Permabanned
- Joined
- 10 Nov 2005
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To save doing a double reply, the following answers @Kenai and @Mercenary Keyboard WarriorIf you're talking about genuinely serviceable items though, it's easy to not get stitched up for that - you simply present the record of the serviceable item being serviced on the car you're selling as full service history (as in OP example) or point to the schedule saying the item is due it's service now/in the future. Not even the most incompetent of judges is going to slap a dealer with a 'repair' bill to carry out obviously scheduled service work.
The 6 month thing is about as sensible as it can be for used car purchasing really - a dealer should know their responsibilities in this period and price their cars accordingly. This is part of the reason dealership cars have to cost more, because the dealership needs to put money aside to resolve potential problems with the cars they are selling. You don't have to strip down every car you sell, you cost in your contingency across all your sales so that when you need to spend £200 replacing a failed component on a car, you can cover that cost without bankrupting yourself.
I don't think the legislation is anywhere near as open to abuse as you're painting it either, it's hardly a walk in the park to pursue claims this way if a dealer chooses to be awkward about it even when the consumer is absolutely 100% unarguably in the right. The idea people can freely damage cars they are bored with and simply stitch up a dealer to get it all paid for is an idea that I don't think is related to any sort of reality in all honesty.
The problem is that's very vague, an injector isn't like something like a belt/bushing/ball joint/filter/bearing etc, it's just 'when' it decides to **** it's spray pattern/blow it's O-ring... It's just bad luck hence why IMHO it's a buyers problem on an old car and just grin and bare it and pay the bill situation.
I don't think the 6 month thing should exist on a used car past 5-10 years personally, TBH it should be mileage/service/parts replaced dependent unless explicitly a 'known fault/failure point/bad design from factory' then yeah fair enough. An injector is a perfect case in point why this is too vague/wide of a generalisation of a law to enforce, as too many variables that fall into the same stigma.
I'm not saying people damage stuff because they're bored, but I have seen countless Type R's/M3's/Audi RS etc etc abused because they were bought on a loan (not finance from the dealership) and ragged hard from cold, never had the oil checked, had put the wrong octane fuel in, and killed early on then the dealer is held at fault from mechanical ignorance from a court, just 'because it's new it shouldn't break' type nonsense. You see it ALL the time with fast cars.
Anyone can thus apply that don't give a **** mentality to something cheap or whatever price then go moan/threaten court action to the dealer/SCC etc despite it being their blatant negligence. Which is scummy, no? If you worked in the trade in various forms like I have, you WOULD have seen this, when it's blatant we know what's happened and yet we're footed to bill to avoid further down the line ball ache or have resisted then still been caught out in court, I'm not a dealer nor salesman and never have, but I've delivered/supplied/fixed/collected said cars and been part of the teardown/maintenance and honestly explaining what we see as blatantly abused to a 'court' just falls on deaf ears.
For example anything like WBAC etc etc type companies, will just pay someone to collect a ****** car and still deliver it and throw it in an auction, the same as they'll lie to your face and tell you it's worth jack **** then throw it in an auction/on a website for stupid money, having never driven it but gone round with a PDA/phone ticking boxes for scratches/interior/tyre wear, all utter ******** that doesn't even impact the car, never having had it on a ramp... So it works both ways.
At the same time it is SO easy to get a bent MOT and sell a car that's ******, so it works both ways.
Anyway my anger as I thought I illustrated well enough about to @Hades is more towards IN GENERAL the ability for fraud/abuse of the law and the vagueness it operates in which in term ***** it for the genuine people that need it.
Anyway I can't really add more than that, the way certain laws applies does my head in, hence the comparison in the Hades reply to the hurting yourself breaking in law for example, this country has an interesting judicial system for sure.
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