BMW Financial Services Final Right To Reject

[jpcoxell]

Hi,

I hope someone will be able to provide advice on how I should proceed with BMW Finance. To give some background to my issue, I have been having faults with my brand new 2 series tourer.
After about 4 months, I had a drive train warning light come on that puts the car into limp home mode where acceleration is greatly depleted (I assume to protect the engine). I arranged for BMW assistance to attend my house to have a look at the problem. They got the error message up to say there was an air leak in one of the hoses but he couldn't find where the leak was but that the hose was in the wrong place so he moved it.

The fault didn't occur again until about a week later but the same drive train light came on and I have limited performance. I arranged to book the car into the dealer to have a look at the fault. The only date they could provide a courtesy car was 5 weeks later. In-between this time, I have another warning light come on for a failure of the tyre pressure monitor - not the pressure being low but an actual failure of the system.

After looking at it, BMW replaced an air hose and a new sensor for the TPM. They also carried out a recall on the light and broke the catch so had to extend my car being in the dealer for another day whilst they sourced a new catch to fix that.

On the same day I picked it up, I was on my way home and the drive train warning light came on again! I phoned the dealer and they were quick to get me back in - within 2 days (Probably because I now have a legitimate reason to reject) but they also miraculously had a courtesy car available. I really like the car - I need 7 seater and have put loads of option on the car to get the spec I wanted so I agreed to book it in again.

They had the car for 2 days - completed all sorts of test including a smoke test and they phoned to say they couldn't replicate the fault even though they test drove it but they could see the fault code in the system memory. Essentially they were saying they had no idea what was causing the fault light to appear but as it is intermittent they don't know what to do to fix it. The next day...... Drive train warning light comes on. The fault does clear once I restart the car but I am not sure that is relevant anyway as it can come back on immediately or it may not come on for a week.

Now at this point I am still within the 6 months of final right to reject so I decided to exercise my rights and wrote to BMW finance to request a rejection. This was 5 weeks ago. They requested the car go back to the dealer for tests. I have no issue with this but need a courtesy car and it will have taken 6 weeks just for the dealer to give me a date that I can take the car back in (Next week). I had to do all the chasing to get a date - 17 phone calls to BMW finance and several to the dealer. As part of the conversations with BMW finance,I have been able to continue driving the car without any penalty to the rejection as one of my children has a severe disability and not having use of a vehicle would have been impossible. Also, after requesting the rejection, the TPM fault has appeared again along with the engine management amber light.... something to do with misfire??

My question to all you knowledgeable people is this...... Can I drop both sets of keys off with the dealer and let BMW finance know that I will be cancelling the direct debit and consider my car to be rejected?

I drive down to Switzerland on the 9th August so I need to sort out transport but also don't want to run the risk of having 2 agreements that I have to honour.

I believe I have been reasonable in my request as I have only asked for the refund of my £500 deposit and consider my (considerable) monthly payments to cover the use of the car and the fair wear and tear.

Any help on the matter would be greatly appreciated and how strong a case do you believe I have?

Thanks,

Jonathan

[R0b]

My question to all you knowledgeable people is this...... Can I drop both sets of keys off with the dealer and let BMW finance know that I will be cancelling the direct debit and consider my car to be rejected?

The sensible answer would be yes you could, since you wrote to BMW to reject the car. What's not clear is whether that was the first time you had written to BMW Finance (I am assuming so because they asked for the car to do some tests) in which case they may argue you failed to follow the correct procedures and didn't notify them straight away therefore they should still be provided with an opportunity to fix the car.

When you take out finance, your contract is with the finance company not the dealer where you got the car from. So if there are any problems you should be liaising with the finance company and not at the point where you want to reject the car because they won't be aware of the issues. Strictly speaking, the dealer has no obligation to fix anything for you because you have no contract with them but no doubt they would be willing to help because if you reject the car, so will BMW.

Section 23 of the Consumer Rights Act says that any repair or replacement of goods should be carried out within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer. If you want to cover your own back then it would be wise to write to BMW finance explaining that:

• The car has had numerous problems, explaining the types encountered.
• The dealer has on X occasions tried to fix the problems but they keep recurring.
• As a result you had written to BMW to reject the car on X date.
• BMW has asked for the car to be re-tested which you agreed but that was 6 weeks ago and you have been left without any car despite X number of calls to BMW and the dealer.
• Under S.23 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 any repair should be carried out within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to the consumer. The fact that you've had no regular use of the car for a lengthy period of time and without any courtesy car for the last X weeks is considered to be a significant inconvenience, particularly as you are going to need to a car to drive to Switzerland on 9 August.
• You should then explain to them that this is not acceptable and unless they deliver to you a courtesy car within the next 7 days from the date of the letter/email (explicitly state 4pm on X date) then you are rejecting the car as is your right under the Consumer Rights Act.

You should probably send it by email to get a swifter response and also you'll have a record of it too. I would follow up the next day to BMW and say you have sent an email demanding they arrange something for you otherwise you'll be rejecting the car.

The only thing I would say is that if you do reject the car, don't expect BMW to be quick off the mark to remove any financial records of the agreement straight away. Usually the records get updated on your credit file monthly and if they miss July, then the earliest would be end of August.

If you are looking for a second care on finance, you might want to consider seeing someone in person so they can explain the situation (you might need evidence of proof that the car was rejected and you are simply waiting for the records to be updated.

Failing all of that, have a backup plan - maybe look at buying a cheap second hand car to get you over there and then recover that back from BMW or perhaps fly over to switzerland and hire a car there and look to recover the losses. Bear in mind you should inform BMW of your intentions so they can't deny they weren't aware.

Either way, you're cutting it fine.