Second hand car from dealer fault

J25GTi

New Member
Mar 15, 2012
1
0
0
Righty,

Ive just joined up on behalf of a friend as im pretty sure im right on this one.

The end of july last year he bought a second hand Vauxhall Astra VXR Nurburgring (the special edition) on an 08 plate with 25k miles for £13,500, From a VX dealer.

Now it has been fine until the last two weeks where it has lost power and been very sluggish etc.

It turns out the exhaust manifold has cracked and is causing these issues, the problem been the exhaust manifold and turbo unit are all one unit. And the parts alone for the unit are £380 and the labour etc. So obviously this is going to be a very costly exercise.

Now im saying that VX should either repair this for free, as if i paid 13.5k for a car less than a year ago I wouldnt expect to have to be shelling out for anything more than the "consumables".

Just looking at where he stands really?

Thanks

Jamie
 

ALewis

Moderator
Nov 23, 2010
691
4
0
South Wales
Hi,
The problem with second hand cars are that they have less rights to new cars,
Second hand cars must match its description, be fit for its purpose, and be of satisfactory quality. However, the standard for meeting the requirement that the vehicle is of satisfactory quality will be lower because it is secondhand.

In your case, as the car was purchased more than 6 months ago, the onus is on you to prove that the fault existed when you purchased the car, and so you would need to get an independant report to say whether the fault could have existed.
After you get your report, if it states that the fault could have existed, and the dealer accepts this , and is willing to repair it, the repairs have to be carried out within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you. The dealer must pay the costs of the repairs. If the repair has taken a long time, you may be able to use a service loan car or claim compensation, for example, for the cost of hiring a vehicle.
However if the dealer refuses to repair the vehicle, you are entitled to get it repaired elsewhere and claim back the cost from the dealer.

Hope this helps.
Adam
 

Y141

New Member
Mar 17, 2012
2
0
0
Can anyone help me?
I purchased a 2007 vauxhall astra from car giant over a year ago using a hired-purchase contract and a couple of weeks ago a warning light came on. I took the car to a vauxhall dealership to have a diagnostics test only to find out that the previous owner had a recall on the vehicle for the radiater but for some reason failed to take it back to get repaired and so the radiator has leaked water into the gearbox and i would have to pay £2,300 to get the radiator and gearbox replaced. I phoned Car Giant and they said its nothing to do with them as they had no idea that the car had a recall. I think this is very unfair as I have been making monthly payments for over a year now on a car that was only a matter of time before it broke down. I'm confused as to why car giant wouldnt do more thorough checks on cars that they are selling onto people and to what rights I have against them seeing as they have basically sold me a faulty car. Please help :(