motor advice

amber 22

hey everyone i got a vw bora back in oct n got ripped:mad:! and recently took it to a garage to get it checked n found out that the airbags are either blown or removed and that the management lights are removed. i now want to get rid of it so im just wondering if i can trade it in n say nothing or am i now liable for the car because its in my name i paid 5000 euro for it n the garage where i got it told me to piss off:rolleyes: so now i dont know wat to do. i would love to get a trade in but i dont know what the story is with it. any advice n id b very grateful thanks:)

Anan1

If that happened to me i'd be straight on to a solicitor. If you trade it in and say nothing you're as bad as the garage who sold it to you, IMO.

amber 22

ye i think you are right. i have 2 kids meself n i dont want it on me conscience if anything happened i dont want to let the gatage away with but i think ill take your advice. thank you

Mr Benevolent

Yikes. Solicitor. Tomorrow.

Out of interest, what year/engine was it?

amber 22

2000 vw bora 1.4 petrol silver heap of dirt if i got the fella that sold it id murder him!

pablosd

bring him to the court, friend was telling me that if sumone says the car is spot on and u buy it, then u have a high chances of a compesation as the description was misleading and untrue(this applies for period of 6 months only) try consumer association ireland,
i'D try anything at this stage, u ve nothin to loose

EPM

solicitor. Not that it will make much of a difference, if he's SIMI registered copy them on it too

mickdw

You must have a case here. It was obviously in an accident. Look up the history of the car. If you get details of an accident consistent with the airbags being set off on a date prior to your purchase, well you couldnt lose surely. No garage could claim not to know about the problems. If the engine management light & airbag light are not showing, any professional trader would see this even if it wasnt themselves who carried out the botch. So really they DID knowingly sell you a dangerous car.

Guy:Incognito

From my reading it sounds like it was a private sale.

Zube

amber 22 wrote: »

any advice n id b very grateful thanks:)

Enter the Euromillions Lotto on Friday. Win.

Then you'll be able to afford to sue the garage and lose, because it'll still be your word against theirs.

But you won't care because you'll be rich!

L-M

Did you buy from a garage? If so, they shouldn't be in business if they knew about it.

At the same time, you haven't mentioned buying from a garage and if it was a private sale, doesn't the whole "buyer beware" thing not come into play?

Anan1

I think she bought it from a garage

amber 22 wrote: »

i paid 5000 euro for it n the garage where i got it told me to piss off:rolleyes:

L-M

Anan1 wrote: »

I think she bought it from a garage

Lol, of course. I'll put it down to a bad day yesterday:p

robtri

can only be go to a solicitor.......

Drummerboy08

There's been a few of these threads the last few days hasnt there?

Solicitor all the way.

CharlieCroker

Drummerboy08 wrote: »

There's been a few of these threads the last few days hasnt there?

Solicitor all the way.

+1
It's fella's like these who aren't helping the trade at the moment

Mr Benevolent

i paid 5000 euro for it n the garage where i got it

She bought it from a garage, no question.

Guy:Incognito

Anan1 wrote: »

I think she bought it from a garage

This is what threw me. Surely the garage cant be hard to find again? The individual sales guy isnt important, especially when you cna go through the garage.

amber 22 wrote: »

2000 vw bora 1.4 petrol silver heap of dirt if i got the fella that sold it id murder him!

Anan1

Stekelly wrote: »

This is what threw me. Surely the garage cant be hard to find again? The individual sales guy isnt important, especially when you cna go through the garage.

The garage told her to 'piss off'.

Darragh29

First of all OP, you need a professional garage to inspect the car and verify the following:

(1) Have the airbags (or an airbag) been removed from the car?

(2) If they have, you need to have this information in writing.

(3) If all airbags are present, you need to have the car hooked up to a computer and see if the airbags are operational or otherwise. You need the outcome of this investigation put in writing also.

(4) You need to accertain whether the bulbs in the dashboard have been removed or if there is a possibility that the bulb(s) in question are present but could have blown.

The last thing you want to do is go to a solicitor and find out afterwards that the airbags were in fact there and were not operational for genuine reasons and because the warning bulb had blown, that you were not aware of this. And this is the defence a garage will try to use if it is available to them.

A solicitor will advise you to get a report done up that will clarify all this anyway, but before you proceed, you need to be sure you are on solid ground with regard to the information you have been given and this means a detailed written report on letterheaded paper with photographs, is required with regard to the presence or absence, whichever the case may be, of the airbag and the ABS warning bulb, and also a report on the operational state of the ABS system and any fault codes that are being generated by the system.

amber 22

ye it was got out of a garage. and they told me that the fella who did the sale doesnt work there and was never registered working there.and he said his garage is not liable.:mad: if it had of been a private sale i probably wouldnt have a comeback but as i got it out of a garage (which is supposed to be a top notch garage) i hope ive a comeback. i only have the car five months does anyone know where i could get a report done on the car to see was it crashed? i went the garda they did nothing. i just hope he is not allowed sell cars to anyone else because it will happen many others and it could be worse.:(

L-M

Any reciepts from the garage? Any proof that you bought it off them. Salesman is irrelevant if you can prove it was bought from that garage.

