Car History Check - SIMI

MCMLXXV wrote: »

You know the way Primetime do all this investigative stuff and have on more than one occasion done a dodgy dealer type thing?

I absolutely hate the 'I'll be on to Joe Duffy' type brigade but if you went to Primetime with the story and documented proof would there be any interest from them I wonder?

I know 99% of SIMI's interests are in their dealer network but when they're advertising the likes of 'buy a car with confidence from a SIMI dealer' they should be held accountable for dealer offences.

Actually, I will give primetime a call now and see what they say. I will let you know how it goes.

Bombbastic22 wrote: »

Tis no harm at all. I think it would make an interesting show.

Whether or not they'd bother is a whole other thing.

Ah well, at least they changed the car for you.

It's all very stressful though - for something which should be straightforward consumer law - I mean, I always thought you were safe to buy from a garage and if something went wrong - they had to fix it or refund you - like any other thing you buy.

Seems a different kettle of fish though.

When it comes to buying a car, you have basically no rights. I mistakenly thought buying from an SIMI member gave you some level of protection but I was hugely wrong. In my experience, whether you buy from an SIMI member or not doesn’t make any difference, you have little or no protection. SIMI go on about buying from their members because you can have confidence that their members will act in accordance with their rules and if not, you have them to fall back on.

In my particular case, SIMI not only failed me, but absolutely showed they have no interest in an SIMI member selling a car with a false service history and false mileage on the clock as well as a whole host of other problems with the car. As far as the SIMI are concerned, I was supposed to ignore the false service history and ignore the false mileage. My car was totally worthless but the SIMI didn’t care.

They felt that because their member tried to fix my car, many, many times I might add and failed but not only that, but the garage lied about the work that was supposed to have been carried out and told me three different garages carried out the work and all three denied doing the work the SIMI member said they did.

I doubt Primetime would be interested in this but if in the future they do a similar theme investigation, they have my contact details because I would love to show them the independent written proof I provided to the SIMI that clearly showed their member sold a clocked car with a false service history and had done everything they could to avoid responsibility for the car and completely lied about work carried out on the car and who done this work. Another point, the SIMI member lied three times about when I actually reported the serious problems with the car and I also provided independent written proof of that too but again SIMI totally ignored this.

I'd have reported this to the Gardaí and the RSA too. It's a clear case of fraud, which is a criminal offence. Falsifying the odometer reading can lead to missed servicing too which may lead to roadworthiness issues which I'm sure the RSA would like to hear about.

Chimaera wrote: »

I'd have reported this to the Gardaí and the RSA too. It's a clear case of fraud, which is a criminal offence. Falsifying the odometer reading can lead to missed servicing too which may lead to roadworthiness issues which I'm sure the RSA would like to hear about.

I did ring the Gardaí but they said it was a civil matter even though I explained to them that according to the car’s service log book the car was clocked and had a false service history. Didn’t make any difference, they didn’t want to know. Never thought of the RSA.

Tea 1000 wrote: »

Just a question I have. I thought it was illegal to sell a car that was clocked without disclosing that information? Also, doesn't the sale of goods act protect you from being deliberately mislead about the product you're buying? Maybe you should have just taken a case against the dealer in question rather than wasting your time with the useless shower that are SIMI?
Or am I missing something? Hope you get sorted though.

Just a question I have. I thought it was illegal to sell a car that was clocked without disclosing that information? Also, doesn't the sale of goods act protect you from being deliberately mislead about the product you're buying? Maybe you should have just taken a case against the dealer in question rather than wasting your time with the useless shower that are SIMI?
Or am I missing something? Hope you get sorted though.

It is not illegal to reduce the mileage on a cars odometer but it is illegal to sell a car knowing the car’s mileage has been reduced. You have to disclose that information to the buyer prior to them purchasing the car. Believe me, I thought I had the law on my side and I had but it would have cost me a lot of money up front to sue and my solicitor advised me that even though I would most likely win my case, there was no guarantee that the dealer would ever pay me any money, which is why I took the route of exposing my experience with the dealer and highlighting everything that happened. I was able to do this because I had independent written proof of everything that happened. Nothing was hearsay or personal opinion based or assumption no matter how obvious it was.

If anyone is considering taking a similar course of action as I did, I would certainly encourage you to do so but there are some guidelines you must follow before you put anything in the public domain. Stick only to the facts you have independent written proof of. Don’t publish personal opinion and let the reader make up their own mind of what they think of your experience.

I’m reading over letters, emails and faxes to do with this matter in order to select what I can and can not publish on the site I am setting up about SIMI’s part in this matter and I came across a very threatening legal letter from the dealer’s solicitors trying to force me to take down the web site I had set up. I am not sure if I can publish this letter even with blocking out the dealers name but if I can, I will because the solicitor was full of BS. I simply outlined to this solicitor what was on the web site were facts of events that happened and if he felt anything was not factual or was incorrect in any way to let me know and if he was correct, I would remove it from the site. He never replied because he couldn’t find one single thing on the web site that was not factual.