Can car be returned??

Bettyboop

My mum bought a car for me on the 28th may from a dealer,She paid a deposit
on condition it passed the NCT the car passed the next day.The front grill was missing but the dealer said he would replace this and the clips on the roof where a roof rack once was.She done a check on the car on a website for €25
and it told her the car wasn't involved in any crashes and the mileage was correct.It also showed that it was bought and sold twice in April it had a few other owners too.She was to collect it on Saturday as the dealer was to fit the grill and have a few minor scratches buffed out,but the car wasn't ready as he was still waiting on the front grill to be delivered.She rang him on Sunday as it was supposed to be ready,still no grill.So on Monday she told him she would be picking up the car but he said the car grill hadn't arrived so he said he would post it.She arrived to pick up the car and arrived home to find nothing had been done to car ie, scratches roof clips,no ashtray console lid missing and alarm not working.Ok she should have looked,but she assumed it was all done and was in a hurry as she had a long journey ahead.She brought it to a mechanic today who said it shouldn't have passed the NCT :eek: The 4 tyres were cracked no water no power steering fluid and to bring it back to him,the tyres were painted so she didnt see anything wrong at the time.The NCT didnt go through using his garage name it was a completely different garage miles away that put it through,there is a warranty of 3 months on the car which covers the engine and gearbox she is really stressed out and doesnt know what to do,I really like the car but its going to cost €200 at least for new tyres €180 for a service and €175 for a new alarm.Do we have a leg to stand on??Can we claim for the extra costs of the dealer if he refuses to refund us??If he is obliged to do so??Any advice appreciated many thanks.

OldmanMondeo

Bring the car back and demand that all problems are taken care off. Have a written list from your mechanic off all the problems. Do not ring in advance, just turn up. Do not leave until the problems are fixed, even if this means getting a loan car from him until yours is fixed. Be firm but polite and hopefully your problems should be solved

Bettyboop

OldmanMondeo wrote:

Bring the car back and demand that all problems are taken care off. Have a written list from your mechanic off all the problems. Do not ring in advance, just turn up. Do not leave until the problems are fixed, even if this means getting a loan car from him until yours is fixed. Be firm but polite and hopefully your problems should be solved

Thanks very much for that, my mum said she will hire a man to go with her this time:D As he is a bit intimidating and needs someone to do the talking.

Rowley Birkin QC

Bettyboop wrote:

It also showed that it was bought and sold twice in April it had a few other owners too............She brought it to a mechanic today who said it shouldn't have passed the NCT :eek:

I would say walk away from this as soon as posibble, with a full refund obviously!! The fact that the car was bought and sold twice in a monthis enough to turn me off it!!

Bettyboop

bigkev49 wrote:

I would say walk away from this as soon as posibble, with a full refund obviously!! The fact that the car was bought and sold twice in a monthis enough to turn me off it!!

I doubt we will get a refund to be honest,this is turning into a nightmare.
We assumed that the car was traded in,and thats why there was 2 owners
in April.

Shiva

Bettyboop wrote:

She brought it to a mechanic today who said it shouldn't have passed the NCT :eek: The 4 tyres were cracked no water no power steering fluid and to bring it back to him,the tyres were painted so she didnt see anything wrong at the time.The NCT didnt go through using his garage name it was a completely different garage miles away that put it through,

I don't understand that part. Are you sure it passed the NCT ? Is there an NCT disc on the windscreen ? Do you have the rest of the NCT cert ?

I very much doubt it was NCT'd at all, if those faults were evident - never mind that it passed it.

The Muppet

Shiva wrote:

I don't understand that part. Are you sure it passed the NCT ? Is there an NCT disc on the windscreen ? Do you have the rest of the NCT cert ?

I very much doubt it was NCT'd at all, if those faults were evident - never mind that it passed it.

I would not take an NCT as proof that the car is roadworthy. I have heard that the system is not as secure as it should be.

Shiva

The Muppet wrote:

I have heard that the system is not as secure as it should be.

Ahh, ok. That actually occurred to me after I'd posted, but I just assumed that the system was pretty secure and that any cheating would be unlikely. Something to bear in mind - thanks.

Darragh29

OP, if you are buying this car from a garage, you are protected under the provisions of the Sale of Goods & Supply of Services Act, 1980. The act states that goods sold from a business to a retailer such as yourself must be of "merchantable quality".

I made this point before recently and I suppose I'll make it again here: If a car dealer, franchised or independent, has a car on a forecourt with:

(A) No NCT Disc on the windscreen,

(B) Parts missing.

