# Bought car - misleading ad



## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

Hi all,

A friend of mine bought a car over the weekend based on advert he saw on ebay.

The ebay ad ended and my friend dealt outside of ebay.

Anyway, he went for a test drive and the car seemed fine. So he bought it (drove it from Wales) and the problems started immediately.

- A huge hole in the exhaust and quoted more than £200 to be fixed.
- Next day the car was clamped cause there was no road tax on the car. My friend forgot to ask and the seller never told him anything about the car not having a road tax. £260 to have the car unclamped plus £180 annual road tax.
- The reverse is almost impossible to put and when my friend sent a text to the buyer his reply was... "give it time, you ll get used to it. it took a while for my wife to get used to it. dont spend money on mechanics". He never mentioned any problems with the gear box during the sale and during test drive my friend did not try to reverse. Mechanic mentioned it would be around £1,000 to fix.
- MOT passed but mentioned rear tyres need changing - another £250 for tyres
- Finally around £300 for a service as the car did not have any history for the last £20K miles. (That's my friend's issue since he got the car knowing that).

So my friend contacted the seller and the reply has always been... sold as seen.

My friend is now thinking of small claims court due to misleading ad, which did not mention any of the above. Thinking of claiming as much as he can to get the car sorted out, nothing more.

Do you think he has a case? What would you do in his case?

The main point is... he already bought the car now. What are his options based on the above?

Thanks,
Chris.


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## Hoggy (May 8, 2002)

Hi, Haven't seen the Ad, but I would think your friend has learnt the hard way, *buyer beware*.
Hoggy.


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## pas_55 (May 9, 2002)

Numpty :?


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## Smeds (Oct 28, 2009)

Live and learn, most looks to be his fault for not checking.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

Don't disagree that we should have checked before buying..

BUT... what about the misleading ad???

Found http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.u...te-Used-Car-Sale-Mislead-and-Not-as-Described and I think he does have a case.

It's not like he waited for ever, the car started showing the problems from day 1 onwards!!!


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## Hoggy (May 8, 2002)

Hi, Depends what was in the Advert. Was it sold as seen ? 
Hoggy.


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## Smeds (Oct 28, 2009)

Do you have the ad?


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

Yeah I do have the ad...

Funilly enough the guy says that it is in "Very Good Condition"!!!

He doesn't mention anywhere "Sold as seen" or anything alike!


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## Smeds (Oct 28, 2009)

'Very good condition' is open to interpretation.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

It is indeed... but would never have thought that one way of intepreting is... car rides until something fells off!!!

The gear box is a massive expense to fix and if the exhaust is near failure... they both should have been mentioned!


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

Is there something other than "very good condition" that is misleading in the advert? The condition of a car is a pretty subjective thing - is it 'very good compared to other cars I've seen of that age'? Is it 'very good considering it's been thrashed every day of its life'?

I think you'd struggle to convince anyone that the ad was misleading based purely on a vague notion of 'condition', particularly when all the faults are things that should easily have been spotted when viewing the car.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

GreekTT said:


> they both should have been mentioned!


This isn't the case. In a private sale the seller isn't obliged to mention any faults. That's where 'misleading' comes in - in order to mislead you they have to actually tell you something that's not true, not just fail to tell you something.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

Guys don't get me wrong... it's my friend's mistake he didn't check the car thoroughly.

Again, having said that, you wouldn't be able to find out there is a problem with the reverse gear unless you checked it... and fair enough he didn't.

Also the exhaust, not quite sure how you would check that without getting the car off the ground.

Irrespective of how anyone interprets VGC, should these problems be listed in the ad? Or even communicated verbally?


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

GreekTT said:


> Irrespective of how anyone interprets VGC, should these problems be listed in the ad? Or even communicated verbally?


Basically, no, not for a private sale.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

Spandex said:


> GreekTT said:
> 
> 
> > they both should have been mentioned!
> ...


So when you ask.. "are there any problems with the car?" and the answer is "no... everything is great!" is that misleading or the seller just didn't mention the problems?

Also, once you bought the car and immediately told him that there is a problem with reverse... the fact that he comes back with "don't worry you will get used to it... my wife did so it's fine", doesn't that mean that he knew about it and never mentioned it so he could get rid of the car? Isn't that misleading?


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## brittan (May 18, 2007)

GreekTT said:


> My friend is now thinking of small claims court due to misleading ad, which did not mention any of the above. Thinking of claiming as much as he can to get the car sorted out, nothing more.


On the basis of what you've written here, your friend will lose I'm afraid. The seller is not obliged to disclose any faults the car may have however he must respond truthfully to any questions that the buyer poses; if he doesn't then THAT is misleading.

By not mentioning 'any of the above' the seller has not been misleading.

As posted by other it's a case of BUYER BEWARE. It's up to the buyer to examine the car and ask appropriate questions.

Hard lesson - both on how to check a used car and on throwing away the protection offered to buyers by ebay.

Sell the car on ebay.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

GreekTT said:


> Spandex said:
> 
> 
> > GreekTT said:
> ...


One of the reasons why private sales differ to trade sales is that there can be no reasonable expectation that the seller will know about any faults with the car. You can presume that he knew as much as you want, but legally he's not expected to know, so the buyer must take that into account. If he says "there aren't any faults", from a legal standpoint it's a fairly meaningless statement - As someone who is not qualified to identify faults with cars, he's simply offering an opinion.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

That's fair enough!!!

Thanks a lot for all the input guys!!!

