Used car mis-described. What recourse do I have?

[Removed User 345456]

Yup, guilty as charged your honour.

You see dearest @bigmike20vt our Jon's somewhat of a low key rebel you see

He secretly has a fetish for failing someone elses emissions at work for not having a cat or a knackered one, giving them a stern talking to about save the dolphins/3 degree planet, and then driving home after work without one himself then sneaking it back in when he retests it come MOT day

What was that old saying "**** the whale, save the V8!"

You can fully remove all the ABS components and it'll pass, but only on cars registered before Jan 1st 2010.

Yassss! In the bin it all goes then, nice bit of weight saved from that pump, 4 times I've had ABS try to kill me, at normal speeds braking normally, and at nearly stationary speed sliding forwards at 5mph after braking for a roundabout, instead I ended up slowly entering the roundabout. Ridiculous. On black ice with the pedal flat to the floor doing nothing!
Hence always disabling it.

Also, if you're drifting and spin out and go backwards you can't brake thanks to ABS on old cars! So you'd never want it on a drift spec track car that you drive on the road as well.

Old car ABS is literally dog ****

 

[tom_e]

2 Seconds in a search engine later...

Modifying your vehicle’s emissions: the legal, safety and health implications

www.gov.uk

You'll notice I said as long as it can pass emissions, there's nothing in there specific to removing the cat making it illegal.

For example, removing a catalytic converter or diesel particulate filter will almost certainly result in a vehicle’s emissions exceeding type approval limits and make the vehicle illegal to drive on the road

Now I'll bow to better knowledge of someone like Jon if he says it's basically the same thing as you'll never get it to pass without one but still it's not quite the same thing.

 

[Removed User 345456]

You'll notice I said as long as it can pass emissions, there's nothing in there specific to removing the cat making it illegal.

Any car that has a cat factory fitted, has to have one, it's that simple. You can literally get done at the roadside if caught not having one and get a £1000 fine, as me and others have already said. So I'm unsure what bit of that you think doesn't make that illegal/committing an offence?

They're saying in that gov site that any tampering with anything that effects emissions = illegal, so removing a cat would obviously ruin the emissions and thus mean the vehicle isn't releasing the correct emissions and also polluting, both of which violate the following:

it is an offence to use on a road a vehicle which has been modified in such a way that it no longer complies with the air pollutant emissions standards it was designed to meet.
The potential penalties are £1,000 for a car and £2,500 for a van, lorry or bus.

A person altering the vehicle (if they knew or believed that the vehicle would be used on the road) could be found guilty of an offence under the Act.

So yes, you can get done.

It's just whether you get caught, as me and others have already mentioned, it's just they rarely bother enforcing it these days, as it's usually a copper that catches you/smells the car hasn't got a cat (which is a big give away) then has to detain you whilst they wait to a qualified DVSA tester to turn up with a probe to put in the exhaust, before impounding the car and putting a defect notice on it.

 

[Thekwango]

Has the op been back to update the thread? Be interesting to know how they’re getting on with the seller.

 

[tom_e]

Any car that has a cat factory fitted, has to have one, it's that simple. You can literally get done at the roadside if caught not having one and get a £1000 fine, as me and others have already said. So I'm unsure what bit of that you think doesn't make that illegal/committing an offence?

They're saying in that gov site that any tampering with anything that effects emissions = illegal, so removing a cat would obviously ruin the emissions and thus mean the vehicle isn't releasing the correct emissions and also polluting, both of which violate the following:



So yes, you can get done.

It's just whether you get caught, as me and others have already mentioned, it's just they rarely bother enforcing it these days, as it's usually a copper that catches you/smells the car hasn't got a cat (which is a big give away) then has to detain you whilst they wait to a qualified DVSA tester to turn up with a probe to put in the exhaust, before impounding the car and putting a defect notice on it.

Nope it's says if it no longer complies with emissions it's illegal, it doesn't say simply removing the cat makes it illegal.

Like I said that may basically be the same thing as you'll never get it to hit emissions targets without one but it's the sort of technicality you could argue in court if you fancied it.

 

[Removed User 345456]

Nope it's says if it no longer complies with emissions it's illegal, it doesn't say simply removing the cat makes it illegal.

What part of this aren't you understanding?
A cat ensures the car only releases the emissions it's allowed to by law.
Removing the cat, will obvious ruin the cars ability to do this.
The gov law states that anything that jeopardizes or tampers with the cars emissions resulting in their ability to maintain the legal required emissions, is thus illegal.
That could be a decat/a really rich remap tune, lambdas playing up etc etc, it doesn't matter, whatever causes it then violates the emissions.

The most obvious one IS the cat, so it's obvious removing it makes the car definitely not emissions compliant.

In what world do you think taking a cat off wouldn't be breaching the terms stated on the gov page I've linked you?

 

[bigmike20vt]

Nope it's says if it no longer complies with emissions it's illegal, it doesn't say simply removing the cat makes it illegal.

Like I said that may basically be the same thing as you'll never get it to hit emissions targets without one but it's the sort of technicality you could argue in court if you fancied it.

by that logic i could remove the brakes from my car all together and say for all we know it will still stop in a safe manner so its fine to drive without brakes

(hmmmm actually ........... my car will! so there goes that argument )

 

[tom_e]

What part of this aren't you understanding?
A cat ensures the car only releases the emissions it's allowed to by law.
Removing the cat, will obvious ruin the cars ability to do this.
The gov law states that anything that jeopardizes or tampers with the cars emissions resulting in their ability to maintain the legal required emissions, is thus illegal.
That could be a decat/a really rich remap tune, lambdas playing up etc etc, it doesn't matter, whatever causes it then violates the emissions.

The most obvious one IS the cat, so it's obvious removing it makes the car definitely not emissions compliant.

In what world do you think taking a cat off wouldn't be breaching the terms stated on the gov page I've linked you?

What part aren't you understanding? That page does not categorically state that removing the cat is illegal (that's why I quoted that paragraph above where it says almost certainly, it's still not a definitive removing the cat will make it fail).

Like I've said if it's therefore impossible to achieve the emissions then it's basically the same thing but it's still not stating what you seem to think it is.

 

[JonRGV250]

This where the MOT stands on removal..

and for a 2014> car with a DPF..

and for emission control equipment..

There are some exceptions to some of the above, like a DPF that's been cut open (tampered with), but you get the idea.
A diesel car thats had the cat/dpf removed can still quite easily pass the emisions test, but will fail on it's removal.

 

[Removed User 345456]

What part aren't you understanding? That page does not categorically state that removing the cat is illegal (that's why I quoted that paragraph above where it says almost certainly, it's still not a definitive removing the cat will make it fail).

Like I've said if it's therefore impossible to achieve the emissions then it's basically the same thing but it's still not stating what you seem to think it is.

It doesn't need to state each individual part = illegal as it has summarized it already stating that any attempt to fiddle/manipulate/effect/exceed the emissions = illegal, so it's blindly obvious doing any of those things makes doing so illegal, do you really need them to write you a list when it's explicitly explaining to you that doing ANY of those things means breaking a law/act, thus illegal.

Imagine you having this conversation with a DVSA officer... They would say exactly the same as me "in what world do you not understand that any of these things = making your car illegal/non compliment to road use and emissions thus breaching multiple laws/acts" it really IS that simple.