Bought a car while up the other end of the country visiting the folks for Christmas, from an ostensibly legit dealer. Car had passed AA check, HPI check, has year’s MOT and 12-month warranty supplied by dealer, with separate warranty company. Paid for it via credit card and drove it back down to where I live. All seems OK, quite happy with it.

After one week, dash erupts with “braking system fault” warning and more red lights than the Reeperbahn. Brake pedal now barely bites until it’s pushed down to the metal. Can’t really drive it anywhere in its present condition.

I’m thinking, if this happens after 1 week when it’s just been MOT’d and and should be in as good working order as it’s ever likely to be, do I want to keep it?

Contacted Citizens’ Advice who say that under Consumer Rights Act, Oct 2015, I have a “short term right to reject” and I’m entitled to request a refund, either from the dealer or from the credit card provider I paid for it with.

Contact dealer who says I’m not entitled to a refund, that the car was fine when it left them, that they should have a chance to repair it first – obv distance between me and them now rules that out for all practical purposes. Dealer says to get it repaired through warranty supplied with car. This however, has an upper limit of a claim on it of £500 inc VAT

I’m thinking I should just pursue a refund through my credit card provider, so I don’t end up stuck with the proverbial lemon. Am I being unreasonable? Is this likely to spark a protracted wrangle? Interested to hear from those in the motor trade as well as anyone who’s found themselves in a similar situation.

The proverbial lemon involved is a 2008 Renault Laguna Sport Tourer. I know Renaults passim have a poor reputation, but online research prior to purchase has it as a generally well-reviewed car with generally satisfied owners and no litany of horror stories.

I’m thinking, if this happens after 1 week when it’s just been MOT’d and and should be in as good working order as it’s ever likely to be, do I want to keep it?

An MOT just tells you that a car was good at the time of the MOT. Every chance something changed as you drove it to the opposite end of the country.

Dealer says to get it repaired through warranty supplied with car. This however, has an upper limit of a claim on it of £500 inc VAT

I’m thinking I should just pursue a refund through my credit card provider, so I don’t end up stuck with the proverbial lemon

Why not get it fixed? Get a quote and if it’s more than £500 send it back? One fault does not a lemon make.

Fault that soon after purchase I would tend to want a refund.

I believe the new consumer rights act give you a right to reject completley within 30 days (ie. You don’t have to give them a chance to repair it first) so the dealer is likely wrong. dont know whose responsibility the return would be though.

1 Call warranty company and ask them the procedure
2 Follow procedure
3 If more than £500, pay it
4 If something that had been ‘fiddled’, then contact dealer then CC company if not happy.

I believe the new consumer rights act give you a right to reject completley within 30 days

Ok, but I reckon you’ve also got to return it – may be cheaper in fuel/time to just get it fixed.

Thanks for the replies, folks.

b r, what do you mean by…

If something that had been ‘fiddled’, then contact dealer

?

I would let your CC company deal with it. Arfur Dailey’s cars will sit up if he’s told he won’t be able to take card payments in future.

If something that had been ‘fiddled’, then contact dealer

Fraud.

e.g. temporary fix to get through MOT

tbh I’m surprised that the selling dealer isn’t a bit more concerned, as the warranty company won’t be happy with newly sold cars requiring instant spend – and that will impact his ability to offer the warranty at reasonable prices.

Are you sure that £500 on the warranty isn’t the excess?

£500 seems a very low limit as surely you would only claim for major problems on a warranty (new gearbox etc.).

If it is a £500 limit it sounds like a shonky warranty too!

Its your call and a car can go wrong at any time

I think you can reject and using your credit card company will be easiest if they wont play ball

Also worth seeing what it may cost to fix anyway as we have no way of knowing if this si the inly fault it will develop in the next 5 years or whether it is really a lemon.

Evening. OP I wouldn’t be even talking to or discussing a aftermarnet warranty or limit. I’d be discussing the dealers obligations and I’d be anoid if they tried discussing this. The issue is the distance as the Dealer should have an opportunity to fix. Take legal advice sharpish and ring your credit card company for their take. I bought a Subaru from a Subaru dealer 200miles away, they said any repair work would need to be done by them OR I take it to an approved garage and the work is approved before work commenced. I thought this was fair.

I’m with ninfan- Things changed (in your favour) after 1st October 2015. The Consumer Rights Act (replacing the Sale of Goods Act), allows you to reject a second-hand car within 30-days of sale and the dealer MUST give you a full refund. You can reject because of a fault, because the vehicle was not what you’d been led to expect etc (you can’t reject because you changed your mind).