Not quite sure what my friend will decide on doing... he is quite convinced that at least given the written reply he has about the reverse gear, the seller knew about the issue and did not disclose it.

I hope they can work out something offline cause if they do end up in the courts, I have a suspicion my friend is going to lose even more money given what you guys said.

Thanks again,
Chris.


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## Spandex (Feb 20, 2009)

GreekTT said:


> he is quite convinced that at least given the written reply he has about the reverse gear, the seller knew about the issue and did not disclose it.


There will be thousands of people driving around in faulty cars, simply making allowances for the faults, without understanding that it's not actually supposed to be like that.

Knowledge of a symptom doesn't require knowledge of the fault.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

Thanks mate... will pass that on to my friend!


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Only two things could help you in private car sales I can think of:

(1) The car must be in a roadworthy condition when sold otherwise it's a criminal offence - so immediately failing an MOT may have helped but if it passed with advisories it must have been roadworthy.

(2) The goods must be correctly described under the Misrepresentation Act - but qualitative descriptions would be unlikely to pin things down enough and you'd need something specifically misrepresented e.g. "New battery" when it was the original or "CD player" when it only had a radio. Even then doing something about it can be difficult as the cost pursuing it could well be more than compensation for the loss. If you do have something which could be "misrepresentation" you'd better get some legal advice.


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## Danny1 (Sep 2, 2010)

Never known of a car passing an MOT with a knackered gearbox, a hole in the exhaust and "needing" 2 tyres........


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

No idea... :?


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## Shug750S (Feb 6, 2012)

GreekTT said:


> Hi all,
> A friend of mine bought a car over the weekend based on advert he saw on ebay.
> The ebay ad ended and my friend dealt outside of ebay.
> Anyway, he went for a test drive and the car seemed fine. So he bought it (drove it from Wales) and the problems started immediately.
> ...


Tricky one. 
Did he not listen to exhaust / hear the noise from the huge hole?
Not much point moaning about no road tax, that's fairly basic and easy to check by looking at the windscreen.
It either passed the MOT or failed if tyres too low tread. Surely your mate looked at the tyres?

question - what car, how old & how much? If a three year old, 25k miles and £20£ the it sounds rough, but if a £500 banger then surely to be expected.


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## GreekTT (Jan 5, 2009)

2003 mini cooper with 70K miles


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## Shug750S (Feb 6, 2012)

So basically an 11 year old car, exhaust and tyres can be sorted easily, but gearbox sounds expensive, all depends how much under market value your friend paid.

If he paid top dollar can see why he's learnt an expensive lesson, maybe take a mate along next time to help check. If he got it cheap then that's why.

I've bought older cars before and it's either the right price to take a punt, or worth paying for an RAC / AA or local garage to give it a once over.

Hope your mate gets it sorted


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## John-H (Jul 13, 2005)

Danny1 said:


> Never known of a car passing an MOT with a knackered gearbox, a hole in the exhaust and "needing" 2 tyres........


Yes, but it depends. If the exhaust was replaced prior to MOT then it would presumably not fail on this but where is the proof now that it was unroadworthy? Was the exhaust kept? Photographs taken? If the exhaust was merely advised on it's a pass. If the exhaust was replaced by the garage doing the MOT then you would have evidence and a witness. Was the MOT done immediately after purchase or could the hole have developed in between?

The MOT testers manual says a reason to refuse a test is:


> c. The vehicle is not fit to be driven when necessary to complete the test because of a lack of fuel, or oil, or for any other reason.


The MOT tester would be very kind to push the car off the ramps and brake rollers. If it was just difficult to get into reverse but it could be done then it probably wouldn't be an issue.

Where the tyres advised on so not a fail but he decided to replace? If they were below the legal minimum and illegal so were replaced by the garage doing the MOT then that's evidence again with the proviso about the time and opportunity for wear between purchase and test.


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## Real Thing (Nov 2, 2011)

If it was a private sale don't think your friend has a leg to stand on do you know if the guy he bought it off has he's name in the V5 if so end of. But if he sold it with someone else's (except his wives) could be a trader passing himself off as private sale in which case he may have some leverage


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## ag (Sep 12, 2002)

Your mate, that knows nothing about cars, bought an old & poorly maintained car, knowing that it was old and poorly maintained, and expected it to be perfect. He is more likely to be sectioned than win in a small claims court.

On a lighter note, 2 tyres and an exhaust are simply wear and tear and your friend will have budgeted for these anyway when working out if he could afford to run the Mini. Gearbox could be anything, a decent service may fix it, it may not. Minis are actually exceptionally robust and tend to be looked after with a good network of people to fix problems, he may not be in as much trouble as he thinks.


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## SBL (May 9, 2014)

Sounds like your friend got caught up in the moment instead of checking the car for faults, which should have been his main objective. He needs to suck it up and put right or sell on. Small claims itself won't get him anywhere in my opinion though the threat may spur the seller on to give a donation to fix it. I wouldn't hold my breath though.


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## Pugwash69 (Jun 12, 2012)

It sounds like the buyer failed to check the car over, or have someone a bit more knowledgeable go with him. I don't think he has much of a claim. The seller can deny knowing of any faults you find later or say they happened after the sale date.
Sadly suck it up?


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## spaceplace (Mar 10, 2013)

I agree there's nothing he can do, a long shot would be to send a letter to the seller saying that's he's going to take him to a small claims court for a misleading add and claim £500 to fix the problems (state that you give him 16 days to reply before you will take action) it's a bluff but the seller might offer something


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