I have a rather unfortunate situation and would be grateful for any advice or opinions that people might be able to offer.
My employer took out a three year lease back in August 2010 on a company car for me, a BMW 320 ED.
At the end of November, while in traffic the brakes appeared to completely fail, with my foot going to the floor. Fortunately I was able to pull up the handbrake, managing to avoid hitting the car in front.
BMW checked the vehicle and their tests showed that there was nothing wrong with the brakes. However, as you can imagine, I was not particularly keen on getting back behind the wheel of the vehicle.
Anyway, we asked BMW to replace the car which they were unwilling to do and now we are in a dispute with them on this. Communication from BMW during the latter months of the dispute has been fairly minimal.
Nearly four months on, we are still paying monthly lease payments on a car which we no longer have and haven’t had since the end of November. In the meantime, we have run up a substantial bill on a hire car, in addition to the continuing monthly lease payments on the BMW.
As the matter has become more protracted than we had hoped, we handed back the temporary hire car and I am currently driving round in my wife’s 53 plate golf. I have had to make alternative arrangements for my wife in the form of a purchase of a cheap ‘temporary’ car.
Has anyone else ever found themselves in a situation like this and if so, what did you do? Is there some kind of independent body to which such issues can be referred for arbitration? Are there any other suggestions?
My employer took out a three year lease back in August 2010 on a company car for me, a BMW 320 ED.
At the end of November, while in traffic the brakes appeared to completely fail, with my foot going to the floor. Fortunately I was able to pull up the handbrake, managing to avoid hitting the car in front.
BMW checked the vehicle and their tests showed that there was nothing wrong with the brakes. However, as you can imagine, I was not particularly keen on getting back behind the wheel of the vehicle.
Anyway, we asked BMW to replace the car which they were unwilling to do and now we are in a dispute with them on this. Communication from BMW during the latter months of the dispute has been fairly minimal.
Nearly four months on, we are still paying monthly lease payments on a car which we no longer have and haven’t had since the end of November. In the meantime, we have run up a substantial bill on a hire car, in addition to the continuing monthly lease payments on the BMW.
As the matter has become more protracted than we had hoped, we handed back the temporary hire car and I am currently driving round in my wife’s 53 plate golf. I have had to make alternative arrangements for my wife in the form of a purchase of a cheap ‘temporary’ car.
Has anyone else ever found themselves in a situation like this and if so, what did you do? Is there some kind of independent body to which such issues can be referred for arbitration? Are there any other suggestions?