Bought a car from a dealer... some dodgy history withheld

[TickledTurbos]

Hi All,

I'm looking for some advice on what to do next after purchasing a second hand car from a car dealer and finding out that the vehicle history doesn't quite line up with what I was lead to believe.

The vehicle has a mileage of 80k, with an almost complete service history: the gap being between 51k and 80k in the service manual with no additional paperwork. I was told after specifically enquiring about this, that the previous owner chose to service the vehicle at home, and had been through a complete service with the dealer's garage prior to sale. The overall condition of the vehicle seemed good from the bits that I could see, and they appeared to be a dealer that valued their reputation, so I took them at face value.

Since receiving and paying for the vehicle however, within the stack of papers I find a service report at 70k carried out with a long list of advisories relating to the poor condition of the springs, wishbones and other chassis components on the car that were not replaced that will cost me alot of money to sort out: these parts wouldn't be easy to interrogate during the viewing. That report was deliberately removed at the time of negotiating a price and hence the info not considered prior to settling.

I am wondering if I have any grounds, legal or otherwise at this point to protest this now that the purchase is complete. Some may argue that it's up to me to ensure that the condition is up to standard prior to sale, which I can see the angle from. However, I also think it's very underhand to withdraw known information about the condition of the vehicle prior to sale, particularly from a retailer. I wonder if there is any legal obligation to disclose such info.

Your advice, thoughts, experiences are welcome.

[Ouroboros]

Yes there is a legal obligation not to omit pertinent information to help a consumer make a purchasing choice. Consumer protection from unfair trading, might be hard to prove they knew though.

[TickledTurbos]

Thanks for the reply. I guess it would yes.. other than the fact I know that piece of paper was not in the original pack, which must mean they knew about it. I can only guess that it found its way back by accident, as they would be insentivised to keep me in the darl about it. How that's provable I'm not sure.

[Mirinjawbro]

name and shame

[wpa1975]

Mirinjawbro said:

name and shame

Against the rules

[Matt_E_Mulsion]

TickledTurbos said:

I know that piece of paper was not in the original pack, which must mean they knew about it. I can only guess that it found its way back by accident

I'd have thought that if they had removed the piece of paper they would have destroyed it rather than it ever having the chance of going back into the pack.

Was it an MOT advisory list? If so that data is freely available online.

Also have you verified that the bits in question are rusty/worn etc? One person's opinion can differ greatly from someone else's.

[TickledTurbos]

I would have thought so too.. but it's in there and I didn't see it before so can only assume it was put back by accident perhaps by someone who wasn't present at the time. The concerns list is obvious and I would have spotted it the first time as I was looking out for history.

It's a list of concerns after a service at a garage, not MOT. The list are things spotted but not addressed during the standard service.

[TickledTurbos]

I haven't verified just yet as the car only arrived last night. If I'm lucky, it was the service garage trying to get some extra cash out of the owner at the time by pointing out false issues.. a double negative cancellation.

[Sir Bagalot]

The car has 80K mileage. I'd say a fair amount would need doing by then

[Dimebars]

The report wasn't deliberately withheld

Garages don't share old invoices due to fear of breaching GDPR rules. Chances are they didn't know it existed either if it was in the stacks of history with the car

What have they said when you contacted them to ask about it?

[Canon_Fodder]

Does the latest MOT pick these things up OP?

[TickledTurbos]

It didn't fail it's MOT because of these things. But knowledge of their existence would have been a considered during the purchasing process, particularly as it was billed as a superb example with a fresh service. At that point the logical thing to ask was whether or not these issues had been fixed.

[ZX10R NIN]

Have you spoke to the garage?

[Wagonwheel555]

Hang on, so the car was serviced 10k miles ago and they commented on the poor condition of the suspension items like springs and wishbones?

Then it was MOT'd and none of these items flagged up as an advisory at the 80k mark?

Either the garage at 70k was trying to extort money out of the owner or the most recent MOT tester was very lax about what he considered an advisory.

If the wishbones needed replacing 10k miles ago, there would be enough play for an MOT tester to log an advisory about it now.

Also, how can a spring be in poor condition? Springs can fail of course but most of the time, the driver is not given advanced warning of a spring condition issue at a service. If you visually looked at a spring and saw it had a crack, it wouldn't last another 10k miles.

Can you share the report? Just the wording of the issues maybe

Edited by Wagonwheel555 on Thursday 23 June 14:37