You should not walk but RUN off the forecourt. Traders who put cars like this on their forecourt are cowboys. Another poster had a similar experience recently and just like yourself, found that getting the problems sorted out post purchase were difficult to put it lightly. I know its a bit late in your case for this advice, but the time to have a mechanic look at a car is before you part with your cash. You have bargaining power at this stage, when you part with your cash, you also part with a lot of your bargaining power.

Bettyboop

Shiva wrote:

I don't understand that part. Are you sure it passed the NCT ? Is there an NCT disc on the windscreen ? Do you have the rest of the NCT cert ?

I very much doubt it was NCT'd at all, if those faults were evident - never mind that it passed it.

Yes have NCT and report cert and mechanic said he might have put other wheels on it to pass,however that doesn't explain the no water and no power steering fluid in it.
We phoned him up and he said the NCT passed the car with bald and cracked tyres so it wasn't his problem,it cost us €200 more to get him to get it nctd as he said if it needed anything he would replace it and the €200 would cover parts and labour if it failed,so my mam thought it was worth it just in case it did need any parts.I asked him about the other things that were supposed to be posted and he said he forgot.He was very smart and asked did the mechanic sell tyres as well The NCT report doesnt list tyres though!!
Brakes
suspension
exhaust omissions
head lights aim
slide slip /alignment test
thats the whole report

Thanks everybody for taking time to reply.


I have the car booked in for a service and am getting new tyres on it in the morning.
Darragh29 you are right about a mechanic looking at it 1st but my mum thought buying it out of a garage was safe enough and the online report she got about the car seemed good to her at the time.

colm_mcm

how much was the car?

Bettyboop

colm_mcm wrote:

how much was the car?

€4700

colm_mcm

so it wasn't a cheap banger! I can never understand why some garages don't prep a car to such a standard that it could be driven away straight away, Unless he had no confidence in the car, or no intention to replace the missing parts, it seems unusual that he'd try to sell it in such bad condition

mukki

I know how you feel, sorry that i can't help but here is what happened to me

I bought a car for E14,000 last year and found a good few things missing and broken, dealer kept saying he would get it all fixed, but i just wanted rid of it espicially when i
realiesed clock was 60,000mile, not 60,000km as advertised
found water in under the boot



I took a heap of pictures of all the problems and sent them in an email to

• the dealer
• the car's manufacture's head office (it was a main dealer)
• and every website and newspaper that they advertised the car on

then i rang him told him to check his mail, he said he'd get back to me...

he rang 30mins later offereing to give me back my cheque and trade in car

Darragh29

mukki wrote:

I know how you feel, sorry that i can't help but here is what happened to me

I bought a car for E14,000 last year and found a good few things missing and broken, dealer kept saying he would get it all fixed, but i just wanted rid of it espicially when i
realiesed clock was 60,000mile, not 60,000km as advertised
found water in under the boot



I took a heap of pictures of all the problems and sent them in an email to

• the dealer
• the car's manufacture's head office (it was a main dealer)
• and every website and newspaper that they advertised the car on

then i rang him told him to check his mail, he said he'd get back to me...

he rang 30mins later offereing to give me back my cheque and trade in car

Sometimes I can't believe what I read on here. Why do people always wait until after they have bought a car to start looking for missing parts??? None of these problems would be landed on a customer if they spent a small bit of money getting a mechanic to fully check out a car before you commit to buying.

OP, The NCT report will only mention tyres if they become a FAIL-REFUSAL item. If there is no mention of tyres on your NCT report, this is because they have not failed the NCT. In your case, it looks like the dealer put a good set of tyres onto the car to get it to pass the NCT and then took these off and put the old set back on after the car had passed.

Darragh29

colm_mcm wrote:

so it wasn't a cheap banger! I can never understand why some garages don't prep a car to such a standard that it could be driven away straight away, Unless he had no confidence in the car, or no intention to replace the missing parts, it seems unusual that he'd try to sell it in such bad condition

There's no excuse for a car being sold for 4,700 Euro, being on a forecourt with parts missing. If the dealer doesn't want to stand over the car, no problem, just sell it sold as seen to the trade. This cowboy was just too greedy, he knew a mechanic in the trade would only offer him around 3K for it cos that mechanic would have to put some money into it in the form of parts and labour to get it ready for sale. This cowboy just flogged it off to a retailer and didn't give a sh1t. You should name and shame on here, its cowboys like this that give the decent people in the trade a bad name.

BostonB

I've seen a car with bald tyres pass the NCT. Well they failed it on a light bulb. When it went back for the recheck they wanted to fail it on the tyres but couldn't because they hadn't listed it as a failure the first time.

