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We purchased a used car a little over 2 weeks ago, straight after a car crash which wrote off our original car, we only had a week to purchase a new car before our insurance hire car ran out and had all those pressures on us as both of us are health care workers and depend on our car for work, I'm mobile in my job and do home visits. We only have one car as a family and getting a new one was a priority for us.
Due to lack of time we decided upon the same car we had previously, and found 3 cars in the price range, similar to our written off car in the whole of the UK, all of them a far distance from our home, in the end we went for one on EBAY from a car trader not a private seller. We where assured the car was fine, and "had an amazing engine, drove like a dream" so we paid a deposit and set off on a 300 mile round trip to collect the car, we arrived pretty late to collect and had a quick test drive, before driving it home.
Almost instantly we started hearing noises in the car that made us concerned, a whistle from the engine, a squeeky breaks, a cluncking sound, In my head I was trying to tell myself I was imagining it, that the car was fine, but deep down had a sinking feeling something wasn't quite right, this was confirmed when 5 days after purchase the car began to loose significant power. the engine light started flashing and we had to call out the AA - which had been brought by the car dealer.
AA attended and told us it needed to go to a garage, could be spark plugs, electrics or valves. Hoping it was just spark plugs, we contacted the trader to inform him of the fault, to which we got no reply, orginally he had said to us any problems in the first 14 days and I'll sort them out, his lack of reply sent another sinking feeling into my stomach.
The next day I was due to be working at 12 so early in the morning we took the car to a local garage, where they pulled out a burnt spark plug which had part of the electrode missing, hoping that was the problem, they replaced the spark plugs while we waited and watched, but after the change the engine still had no compression in one of the cyclinders they told us it's either an engine rebuild or a new engine.
We had to get a hire car in order for me to go to work that afternoon, and eventually got hold of the car trader. He said not to listen to that garage as they weren't an AA approved garage and get it booked into an AA approved garage, and don't worry he'll sort it.
We struggled to find an AA approved garage nearby that had availabilty but found one for 3 days time about 12 miles away, we checked he was happy for us to drive the car this distance, and he said ok, we took it to the garage, who almost instantly called us saying the same thing as the first garage, At this point we passed on the details of the garage to the trader and he said he'd call them to find out more, still assuring us he'd fix it and it probably wasn't as bad as it sounded.
He asked the garage to put a camera down to look inside the engine, this took another day we now had a hire car for 5 days that we where paying for. The garage said they couldn't see anything with the camera and we where back to it needing a new engine.
We had paid £3200 for the car and it would be a write off to put a new engine in it. We had already decided long before this we wanted a our money back, but the trader stopped answering his phone only asking for my email address and saying he was gathering more info.
I sent a message saying we really need to sort this as the hire car was costing us a lot of money.
2 days later we received an email from the trader saying, he has concluded the first garage we took it too damaged the car beyond repair during the spark plug change as they are not an AA approved garage, he didn't approve us taking it to that garage and so his responsibility ends there.
I have since sent him an email stating our statatory right to reject the car and asking for a full refund, and that we will start legal proceeding if we do not hear from him in 14 days.
We're now left with no car, no money and no way to work, without a hire car, which isn't sustainable long term.
Having been through small claims before (a private parking ticket case (we won)) I know how much work and stress it is. My main questions are Does he have a ligitimate defence? (it's a complete lie as we watched the garage change the spark plugs so would have noticed if they damaged the engine, We luckily did keep the spark plug which shows it was burnt (most likely we have been told from whatever the problem is in the engine, the only way we can find out what the engine problem is, is by taking the engine apart which is 8 hours labour for a garage.) Is this one worth the fight and are we likely to win in court. I tried to look at case law for similar cases but couldn't find any to reference. I keep reading the fault has to have been present at purchase, which I'm not sure I can prove, or how I would prove that.
Thanks for reading any help gratefully received.
Due to lack of time we decided upon the same car we had previously, and found 3 cars in the price range, similar to our written off car in the whole of the UK, all of them a far distance from our home, in the end we went for one on EBAY from a car trader not a private seller. We where assured the car was fine, and "had an amazing engine, drove like a dream" so we paid a deposit and set off on a 300 mile round trip to collect the car, we arrived pretty late to collect and had a quick test drive, before driving it home.
Almost instantly we started hearing noises in the car that made us concerned, a whistle from the engine, a squeeky breaks, a cluncking sound, In my head I was trying to tell myself I was imagining it, that the car was fine, but deep down had a sinking feeling something wasn't quite right, this was confirmed when 5 days after purchase the car began to loose significant power. the engine light started flashing and we had to call out the AA - which had been brought by the car dealer.
AA attended and told us it needed to go to a garage, could be spark plugs, electrics or valves. Hoping it was just spark plugs, we contacted the trader to inform him of the fault, to which we got no reply, orginally he had said to us any problems in the first 14 days and I'll sort them out, his lack of reply sent another sinking feeling into my stomach.
The next day I was due to be working at 12 so early in the morning we took the car to a local garage, where they pulled out a burnt spark plug which had part of the electrode missing, hoping that was the problem, they replaced the spark plugs while we waited and watched, but after the change the engine still had no compression in one of the cyclinders they told us it's either an engine rebuild or a new engine.
We had to get a hire car in order for me to go to work that afternoon, and eventually got hold of the car trader. He said not to listen to that garage as they weren't an AA approved garage and get it booked into an AA approved garage, and don't worry he'll sort it.
We struggled to find an AA approved garage nearby that had availabilty but found one for 3 days time about 12 miles away, we checked he was happy for us to drive the car this distance, and he said ok, we took it to the garage, who almost instantly called us saying the same thing as the first garage, At this point we passed on the details of the garage to the trader and he said he'd call them to find out more, still assuring us he'd fix it and it probably wasn't as bad as it sounded.
He asked the garage to put a camera down to look inside the engine, this took another day we now had a hire car for 5 days that we where paying for. The garage said they couldn't see anything with the camera and we where back to it needing a new engine.
We had paid £3200 for the car and it would be a write off to put a new engine in it. We had already decided long before this we wanted a our money back, but the trader stopped answering his phone only asking for my email address and saying he was gathering more info.
I sent a message saying we really need to sort this as the hire car was costing us a lot of money.
2 days later we received an email from the trader saying, he has concluded the first garage we took it too damaged the car beyond repair during the spark plug change as they are not an AA approved garage, he didn't approve us taking it to that garage and so his responsibility ends there.
I have since sent him an email stating our statatory right to reject the car and asking for a full refund, and that we will start legal proceeding if we do not hear from him in 14 days.
We're now left with no car, no money and no way to work, without a hire car, which isn't sustainable long term.
Having been through small claims before (a private parking ticket case (we won)) I know how much work and stress it is. My main questions are Does he have a ligitimate defence? (it's a complete lie as we watched the garage change the spark plugs so would have noticed if they damaged the engine, We luckily did keep the spark plug which shows it was burnt (most likely we have been told from whatever the problem is in the engine, the only way we can find out what the engine problem is, is by taking the engine apart which is 8 hours labour for a garage.) Is this one worth the fight and are we likely to win in court. I tried to look at case law for similar cases but couldn't find any to reference. I keep reading the fault has to have been present at purchase, which I'm not sure I can prove, or how I would prove that.
Thanks for reading any help gratefully received.
