Mis-sold a car... "full dealer service history"... it hasnt...

Soldato
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13 Feb 2004
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Sealed in my Sarcophagus.
So i recently bought an Audi A8 luxo-barge, mainly as my dad is dying of alzheimer's and is very immobile and struggled to get into my Focus st3.

Anyway car was fine, fitted my requirements and price was ok and trade in all fine etc.

The finance took an extra two weeks to go through due to some clown at the finance company sending emails to the wrong address. Anyway took delivery on the 17th last month.

Now the A8 is a late 64 plate with 88k miles on it but was sold as having FULL AUDI service history and took out the extra warranty to cover the 3 years finance term... i put down a 6k cash deposit and had 2k trade in equity on my old car.

The Audi service record is online and you have to register an account and input your VIN number and then your dealer activates you as the owner and you can access the service history. This took a couple of weeks to sort for various reasons.

I log in and am met with 3 entries of services done... and that's it!

So i went to the dealer yesterday and asked what was going on? the salesman looked on the Audi system and it did show more entries there that don't show on the my Audi log in BUT there are 2 services totally missing... now they could have been done else where or just not done... but at the end of the day its NOT a full Audi service history. I made clear that i was unhappy and that i was reserving the right to reject/exchange ( as within 28 days ) as if i had known this i would not have bought the car, i would have chosen another.

Anyway manager rings today to say yes its not right and that i can exchange... but only at trade in price because ( and here is the kicker ) i don't have proof that the advert said "full Audi service history" and the advert as been deleted and they cant find it. The sales rep today had denied having the conversation about the service history at the time of sale and i noted that his voice sounded shaky on the phone and not his usual self... clearly hes been leaned on to deny all knowledge.

Now don't get me wrong i am happy with the car and likely there will never be an issues but out of principle i feel very annoyed and feel like i should be able to reject the car due to the mis-sale! but of course i cant prove it because they have deleted the advert and seeing as how its all done online now there was literally no paperwork involved.

Any opinions? its Inchscape Audi and yes i know inchscape aren't the best but this particular branch is very reputable. I am assuming here it a case of "prove it".....
 
Associate
Joined
7 Jan 2007
Posts
763
Can franchise dealers sell AUC cars without full history? IME, they'd always pass cars onto the trade they couldn't sell as an AUC.

Also, is the warranty still valid if it doesn't have FDSH? If not, why would they sell it to you?

I'd speak to Audi customer services to see if they can get involved.
 
Caporegime
Joined
20 Jan 2005
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45,610
Location
Co Durham
Its because of dodgy dealers like this I always screenshot adverts when buying cars. Dont know what to suggest to help you. Write to Audi head office for some compensation?
 
Man of Honour
Joined
21 Feb 2006
Posts
29,297
Write to dealer principal and copy Audi UK. Keep it to just the facts, reference your stress and disappointment at how ‘the premium brand’ has let you down.

If that gets nowhere the off to social and then into Audi Milton Keynes. Avoid the outsourced Audi CS and try to get into the office of the CEO. Don’t let Audi wash their hands of it.

Sorry to read about your dad.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Feb 2004
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Sealed in my Sarcophagus.
The advert could be saved in your internet cache somewhere on your PC.
Ive looked and cant find it... i do cleans every few weeks though...

It was sold as an "audi approved" and its an Inchscape Audo franchise so don't cars that are approved have to have the audi history?

the audi site says

History and Mileage Checks
Rest assured that the Audi you buy will have a clean, transparent record and independently checked mileage.

i can argue that a missing service means its not a clean history surely.

It also says this on the inchscape site

Service History
We will provide you with a service history certificate at the time of vehicle handover, detailing all routine servicing work that has been done by the Authorised Audi Centre network.


This was NOT provided.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
1 Mar 2010
Posts
21,778
Dealers going to have backups of their web-site content , so I'd tell them to look.
web.archive relies on users visiting web.archive site and archiving pages - wayback machine is more of a web-crawler.
 
Joined
4 Aug 2007
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21,386
Location
Wilds of suffolk
Have you tried google cache on the sites?
I found one of my old cars was still available via that for months after it was off the main site. I guess it depends on exactly how the pages and website are run/refreshed

https://cachedview.com/

You may need to work out the way the pages are formatted, eg I found out the site that had my car on had the reg in the description so was easy to amend it and up it popped

Also
https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/1687222?hl=en

Worth going through the others here as well, you never know

https://www.webnots.com/how-to-view-content-of-cached-page-when-it-is-not-accessible/
 

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Soldato
Joined
21 Nov 2004
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13,500
Location
Wishaw
So bloody annoying that supposed main dealers act like this.

Share the details here there some very technical people on here that may be able to pull the advert.


Boils my and I would love to see dealers like this nailed to the wall
 
Soldato
Joined
27 Nov 2004
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10,291
Location
North Beds
maybe speak to a lawyer, see if they can issue a letter before action so it is clear that litigation is a reasonable prospect, and thus they must preserve the relevant information (ie backups of this website etc)
 
Sgarrista
Commissario
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9 Aug 2013
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10,421
Location
Bromsgrove
Your finance company will be jointly liable for the car.

Get them involved. And if no resolution from Audi claim off the finance company.

It would really help if you could find the advert though. The finance company may also have saved a copy of the advert as part of their checks on the car.
 
Soldato
Joined
7 Dec 2002
Posts
3,958
Location
UK
If you are within the first 30 days of ownership then surely the advert is irrelevant, reject the car for a full refund can't you?

And after that but within the 1st 6 months the onus will surely be on the dealer to find the ad & prove you wrong.

Saying you can only exchange at trade in value would surely be a breach of your consumer rights so you need to put pressure on your finance company here.
 
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