I don't have much faith in the NCT.

You'd be mad to keep that car. Just give it back and get a refund. Accept nothing else.

Bettyboop

Darragh29 wrote:

There's no excuse for a car being sold for 4,700 Euro, being on a forecourt with parts missing. If the dealer doesn't want to stand over the car, no problem, just sell it sold as seen to the trade. This cowboy was just too greedy, he knew a mechanic in the trade would only offer him around 3K for it cos that mechanic would have to put some money into it in the form of parts and labour to get it ready for sale. This cowboy just flogged it off to a retailer and didn't give a sh1t. You should name and shame on here, its cowboys like this that give the decent people in the trade a bad name.

Believe me I would love to name the garage.

Stephen

Darragh29 wrote:

Sometimes I can't believe what I read on here. Why do people always wait until after they have bought a car to start looking for missing parts??? None of these problems would be landed on a customer if they spent a small bit of money getting a mechanic to fully check out a car before you commit to buying.

When you're buying a car for a main dealer of that marque you should not have to worry about that kind of thing! That's why people pay more for second hand cars from main dealers than they do from private sellers.

edit: oops, just realised the person who bought from the main dealer was not the OP.

JHMEG

OP, to be honest it sounds like your mechanic friend is taking ye for bit of a ride, and blowing things out of proportion.

Bottom line is the car needed nothing to pass the NCT. This guarantees a minimum standard.

Did you check the P/S fluid and coolant levels? If they are low it's not a big deal (tho the NCT still passed it, so they're not dangerously low). They're easy to top up.

The other bits and pieces (trim, grill etc), well ye shouldn't really have paid for and accepted the car till those bits were sorted. But anyhow, just badger the garage till they're done.

Bottom line is I don't think ye really need worry about the car.

BostonB

You're very trusting of the NCT to put it mildly.

Darragh29

Stephen wrote:

When you're buying a car for a main dealer of that marque you should not have to worry about that kind of thing! That's why people pay more for second hand cars from main dealers than they do from private sellers.

edit: oops, just realised the person who bought from the main dealer was not the OP.

It doesn't matter whether the seller is a main dealer or not, there is a basic minimum standard that should be out there. We're not talking about an undetectable fault within the car that a dealer had no way of knowing it was there and it pops up 5-6 months down the road. This is basic stuff, a car grill, on the front of the car ffs. How can you expect to sell a car with the most visible part of the front of it missing???

Why don't people get cars checked out professionally before they buy???

Darragh29

BostonB wrote:

You're very trusting of the NCT to put it mildly.

Can you take a pic of the 4 tyres and put it up here???

BostonB

Darragh29 wrote:

Can you take a pic of the 4 tyres and put it up here???

What on earth for?

Darragh29

BostonB wrote:

What on earth for?

Well maybe your mechanic is being a bit OTT as one poster suggested. If you post a pic up here, it will be obvious by looking at them if the tyres would reasonably be expected to pass the NCT or not with regard to cracks on the tyre walls.

BostonB

Darragh29 wrote:

Well maybe your mechanic is being a bit OTT as one poster suggested. If you post a pic up here, it will be obvious by looking at them if the tyres would reasonably be expected to pass the NCT or not with regard to cracks on the tyre walls.

What mechanic or cracks in tyres?

Darragh29

Unless I'm mistaken, you did say:

Bettyboop wrote:

She brought it to a mechanic today who said it shouldn't have passed the NCT :eek: <B>The 4 tyres were cracked.</B>

Accusing someone of putting 4 new tyres on a car for the purposes of getting it past the NCT and then taking those tyres off and putting on old tyres that wouldn't have passed the NCT is very serious. I know you haven't mentioned the place where you bought the car but you did say the 4 tyres were cracked and now you appear not to have had any problem with the tyres on the car, which says to me that you might not have your story straight.

colm_mcm

Did you just reply to the right person there?

Darragh29

Sorry my mistake, got the OP confused with BostonB.

BostonB

Darragh29 wrote:

Sorry my mistake, got the OP confused with BostonB.

Ah.

Dampsquid

Bettyboop wrote:

We phoned him up and he said the NCT passed the car with bald and cracked tyres so it wasn't his problem,it cost us €200 more to get him to get it nctd as he said if it needed anything he would replace it and the €200 would cover parts and labour if it failed,so my mam thought it was worth it just in case it did need any parts.

You should never have paid for a car to be NCT'd/repaired that you didn't own. Can a garage even sell a car that is not roadworthy? ie.. that has a valid NCT cert.