially repaired at his expense. So we got it checked by Mercedes and they gave a quote for the work. The trader then suggested we take the car to a local mechanic of our choice as it would be cheaper for him instead of paying Mercedes labour costs. We have a good relationship with two Mercedes specialists locally so we took the car to one of them and they carried out the work in Feb.

Missimaxo yes that’s right, the car was purchased to be used for private hire. However, it was sold to my father, not a company. I don’t know if this changes anything in terms of consumer rights? Lawyers are already involved, the trader has a firm called Lawgistics acting on their behalf.

[DE DOGS]

DE DOGS Yes the car was taken to Mercedes dealership on 9th Jan after we told the trader we want to reject the car. He then said not to reject it and that we can take it to Mercedes to get it checked and potentially repaired at his expense. So we got it checked by Mercedes and they gave a quote for the work. The trader then suggested we take the car to a local mechanic of our choice as it would be cheaper for him instead of paying Mercedes labour costs. We have a good relationship with two Mercedes specialists locally so we took the car to one of them and they carried out the work in Feb.

Missimaxo yes that’s right, the car was purchased to be used for private hire. However, it was sold to my father, not a company. I don’t know if this changes anything in terms of consumer rights? Lawyers are already involved, the trader has a firm called Lawgistics acting on their behalf.

I understand. The question is did you see the full / read the report? and also retain it for the future? in this case taking the case to Court you will need to show the Judge that you have complied in sourcing the problems,

[Pezza54]

As the car was bought for business purposes, CRA does not apply but SoGA does.
If it is proved that a serious fault existed with the goods at the time of purchase, Sections 13, 14 and 15A of SoGA apply and the goods can be rejected

If your solicitor is basing your claim on the CRA, my advice is to change your solicitor