Trading in car with known issue - do I disclose?

-Chris-

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

Sorry, I see my mistake there. She has told the dealer there is a problem with the car, so she is away, happy days.

My point was, if you say to yourself "hold on, something isnt right here", but say nothing to the dealer, then your in the wrong.

Absolutely, and seeing as most salespeople will ask something like "have you had negative history with the car?" in the course of getting the details of it, by not divulging any information you have at that stage, you're in essence trying to consciously defraud a business - you're on shaky legal ground.

The only time I'd think the customer was completely safe was if they were unaware that there were any issues with the car AND the issues had little or no symptoms anyway - the judge would probably rule in their favour in that case, but if the car is "driving funny" or even driving a little differently and they don't take it upon themselves to at least look into the cause of the change, they are at least partially liable for any losses the garage suffers when repairing the vehicle before resale.

Darragh29

ned78 wrote: »

There is no way that you can deduce that from his post. 'Somewhat driveable' might mean that the car is fine up to 30mph, and labours after that. Salesperson takes it for a drive, and doesn't exceed 30mph, hence no problem is discovered. And many other similar scenarios also happen.

I think BTW that users in this thread condoning that the OP behave in an illegal manner should edit their posts, because god forbid if this ever went to court, the OP could easily say 'Sure I was told to do it on boards.ie', and we'd be in the height of trouble even though we didn't do anything (Not a threat to boards.ie on my part obviously, but just a casual eye thrown to caution)

"Somewhat drivable" to my mind means a car that isn't driving properly at all, which might not necessarily mean that the problem exists over 30KPH. Usually a car with a problem like this will suffer from unable RPM at idle.

I'm not condoning the OP's suggestion that he pull on over the outlet in question. There are procedures in place to ensure that the garage is protected from this type of a scenario and I know a few folks who have failed to follow the procedure, (usually failing to test drive a car, just sitting into it and revving the engine for a second) and in one case, I know a friend of mine who had to pay for a turbo assembly out of his own pocket after taking a car in without test driving it and subsequently finding out that the turbo was gone. When it became clear that my mate didn't test drive the car, his boss asked only one question, "who's paying???", and it turned out that it was my mate who was paying. I know this is not the way it usually turns out but most issues with a car, I'd say 90% of issues that currently exist with a car, can be observed with a decent test drive.

At the end of the day, if the customer gets the car traded in without this issue being detected, what's to stop the customer subequently saying, "Look, there was nothing wrong with the ECU when I parked it out on your forecourt, whatever the problem is, bad timing I know, but it happened after I drove the car in here so it's your problem now..."???

Scruff

I didnt think dealers were still taking low value cars that old as a trade in
If ye do manage to trade it in can ye let me know how much ye got for it? have an astra myself that i'm thinking of changing.

Darragh29

Also OP, are you 100% sure it is the ECU??? Astra's have well known issues with coil packs...

Standard Toaster

Jaysus, can 'o worms is right!
I'll respond with a fuller post later today/tonight. Thanks for all responses so far.

Just to quickly add, the car is perfect until about 10/15mins into the journey until the ECU kills the current to the fuel pump. Engine dies. Repeat.

Could easily fool a sales person into thinking the car was 100% (It is bar the fecking ECU) I dont expect they'd have the car up on the ramp either. I wouldn't like to see anyone lose their job either as someone said earlier.

I guess I was wondering if it was common practice when trading in to tell porkies.....if it was almost expected I guess. I'm sure it happens everyday of the week for dealers.
Do they expect a certain percentage of trade-ins to have undisclosed issues? Not everyone is going to be 100% truthful.

Morally, I would disclose the issues but I didn't want to find out later when someone says to me "Ye gob****e, ye should have kept your mouth shut, garages expect this", hence my original post. As I said, I wouldn't sell private, wouldnt like to pass the problem onto a normal Joe.

Ideally, I'd like to get it repaired before trading but when a dealer qoutes you almost 900 quid for something the size of a box of smokes...well, kinda pisses you off.

Del2005

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

I do believe this clause is only used, in say a serious case where the issue has gone to court. It is then up to a barrister, solicitor or whoever to discover whether or not the owner of the vehicle knew about the existing problem when he traded it in.

It will be looked at like this - If the car was say, down on power, even slightly, it is possible that a driver would notice it. Now the judge would look at the driver themselves, for instance, if the driver was a keen motoring enthusiast, it would be reasonable to assume that he would notice this. If however, the driver was say, and old woman, it might not be as reasonable to assume this.

So, if the keen motoring enthusiast decides not to fix it or get it looked at as he is trading the vehicle in, i think it is reasonable for Him to held responsible. He knew there was a problem (however slight) but didnt know what it was, so didnt say anything to the dealer.

One of the few things i learned in college was the reasonably foreseeable rule. Is is reasonably foreseeable that you realise there is a problem with your car that you are due to trade in, say nothing, trade it in, a month later recieve a call looking for money to fix a problem that was not declared to the dealer at the time? Yes, i think that is reasonably forseeable on the part of the owner, that if he doesnt tell someone about the problem, it will come back and bite him in the ass.

Sorry if this is a little confusing, welcome to the world of motoring!

But in the situation above what if the motoring enthusiast doesn't notice the car has dropped power. I'd like to think I know my way around some of a car, but my last car had a really bad(heavy) clutch. Any time my father drove he'd say the clutch is in bits. I'd drive and not notice, as it was the car I always drove. The clutch keep getting worst, but as I was always driving it and no others I never noticed. It's only when I changed cars and drove my old car I found out how truely bad the clutch was.

Drummerboy08

Del2005 wrote: »

But in the situation above what if the motoring enthusiast doesn't notice the car has dropped power. I'd like to think I know my way around some of a car, but my last car had a really bad(heavy) clutch. Any time my father drove he'd say the clutch is in bits. I'd drive and not notice, as it was the car I always drove. The clutch keep getting worst, but as I was always driving it and no others I never noticed. It's only when I changed cars and drove my old car I found out how truely bad the clutch was.

Does that not show you then that you dont really know your way around the car??

Standard Toaster

Just an update on this. I manged to get a replacement ecu from ebay and the car is now back to her old self. The guy just needed my VIN number. ECU, immobilizer & 2 transponder chips for €260 off ebay. Free fitting by myself.

Now to sell her on.

The go to guy

this isnt something that you should be looking for other peoples advice on. you know right from wrong im sure at this stage and the fact that you have asked means i think your going to do the decent thing.

i am in the car business and to be fair if you just said to me an engine light is coming on or something, then i would really appreciate it an believe it or not look after you favourably.

its your call though.