My rights.....new car

[Bonkerz]

well not a new car but new to us!

At the end of March me and DH went out to purchase a new car as we have a baby due on Tuesday 10th May and this will be our 4th child.
We spent all day looking and eventually settled on a Fiat Multipla, 1.9JTD 6 seater 02 plate (77k miles).
We got this from a local dealer. The car was sold with MOT till November and a full service history and we also had print outs of all the MOTs since it was first registered (including any advisorys etc)

The test drive was fine. DH drove it round the block under the watchful eye of the garage and said the brakes felt a little spongey but garage said it had been sat for a while. they agreed to look at the brakes for us and tehy also had to order a indicator switch which all in all took them 5 days and we collected the car on April 5th and paid £1600 cash for it.
We took the car for a full halford service on 8th April and came away with a huge list of issues the car had. These included needing new front and back brake pads and discs, serpantine belt, cam belt kit, rear coils, new handbrake cable, a fault with ABS and also a fault with the syncro rings on the gear box.
We sent an email to the trader who agreed to look the car over under warrenty and they came back to us and said that they were prepared to fix the ABS, gear box, handbrake and also some antiroll bushes that were corroded.
This was all agreed verbally on 12th April. Since then we have got all the other faults fixed at our own expense and the garage were aware we were doing this (have now spent £675 in total on car). The garage have basically started off by saying they needed to source a new gear box but have dragged their feet totally. No work has been done to the car and due to the fact i am 38 weeks pregnant and dont feel the car is safe i have not driven it since middle of april.
On MOnday we dropped the car at the traders and stated they had till Monday 9th May to get the car safe to drive and completely fixed and left them with the list and reciepts of everything we had done to the car. I have rang them this morning and they are avoiding my calls.

what are my rights? i was sold a car that was meant to be roadworthy and MOTed but the halfords report states the 4 major faults (which traders agreed to fix under warrenty) were MOT failures so the car is not as sold and not fit for purpose.
The garage were aware we were getting the other work done and at no point said not to, we were trying to prove to them we were committed to this car which we are.

In total this car has now cost over £2200 which is all the money we had to spend so we are now stuck completely. The trader has mentioned that we could give the car back to them and drive another car away but they only have 2 cars we could consider (MPV) and that are equal to the car we have. One of them is up for sale at 2300 so we would be ok financially but do i have the right to ask them to put a new MOT on it at an independant garage at their expense????? i would hate to drive away another dud car.

I desparately want to keep the mulitpila. It fits us as a family and will be a lovely long term car once fixed and considering all the work it has had done so far it should last a while too.

I just feel we are being mucked about and im getting so stressed as if we dont have this car back fixed and safe by MOnday we wont be able to do anything as a family at all!

small claims court. sounds like that's your only way.

When you buy a used car from a dealer it must:

• match any description you were given
• be fit for purpose
• be of satisfactory quality taking into account its age and mileage

You seem to have accepted that the garage only needs to fix things covered by the warranty. That was a mistake. The warranty does not affect your legal rights. The dealer was liable for any fault that you wouldn't expect in a car of that age and mileage. You should not have agreed to pay for some of the repairs yourselves. By getting some repairs done yourselves you may also have given up your right to reject the car and demand a refund, but you don't seem to want to go down that route anyway.

You can still:

• get the car repaired elsewhere and reclaim the cost from the dealer
• claim a reduction in the purchase price to reflect the actual state of the car
• return the car and get a refund less a deduction for the use you have had

You have given them a deadline. I suggest that, should they fail to meet the deadline, you inform them that if the car is not fixed by date X you will take it to another garage to get it fixed and will be expecting them to settle the bill. If they refuse you should make a claim against them using the small claims process.

thanks for the info.
I rang consumer direct and they said the same thing really so i have actually logged a formal complaint and they are letting my local council trading standards aware of the situation.
I also rang the trader back and informed him of these steps i had taken and informed him no further action will be taken if the car is fixed by monday (deadline set on 21/4/11) and either they needed to get this done or i could collect the car and my local garage would fix the car at a cost of £725 inc parts and labour and that this cost would have to be paid by them.
Within an hour the trader had rang me back stating he had ordered the part needed and it would be here Friday (today) and they would work on the car all weekend if needed to ensure it was ready for monday.

He did start saying that as i had gone to consumer direct he felt he should just give up on the car and just write me a cheque for £1600 but that soon changed when i said the local council were awareof the situation etc and he became a little more helpful.

This is so stressful and with a baby due in 4 days im not coping too well. Dh came home last night and was really stressed to, we both ended up hardly talking and being totally miserable all night.