After the 30-day period but under six months from purchase, you can ask for repair or replacement if a fault was likely to have been present at the point of sale (and pretty much any fault is assumed to have been present if it is “wear and tear” related). After six months you have to prove the fault was present prior to sale.

Page on “Which” website.

1: make a reasonable attempt to find out whats wrong with it (brake master cylinder or something more expensive such as an ABS unit)

2: Get it recovered back to the dealer for refund. He will be sitting there smugly thinking there is no way you’re going to entertain bringing it back to him.

If you have AA cover or similar they may be able to diagnose it and then recover it back to your choice of repairer (aka seller!). Another option would be to get it recovered back via one of the smaller car transporter outfits, the man with a 2 car flatbed and trailer type outfits that do a weekly run up country and back with ebay purchases etc.

The Consumer Rights Act (replacing the Sale of Goods Act), allows you to reject a second-hand car within 30-days of sale and the dealer MUST give you a full refund.

… is the right answer. Section 75 is also worth as the card company is jointly liable if the dealer is giving you the runaround.

I find that something along the lines of “just so we’re clear, you’re refusing to honour my statutory rights under the Consumer Rights Act?” can be rather effective at getting people to backpedal pretty rapidly.

What cougar said.

If they were reasonably local I’d maybe consider a different tac but.. Seeing as they are already saying ‘not my problem guv’ it doesn’t bode well for good will.

I’d reject the goods outright.

YOU BOUGHT A RENAULT ……mwhahahahahah

YOU BOUGHT A RENAULT ……mwhahahahahah

😳

Surprised it took 15 posts!

Contact dealer who says I’m not entitled to a refund

Oh eck. Definitely get a refund; that’ll learn ’em.

I would get it looked at first by someone I trusted. In my case it would be the independent that does my servicing and get a proper view. If it was a genuine shit luck no warning failure then get it sorted through the warranty. For balance we had a compressor just go on my wife’s car, one minute air con, next minute none,similar with a thermostat housing and I’ve had a starter motor go without even a hint so it can happen.

The attitude and lack of knowledge / admission of your rights would ring an alarm bell to me.

If from that investigation there’s a suggestion the mot was iffy or some kind of fault was concealed (like the old sawdust in the gearbox thing of decades gone by) to get it through I’d be telling the dealer to refund AND I would be telling him to organise recovery on the basis that his poor conduct/failure to prepare the vehicle has caused the issue and as a brake issue may have endangered you and others and made it unfit to drive. I doubt you have a legal basis for the latter but I’d be trying it.

If there is a suggestion of dodginess I would also pay for the garage to report so I had evidence of it for credit card company.

I would quickly check there’s brake fluid in the reservoir. Seriously, is there any?

The aftermarket warranty is irrelevant. It’s up to the dealer to sort it, not the warranty company, and he knows it.
But why on earth did you buy a car from a dealer at the other end of the country? Was nothing available locally?

I would get it looked at first by someone I trusted.

I wouldn’t. There are plenty of cars for sale, the remote dealership is clearly a logistical problem, and the fact that they’re trying to wiggle out of their responsibilities would incline me to tell them to shove it up their arse have concerns about future support.

The issue is the distance as the Dealer should have an opportunity to fix.

Just regarding this I’d expect them to be claiming under the warranty for the cost so there’s not going to be much real goodwill. I had this when I bought a care in similar circumstances to the op and it snapped its front springs 200 miles away where I live.

But why on earth did you buy a car from a dealer at the other end of the country? Was nothing available locally?

I (and many others probably) though this but I didn’t want to kick a man while he was down!

Other end of the country to buy a rare/classic car I can understand, but not for a bog-standard run-about. There’s always something local you can get.

Garage Dweller seems to be more in touch with reality here and not throwing all the toys out the pram like the rest of you lot !!. You drove it for miles and seemed fine and then a problem occurred. Get it inspected to find the fault. I wonder if there is any comeback on the AA inspection carried out. Then you know where you stand. Renaults aren’t ‘that’ bad and £500 is the standard warranty cover , as my mate was offered this when he bought an Audi recently, which I told him to pay £80 extra to make it £2k a claim, as peace of mind. It maybe a £20 fix and no one will know until you get it looked at.

The law is on your side. As has been said the problem is the dealers.
But…
The DIAMOND OF DOOM have a terrible reputation in the industry so maybe it’s a lucky escape!!!

It needs to get checked out first, it wont be a warranty issue if for example a fox has eaten a brake hose, this is a more common fault than you may think.

Cougar that’s the variety of life. My thinking (not to convince you but in case it helps the op)..

