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A friend recommended I post for advice here so that's what I'm doing!
On August 19th I paid £300 deposit for a Nissan Qashqai (12 plate) and then on August 20th I paid the outstanding balance of £6,090 and officially purchased the vehicle, paid for tax.
Upon collection the dealer informed me that they had just identified an issue with the radio that they'd not noticed before but assured me that they would call me when a replacement had arrived. The following day when driving to work, I noticed that the air conditioning didn't work so I Called them again and they said it was working fine before I took it away. Nonetheless they booked it into their chosen garage for the following week, and both myself and my husband had to take time off work short notice to do the pickup/drop offs (fitting in around a child who attends nursery). The garage had the car all day, but didn't tell me until very late in the day that the air con was a big job that would need an entire day to do, and the radio that the dealer provided was the wrong one.
So we booked in another weekday, again, at loss of time in work and the air con was fixed - thankfully that's the end of that issue. A couple of days later I hadn't heard from the dealer regarding a replacement radio so I dropped in and they did have it so it was fitted there and then - it doesn't work. The radio is ok, but there's no bluetooth connection, the CD changer doesn't work, and it's not recognising any kind of other connection (it was advertised as a bluetooth integrated cd radio). Turns out it's the wrong stereo again and they've said they can't replace it with a legit nissan one because they're expensive so they are 'looking into' other options.
Then yesterday (1st September) while driving between 60-70mph on a dual carriageway road, I suddenly lost power and began decelerating rapidly, forcing me to cut across traffic to get to a layby - not really relevant but I was incredibly upset at the thought of my 3yr old being in the car and something like that happening. Managed to drive the car to the dealer with the check engine light on, though with little to no acceleration (couldn't get it above 50mph and even that was a struggle).
The dealer did a diagnostic and said it was an engine fault that would need to be sorted in a garage but they didn't know when this could be done. I pointed out that in less than two weeks we've have four issues with this car and that it's not really what we would expect. He laughed and said that of course I should expect the unexpected with a used car which I found immensely rude, but hey, I'm a woman so I'm fairly used to getting attitude from car salespeople. I cannot take any more time out of work without losing more money which could potentially put us in a financial sticky spot, same for my husband. We've both had to take significant chunks of unpaid time off in the last two weeks (we both work out of town) and we can't just stick around in the hopes that a garage can fit us in.
We did our research last night and concluded that under the consumer rights act we could reject the vehicle and receive a refund - this made sense to me because this many problems in a 10-day period is unacceptable regardless if it's 'normal'. So my husband and I took the vehicle back this morning and the dealer was borderline aggressive with his insistence that "these things happen" and they'd need to see proof that the issue happened before we purchased - we know it didn't, but four problems in two weeks, three of which requiring time taken from work isn't acceptable. In their own words "yeah, this is what happens when you buy used cars". We were floored.
I left the car with them (I have kept hold of documents) and they're taking it to a garage tomorrow; they've said they won't give me a refund unless they can prove it's a significant problem. I appreciate I probably should have taken it to an independent dealer but here I am, and I've had to fork out for a rental car while this gets sorted (they refused to provide me with a courtesy car as they said they had no proof I didn't cause the damage (!!!!) ).
Can someone please help me? I cannot and will not put my child in that car, and while I appreciate that yes, it's unpredictable; this level of problems in less than two weeks is extremely inconvenient to say the least.
Am I in the right to pursue a refund or am I going to wind up just having to hope this car makes it more than a couple of weeks without an issue (assuming I don't end up losing my job in the meantime).
On August 19th I paid £300 deposit for a Nissan Qashqai (12 plate) and then on August 20th I paid the outstanding balance of £6,090 and officially purchased the vehicle, paid for tax.
Upon collection the dealer informed me that they had just identified an issue with the radio that they'd not noticed before but assured me that they would call me when a replacement had arrived. The following day when driving to work, I noticed that the air conditioning didn't work so I Called them again and they said it was working fine before I took it away. Nonetheless they booked it into their chosen garage for the following week, and both myself and my husband had to take time off work short notice to do the pickup/drop offs (fitting in around a child who attends nursery). The garage had the car all day, but didn't tell me until very late in the day that the air con was a big job that would need an entire day to do, and the radio that the dealer provided was the wrong one.
So we booked in another weekday, again, at loss of time in work and the air con was fixed - thankfully that's the end of that issue. A couple of days later I hadn't heard from the dealer regarding a replacement radio so I dropped in and they did have it so it was fitted there and then - it doesn't work. The radio is ok, but there's no bluetooth connection, the CD changer doesn't work, and it's not recognising any kind of other connection (it was advertised as a bluetooth integrated cd radio). Turns out it's the wrong stereo again and they've said they can't replace it with a legit nissan one because they're expensive so they are 'looking into' other options.
Then yesterday (1st September) while driving between 60-70mph on a dual carriageway road, I suddenly lost power and began decelerating rapidly, forcing me to cut across traffic to get to a layby - not really relevant but I was incredibly upset at the thought of my 3yr old being in the car and something like that happening. Managed to drive the car to the dealer with the check engine light on, though with little to no acceleration (couldn't get it above 50mph and even that was a struggle).
The dealer did a diagnostic and said it was an engine fault that would need to be sorted in a garage but they didn't know when this could be done. I pointed out that in less than two weeks we've have four issues with this car and that it's not really what we would expect. He laughed and said that of course I should expect the unexpected with a used car which I found immensely rude, but hey, I'm a woman so I'm fairly used to getting attitude from car salespeople. I cannot take any more time out of work without losing more money which could potentially put us in a financial sticky spot, same for my husband. We've both had to take significant chunks of unpaid time off in the last two weeks (we both work out of town) and we can't just stick around in the hopes that a garage can fit us in.
We did our research last night and concluded that under the consumer rights act we could reject the vehicle and receive a refund - this made sense to me because this many problems in a 10-day period is unacceptable regardless if it's 'normal'. So my husband and I took the vehicle back this morning and the dealer was borderline aggressive with his insistence that "these things happen" and they'd need to see proof that the issue happened before we purchased - we know it didn't, but four problems in two weeks, three of which requiring time taken from work isn't acceptable. In their own words "yeah, this is what happens when you buy used cars". We were floored.
I left the car with them (I have kept hold of documents) and they're taking it to a garage tomorrow; they've said they won't give me a refund unless they can prove it's a significant problem. I appreciate I probably should have taken it to an independent dealer but here I am, and I've had to fork out for a rental car while this gets sorted (they refused to provide me with a courtesy car as they said they had no proof I didn't cause the damage (!!!!) ).
Can someone please help me? I cannot and will not put my child in that car, and while I appreciate that yes, it's unpredictable; this level of problems in less than two weeks is extremely inconvenient to say the least.
Am I in the right to pursue a refund or am I going to wind up just having to hope this car makes it more than a couple of weeks without an issue (assuming I don't end up losing my job in the meantime).
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