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A cautionary tale

Second-hand car dealers consistently rank amongst the lowest of all professions in regard to public trust (even lower than politicians). My experience of buying an £11000 VW vehicle from these people suggests why. Their glossy website proclaimed them to be an 'Approved Dealer', promising multipoint inspections and warranty on all vehicles. Strange then that there was no presale inspection report available. Asked specifically what work had been done on the vehicle pre-sale I was told only 'a service'. There was an unverifiable dealer stamp in the Service Book, but no documentation of what procedures had been carried out. The vehicle itself still displayed the message 'Service in 2000 miles'. Test drive revealed a rattle from the front end. When I queried if this was from the suspension, the salesman assured me it had been fully checked and there were no faults. I was persuaded to buy a further year's Warranty (upgraded to cover suspension) and, swayed by their apparent AA Approved Dealer status and their newly-issued MOT pass without any 'Advisories', I took it, (but had the rattle noted on the invoice). On the 130 mile drive home the rattle became worrying. Next morning I also discovered that all four tyres had a load rating lower than the minimum specified for the vehicle (clearly dangerous, widely regarded as 'illegal', and unacceptable to motor insurance companies). For my own peace of mind I got a check MOT test that same day. It failed on three Major suspension faults. It looked like I had been 'scammed'. Having always innocently assumed MOT 'advisories' were mandatory, I discovered they are completely at the discretion of the tester. This is clearly to the advantage of an unscrupulous dealer who could potentially hide serious wear of key components for long enough to deny responsibility, or mislead an unsuspecting customer into believing previous 'advisory' issues had been attended to. Surprising too is the legal 'loophole' which omits the tyre load rating check from the MOT test on private cars (but not other vehicle classes). When confronted with this immediate MOT fail, only then did the salesman confess they had "spent a large some of money on the suspension" to get the van through its MOT. This work had been concealed from me pre-sale and was undocumented. To resolve this easily, independently and impartially, I offered an inspection at my local VW Van Centre. They declined. I offered to arrange a formal MOT appeal. They declined this too. My attempts then to agree the terms on which they could take the vehicle back for inspection were met (just 72 hours after the sale) with the insistence that all future communication would be only through their 'legal team'. The business model of their 'legal team' as described on its website (www.legalsolutions4u.co.uk) appears to be to block direct communication between disgruntled customers and dealers. I could not find them listed as a regulated law firm. An internet search suggested one partner to be a 'struck-off'' solicitor (https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/gateshead-solicitor-ordered-pay-back-10980672) with conviction for fraud. This seemed an interesting choice of 'legal' back-up for any reputable dealer to make. Most of us still naively trust what we read on the internet. But how traders describe themselves and their services on their websites is largely unpoliced. This company's website announced it was an 'Approved Dealer'. My purchase enquiry was made through the AA Cars website ("the safest place to buy a used car"), where they repeatedly appeared in a search for 'Approved Dealers'. "Buying your used car from an (AA) Approved Dealer means the vehicle has been rigorously checked by our inspectors". Later, when resorting to the AA, I was informed that Avon were not, and never had been, an Approved Dealer, but subscribed at a much lower level. So who had 'approved' them? Avon Car Sales' website has pages about their 'vehicle preparation standards' which bear a remarkable similarity to those of the RAC approved dealer scheme ('BuySure'). Indeed the wording of Avon's second paragraph is so similar it is surely a 'copy and paste' direct from the RAC website, even including the claim "..we developed BuySure". Despite this RAC product reference, Avon Car Sales did not appear in a search for RAC Approved Dealers. The RAC later told me Avon Car Sales is 'no longer a member of the RAC Dealer Network'. The impressive image of a modern spacious sales facility shown on Avon's 'preparation standards' webpage, bears no resemblance to the tiny office from which they sold me the vehicle. This misleading image is actually a stock picture from Shutterstock, used widely online by multiple dealerships from Hongkong to Manitoba. The AA told me the company had not registered any other premises and outsourced their MOTs and repairs. That made the total absence of any service/repair/inspection documentation even more puzzling. Although all trust had long gone, the Law required me to give the company an opportunity to remedy any defects. They came to collect the vehicle, but, although an MOT 'FAIL', drove it the 130 miles back. I understood this to be illegal, because 'Trade plates' only permit the driving of an un-taxed vehicle, not an 'unroadworthy' one. They immediately claimed that re-inspection by their tester showed no cause for an MOT fail, and they branded mine 'amateur'. But the promised inspection report was never provided to me in evidence. Supplying the dangerous tyres they dismissed as a 'grey area'. However, after two weeks a new MOT pass was issued by their local VW dealership, following correction of several new advisories, such as worn brake discs, which should have been declared on a presale inspection report (and surely corrected before sale). Before bringing the vehicle back, they tried to insist that I sign my acceptance that the matter was now 'closed', but before I had seen the vehicle, without any proper documentation of what had been done (just the salesman's word), and with no engineer's report to explain the extraordinary MOT discrepancy. Insisting on full disclosure of all documentation I was finally sent only parts invoices, which for the first time revealed details of the extensive work on brakes and suspension that had been done before sale (which was not recorded in the vehicle service history and had been deliberately concealed from me pre-sale). This work should have been a 'selling-point' so why did they need to hide this? I now finally have a van which appears to be roadworthy, and has had the dangerous tyres replaced. The rattle which initiated the problems also mysteriously disappeared during the three weeks they had the vehicle although allegedly no work had been necessary. Whether all this finally came about entirely through the 'goodwill' of the dealer (as they claim), through my determination not to be bullied or intimidated by threats of legal action (which continued right to the end), or the intervention of the AA disputes team, who knows? This dealer described itself an 'an honest business'. That may be true. But their lack of transparency at every stage called this into question. During the progress of this dispute, the AA Cars website announced: 'Avon Car Sales Ltd is no longer advertising their stock with AA Cars'. I wonder why. Finally, several weeks later I, as registered keeper, was sent three £100 parking fines, issued in the days before my vehicle's return, when, while threatening me with 'storage charges' if I didn't agree to their terms, they were clearly using it for their own private purposes before giving it back. Trustworthy?