If it’s genuine bad luck and the car is nice, it saves logistical hassle, no need to go car hunting, sorted quickly and get on with life. As I mentioned above I went through this with broken springs on a car I’d had a week. When it broke I didn’t know what the dreadful clanking from the suspension was. I was as livid as the op. I got it looked at and fixed on an after market warranty. That car got used as a daily driver, track day’d, taken to the Ring and was genuinely a terrific ownership experience. Hence I’d want to know if it was a big deal or not.

If it’s proper dodgy then I would then have a repairers report to back up the rejection (remembering I can’t just change my mind as a cause) and because of the kind of person I am I would want to make sure if it was proper iffy that trading standards got a copy and perhaps save someone me vulnerable the heart ache.

If the dealer is on the make he’s likely to fight the credit card charge back for the return and that’s when an independent ish report will help.

I’m not saying that’s the only way just offering a view from experience.

The Consumer Rights Act (replacing the Sale of Goods Act), allows you to reject a second-hand car within 30-days of sale and the dealer MUST give you a full refund. You can reject because of a fault, because the vehicle was not what you’d been led to expect etc (you can’t reject because you changed your mind).

interested in this as im currently searching for cars for both me and my wife.
it all sounds very woolly, but its heartening to hear things seem loaded in favour of the buyer now.
by woolly, i mean where do you draw the line on a fault or ‘not what youd been led to expect’? especially if you just get a bad feel about the car once youve bought it, little things not working properly etc and do indeed change your mind.
“can i return this car, its got a faulty headlight bulb/fuse blown”? i very much doubt you could return it because of those faults…
also “you led me to believe that this would be a lovely, smooth drive, but its harsh in my opinion”

just wondrin where the law stands on the grey areas……

….have you checked that brake fluid level yet?

Cougar that’s the variety of life. My thinking

I don’t disagree. But my thinking was that they’re now trying to dodge their responsibility either ignorantly or fraudulently, and that’s not someone I’d want to enter into a consumer relationship with. What if something else major goes wrong next month?

If they’d said, “you can have a refund if you like, but we’d like to offer to fix it” I’d have a lot more sympathy.

….have you checked that brake fluid level yet?

I did check it, thought it looked to be at the MIN level, but then read up about topping it up and that low brake fluid is possibly evidence of a leak or some more serious problem? And that a top-up might require some kind of bleed/flush process rather than just pouring it in like you would screen-wash. Not car-savvy or tooled up enough to attempt anything like that, unfortunately, and didn’t want to try topping it up in case it invalidated the warranty in any way.

But why on earth did you buy a car from a dealer at the other end of the country? Was nothing available locally?

I (and many others probably) though this but I didn’t want to kick a man while he was down!

Other end of the country to buy a rare/classic car I can understand, but not for a bog-standard run-about. There’s always something local you can get.

Bought at the other end of the country out of necessity. We were involved in a prang (‘er indoors driving) on the way up the road to spend Christmas with family. Previous car was written off by the insurance company, who ponied up the cash for a replacement right away. We needed a car to return home and were limited in terms of what we were physically able to view. Hadn’t ticked the “courtesy car” box on the policy and the price of a one-way hire to get all my goods and chattels home was prohibitive. The Laguna was the pick of the few I was able to test-drive. It’s actually a genuinely comfortable, quiet and refined car to be in and to drive, in my admittedly limited experience, and online reviews are generally favourable.

Another small niggle is that there was a problem with the automatic opening of the fuel cap flap – it doesn’t open automatically so you have to prise it open. The dealer said they’d fix this then didn’t, said he couldn’t get the part cos it was between Christmas and New Year, and that he’d post it to me. “Fair enough”, I thought. “It’s a second-hand car at a certain price point. I don’t DEMAND perfection”. Still haven’t received it. So there’s another blot on the dealer’s copybook and more grist to the mill of the get-a-refund camp.

Thanks for all your input folks – think I’ll try get an independent assessment of the fault and repair costs and let the dealer know I’ll be asserting my statutory rights to a refund through my credit card provider.

think I’ll try get an independent assessment of the fault and repair costs and let the dealer know I’ll be asserting my statutory rights to a refund through my credit card provider.

That’s two different options, n’est-ce pas?

Bear in mind that if you reject the car you have to immediately stop using it.

Oh and on Renaults behalf we have an 09 Laguna Tourer and my wife does 20,000 commuting miles a year in it, it’s brilliant..

We’ve had it 4 years I service it every year with genuine parts from a friendly dealer and we’re keeping it until it runs into the ground.