Darragh29

amber 22 wrote: »

ye it was got out of a garage. and they told me that the fella who did the sale doesnt work there and was never registered working there.and he said his garage is not liable.:mad: if it had of been a private sale i probably wouldnt have a comeback but as i got it out of a garage (which is supposed to be a top notch garage) i hope ive a comeback. i only have the car five months does anyone know where i could get a report done on the car to see was it crashed? i went the garda they did nothing. i just hope he is not allowed sell cars to anyone else because it will happen many others and it could be worse.:(

It doesn't matter OP what the man in the garage has said to you with regard to him not being liable or the person who sold you the car no longer being employed there, blah blah blah. This is irrelevant. What matters here is that he is running a business and you are a retail consumer. These two roles are defined by the Sale of Goods & Supply of Services Act, 1980.

Accordingly, this business has a duty to you, to ensure that goods/product sold to you are of "merchantable quality" and are fit for the purpose for which you were intending to use the product for.

Obviously you thought you had bought a car with a functioning airbag system, for the purposes of protecting people travelling in the car. If the airbag system cannot have ever worked properly, then the whole product that you bought (the car), is not fit for the purpose that you intended using it for and it is not of merchantable quality.

Unfortunately the outlet you are dealing with, will probably have to be taken to court, but if you gather the evidence and get a solicitor to present the evidence to them as I've outlined above, only an insane business man would let this go to court. My advice is to spend a few Euro getting an independent written report done, and get a solicitor to send them this report asking for a full refund within 14 days, pursuant to your entitlements under the Sale of Goods & Supply of Services Act, 1980. Otherwise, get your solicitor to state in the correspondence that has has been instructed to file proceedings on day 15 if he has not received your refund by then.

EDIT: I meant to say OP, be sure to add the cost of your technical report and your solicitors fees to the refund amount you are seeking and include these costs in your solicitors letter.

Lastly, on the scale of consumer issues, this is an extremely serious matter and if it ended up in court, it would probably make the papers. Deliberately removing airbags, (they are sold off to dodgy bodyshops), is about as bad as it gets...

-Chris-

Get a solicitor & independent assessor on it asap.

You're driving a "deathtrap", they've endangered your family and they've (basically) stolen your money.

If you trade that car in to me without disclosing everything you know about it and I subsequently find out about it, you won't be long getting a solicitor's letter from us.

Darragh29

AudiChris wrote: »

Get a solicitor & independent assessor on it asap.

You're driving a "deathtrap", they've endangered your family and they've (basically) stolen your money.

If you trade that car in to me without disclosing everything you know about it and I subsequently find out about it, you won't be long getting a solicitor's letter from us.

It's hard to believe that there are people in the trade doing this. And the excuse the OP was given about some lad no longer working there and such absolute rubbish, hard to read to be honest without getting angry.

-Chris-

Yep, it's terrible, and people need to remember that you never deal with a "lad" in a garage, you deal with a garage who's employed the lad - the garage is liable for any actions the lad takes while he's representing them.

Darragh29

AudiChris wrote: »

Yep, it's terrible, and people need to remember that you never deal with a "lad" in a garage, you deal with a garage who's employed the lad - the garage is liable for any actions the lad takes while he's representing them.

To even try to attempt to argue that "sorry missus, I can't do anything for ya because your man doesn't work here anymore"??? :eek::eek::eek:

The only way this could have any basis is if the business that sold the OP the car had ceased trading from that address and another entirely different business had started trading there in it's place but the comments made to date would suggest that this hasn't happened here...

pred racer

Guys, the op is also asking who can do the assesment for her, I dont think the AA do this anymore. Who would be next best? VW garage or trusted local mechanic? or maybe insurance assesor?

Darragh29

pred racer wrote: »

Guys, the op is also asking who can do the assesment for her, I dont think the AA do this anymore. Who would be next best? VW garage or trusted local mechanic? or maybe insurance assesor?

I'd be going with an independent motor assessor on this one. They are used to court appearances and putting technical problems down on paper.

Henry Ford III

OP the advise being given here is very sound, and is the only way you'll get any kind of result from your obviously bad purchase.

Get a proper report done, get your paperwork together, and get a Solicitor write to the garage as soon as possible.

Time to take some action I reckon.

amber 22

well thank you for all your useful comments and help i was on to a solicitor today and i have an appointment which he said that he will send out a letter to the garage to start with but hopefully i will get somewhere. so thank again ill let yous know how i get on.

Darragh29

amber 22 wrote: »

well thank you for all your useful comments and help i was on to a solicitor today and i have an appointment which he said that he will send out a letter to the garage to start with but hopefully i will get somewhere. so thank again ill let yous know how i get on.

This doesn't sound very promising OP. Before your solicitor even lifts a pen, he/she should get the technical facts established. If a solictor told me they were going to write to the garage without first getting the facts fully established from a technical perspective, I wouldn't be using that solicitor for this task. First thing you or your solicitor need to do here is instruct an assessor or an automotive engineer to examine the car and compile a detailed report, with photographs included, stating whether your car has or does not have airbags fitted as per the manufacturers specification for the vehicle and also, whether the warning lamp for this subsystem has been tampered with or removed. You need to go into your solicitor and instruct your solicitor to do what you tell him/her and approach the problem in a logical and constructive manner. I'm PM'ing you a reliable assessor I've used before, I recommend you give him a call and discuss your case with him and he can tell you whether he can help you here...