What are my rights regarding warranties (only had the car for 1 week!)

ShadowMan said:
The dealer is required by law to fix it. Call him back and say that under sales of goods act you want him to repair it as you feel that there was an inherent fault at time of purchase. Neither the MOT or RAC inspection will be enough for him to negate his liability under the law. Tell him you want it sorted or you will take further legal advice.

Its clear cut. Wear and tear or not its not something a consumer could check and he has a legal responsibility to fix it.

If he refuses again post again and I'll draft a letter for you to send.
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Dealer isn't obliged to fix this item at all, if the car left and a week later got a puncture would the dealer be obliged to replace the tyre?

If they had MOT'd the car once sold then this almost certainly is proof that this fault wasn't there as part of an MOT test is to check the springs.

If it was a car that we sold then we WOULD replace it FOC but then our goodwill policy is more generous than most.

Suspension components ARE CONSUMABLES, you would not expect a car to last say 10 years without having springs replaced.
 
Maz is correct the RAC inspection covers the dealer quite nicely and is proof the problem did not exist at the time of sale. It would cost the dealer a trivial amount to get this fixed, though, so the fact they won't speaks volumes about them, though they are legally entitled to tell you to get lost.
 
Whether consumable or not I would argue that a spring failing within a week of purchase is not a reasonable time for it to last. The point of SOGA is that the vehicle must be fit for purpose and defect free for a reasonable time. 1 week is not reasonable and the key term is reasonable.

Dealers will consider wheel bearings consumable items as they can fail and will eventually wear out. Fact is that when I bought a 7 year old car, I needed to have a wheel bearing replaced 2 MONTHS after purchase. The dealer refused same as this one saying not covered under warranty as consumable and it it can happen. They had also had an RAC check carried out and a fresh MOT applied. The dealer was forced under SOGA after taking legal advice to have it repaired at a cost to them of £240. I was quite willing to take it further but they realised that, based on the evidence given to them by myself and the finance company acting on my behalf as they agreed with me, it would be best to just get it done.

A puncture and a snapped spring are very different. Whilst springs can just snap, the likelihood is that it was weakened and failing at point of purchase and as such was an inherent fault with the car. It may have passed a visual inspection for MOT and RAC but this does not remove the required liability from the dealer as they would not have put it through any sort of mechanical testing to check how strong it was or looked for weaknesses within the spring that could not be seen during a visual check.

We can argue until we are blue in the face on a forum as the only place to actually check this would be in a legal setting. Whether the OP wants to start down that route remains to be seen but at this point he has nothing to lose by quoting the legislation and sending the letters. As you say the cost is trivial and will the dealer be willing to potentially have to defend a case over £70? He will not be able to claim his costs back except under extreme circumstances where the action is thought to be frivolous and claiming for a failed part on a car purchase a week prior to failure would be unlikely to be thought frivolous.

End of the day you buy from a dealer for piece of mind and to cover yourself from problems like this. You pay a premium for this and in this case the dealer is failing to carry their required levels of care for the consumer.

OP it is up to you. Either pay the £70 and get it sorted and take it as bad luck or try to get it FOC. I will not say it will be an easy road as it will probably takes weeks to get sorted but those are the options you seem to have.
 
At the end of the day this is £70's worth of work and not really worth the hassle or lose sleep over IMO. It certainly isn't worth suing over.

If OP wants to get even then just write a letter to them saying you are disappointed and the business they have lost with your mother and potential profit from that with not fixing it FOC.
 
ShadowMan said:
Whether consumable or not I would argue that a spring failing within a week of purchase is not a reasonable time for it to last. The point of SOGA is that the vehicle must be fit for purpose and defect free for a reasonable time. 1 week is not reasonable and the key term is reasonable.

Dealers will consider wheel bearings consumable items as they can fail and will eventually wear out. Fact is that when I bought a 7 year old car, I needed to have a wheel bearing replaced 2 MONTHS after purchase. The dealer refused same as this one saying not covered under warranty as consumable and it it can happen. They had also had an RAC check carried out and a fresh MOT applied. The dealer was forced under SOGA after taking legal advice to have it repaired at a cost to them of £240. I was quite willing to take it further but they realised that, based on the evidence given to them by myself and the finance company acting on my behalf as they agreed with me, it would be best to just get it done.

A puncture and a snapped spring are very different. Whilst springs can just snap, the likelihood is that it was weakened and failing at point of purchase and as such was an inherent fault with the car. It may have passed a visual inspection for MOT and RAC but this does not remove the required liability from the dealer as they would not have put it through any sort of mechanical testing to check how strong it was or looked for weaknesses within the spring that could not be seen during a visual check.

We can argue until we are blue in the face on a forum as the only place to actually check this would be in a legal setting. Whether the OP wants to start down that route remains to be seen but at this point he has nothing to lose by quoting the legislation and sending the letters. As you say the cost is trivial and will the dealer be willing to potentially have to defend a case over £70? He will not be able to claim his costs back except under extreme circumstances where the action is thought to be frivolous and claiming for a failed part on a car purchase a week prior to failure would be unlikely to be thought frivolous.

End of the day you buy from a dealer for piece of mind and to cover yourself from problems like this. You pay a premium for this and in this case the dealer is failing to carry their required levels of care for the consumer.

OP it is up to you. Either pay the £70 and get it sorted and take it as bad luck or try to get it FOC. I will not say it will be an easy road as it will probably takes weeks to get sorted but those are the options you seem to have.
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I've got plenty of friends who own used car dealerships as do I, we have a generous goodwill policy but also a decent warranty supplier.

We replaced 4 or 5 wheels bearings last month under warranty, my friends who have dealers wouldnt entertain something that the warranty company won't cover and none of them have ever been to court.

I imagine the dealer you bought your car off realised you were an arse and did the work to get you out of his face?
 
Liampope said:
Why?
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I was at work this morning when I posed the original question and my boss replied " well actually they are obliged to fix it" then went off on a rant about how the customer has got too many rights now a days :D
He owns and runs a garage by the way.

Why though.. I cannot answer.
 
[TW]Fox;22004843 said:
Maz is correct the RAC inspection covers the dealer quite nicely and is proof the problem did not exist at the time of sale. It would cost the dealer a trivial amount to get this fixed, though, so the fact they won't speaks volumes about them, though they are legally entitled to tell you to get lost.
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Surely the car is not fit for purpose, is it not reasonable to expect a car to be drive able for a week.

Yes a tyre is different, but a spring is not a consumable IMO
 
Raymond Lin said:
At the end of the day this is £70's worth of work and not really worth the hassle or lose sleep over IMO. It certainly isn't worth suing over.

If OP wants to get even then just write a letter to them saying you are disappointed and the business they have lost with your mother and potential profit from that with not fixing it FOC.
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This is the route I am going to go down to be honest, I'm not going to be losing sleep over £70 and some minor inconvinence.

Going to get it fixed up next week and write them a nice letter explaining my disapointment :)
 
If the spring was in a state that it would break soon then it should be fixed as an inherent fault iirc.
However, the recent mot and rac check should have been enough to see if that was the case.
It would be nice for the dealer to fix it, but I'd side with them if they said no
 
Now you guys are starting to get ideas into my head :)

I've never really looked into this sort of thing though, how much would this sort of lowering kit cost? (I wouldnt want anything stupidly low either)
 
If you are going to do that, do not go anywhere else than a set of eibach springs. IMO

What year/ engine size etc is it exactly..
 
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Super fast look on ebay.

Couple of hundred quid.

Do a little research. Don't lower it much. Its a pain.

For cost i would go spring / damper kit. Be very careful with ebay as some of the stuff is ****.
 
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