Bought a car from Facebook and it broke straight away

[Littlemissmuffett27]

Hi, Im not too sure where best to post this, but I really need some advice please.

At the weekend, I saw an ad on Facebook for a second hand car - in had one previous registered owner and looked it good condition. It had all the paperwork and the MoT was valid for another 10 months. Now, usually my husband is the one who buys our family cars, but he is away and he asked if I would be happy to view it myself and make the decision (car is a 2012 plate and is meant to be a little run-around for me to get to work / DC to school).

I saw the car and it was immaculate - my parents came with me and were also impressed. The car man, who advertised it, stressed it only had one owner and my dad clarified it with this guy that he was a “dealer”, who buys cars, does them up and sells them on. I went for a quick test drive with him and decided to purchase it for £1900 (the selling price). I drove the car straight home.

So, since then, we have had countless issues; it has had to be jump started 3 times, new battery and then yesterday, as I was about to go onto the motorway with my DC in the back of the car, the engine made this awful banging sound and an error message came up to say to stop the vehicle. My DH came out to rescue us and he checked the engine; basically he found the coolant bit was full of a copper coloured “dirt”, which we now believe is a “stop leak” substance, as the water just drains straight out of it.

DH messaged the seller straight away (car bought Monday and this latest incident happened yesterday); the message was civil as he wanted the man to reply to him and open up a conversation, but this man has ignored my husband.

Im so upset as money is very tight at the minute and I have literally just wasted nearly £2k on a broken car.

I know about the “seller beware”, but as this guy was acting as a “dealer” (car was not registered to him), is there any comeback on him? Is there anything I can do to recoup my money / some of it? What makes me most upset is that this guy has no morals and doesn’t care that the car could’ve conked out on the motorway, endangering my DC’s lives.

DH is going to take the car in to a garage to see if it is at all repairable, but I just want to give the guy a piece of my mind / a big thump.

@Littlemissmuffett27 check all the log book/paper work he's given you.

Look at mileage on mot website and check it tallies (esp the last mot dated Apr/May)

You may find some discrepancy which would allow you to go down small claims court route.

Fingers crossed for you.

Whenever my dad bought a car when I was a kid, he’d take me and my sister with him and show us how to check every fluid (custardy oil would be a no), underneath for leaks, tyre wear pattern, every panel to see if it was the right colour/lined up evenly with the panels next to it. We’d test every electrical element worked before a very thorough test drive listening to the engine as we went up the gears, testing the brakes and listening for weird noises when cornering. I’ll never buy a car I haven’t driven at 70+mph (to test the tracking as much as the handling).

A MOT only confirms the car was roadworthy at the time of the test. Service history is also important. I wouldn’t touch anything that hadn’t done at least 6000 miles a year or had stood for 2 years during Covid.

There must be so many people driving around in unsafe cars.

OP please listen to this. This is a lawyer giving factual real advice ☺️

I bought a car from a dealership and it broke straight away and they still wouldn't do anything

Thank you all for the advice - Im going to show my husband this thread and see what we can do (if anything). Thank you for taking the time to reply 🌷

You shouldn't have accepted that. As per my post, you have rights - pretty much the same rights as if you had bought a brand new car.

Did the advert say anything like "runs great" or anything to indicate it had no issues?

If you think he was a dealer in the sense of being a 'trader' then this was a consumer contract and you do have rights.
Look up the Consumer Rights Act 2015.
Lots of little dealers use FB and pretend to be private sellers but if he told you he was a dealer, threaten to small claim him if he doesn't refund or investigate the repairs.

Oh I didn't realise you could do this too. Thank you!

94k isn't a car that's driven regularly if it's a 2012 plate I do double that in a year. If the fluids were copper coloured then that is because it's been standing a long time. Cars that have few miles for age are not worth buying as are cars with super high mileage. I hope you get sorted but legally there's not much you can do immaculate inside doesn't mean outside or engine was the same. Also because of the age it is literally a gamble as to wether you get a good or bad car sellers can only go by an mot etc it's not always there fault unless they've done the same many times before. Hope you get sorted out tho.

sellers can only go by MOT

See my post above.

I think there is an order of magnitude issue here. If you are doing double that in a year, you are doing 188,000 miles a year. That would wear out the engine on most cars.

94,000 miles for a 2012 car is 7,200 miles a year. The average for the UK is around 7,400 miles a year, so this is only slightly below average.

Hmm, as others say you may have more protection if he's technically a dealer. I'm not too sure. But unless I'm buying from a typical dealer with a warranty I'd be paying the £60 to ClickMechanic to come and do a once over and I'd be checking the MOT history (it's free to do so).

But you could just be unlucky. Also, a mechanic isn't allowed to take stuff apart when doing the inspection so could still miss issues.

Doing 188k in a year is far from normal though. You must have a job that entails travelling to a lot of client's sites etc. Our trucks at work don't do that in a year! You'd never hit that kind of mileage driving to the office and back.

The emphasis on 1 previous owner suggests he completed the Motor Trader section of the V5 when buying the car so he wasn't added as an owner. This may work in your favour if you try and claim against him.

Presumably they mean they do double the average of OP’s car. Ie 15000 a year. Which still isn’t that high.

Ah that’s a horrible experience OP.

This guy has clearly set out to dupe someone if there was stop leak involved. Hope you manage to resolve this.

could even be stolen

The seller provided zero guarantee

Some second hand cars go on forever

Some second hand cars need repairs

Some second hand cars break

You were unlucky

The seller provided zero guarantee

That doesn’t matter. As he’s a trader the OP has the right to reject it in the first 30 days as it’s faulty. This is likely to be easier said than done but if he’s not playing ball then mention of small claims, trading standards and HMRC might change matters, a refund of what is a fairly small amount in the grand scheme of things will keep all that hassle from his door.

OP - see if you can screenshot other ads that he has up, this will help prove that he’s a trader.

Guarantees are irrelevant. The buyer always has some rights, more if the seller is a trader. See my first post on this thread.