Used Car Help needed

[wen-tom]

Hi All, I am new to this forum as a poster but i do read occasionally and was hoping that someone could offer some advice?

I bought a 2nd hand car from a dealer on 25th april. after 16 days of partial use - used only to take our dogs around as we have another main car - it would not start at all.

When we took the car for a test drive we noted that the handbrake was not working, the foot brakes were spongy and the sunroof did not close. the dealer said they would have these faults fixed before we collected.

When the car wouldnt start we contacted the dealer who told us to either get it back to them or to a local garage. we couldnt do either as it wouldnt start so had someone come out to look at it for us but he couldn't work out what was wrong?

we thought the best thing to do was contact consumer direct for advice. they told us that we were well within our rights to reject the car for a refund.

we sent an official letter to the dealer using the template letter but had already corresponded by email and the dealer refused the rejection.

he told us that he would fix it.

we suggested (consumer direct advice again) that we get an independant inspection and that if this showed the car was not fit for purpose when it was sold that we would then bill the dealer for this cost. he refused to accept the cost.

we found that the case had been passed to trading standards as the dealer has had a lot of complaints! not a good start.

as the dealer had offered to repair the car, trading standards told us we had to allow him to inspect the car and so after a bit of a fight he arranged for his transport people to come and collect it. I (a woman) had to push the car with the guy from the transport company and almost did myself an injury. Its a freelander so not exactly light!

we instructed him on multiple occasions to inspect the car and to tell us what was wrong with it but NOT to repair it until we told him to. then if e thought it was too much wrong we would go ahead with the independant inspection.

he went ahead and repaired it anyway so now we cant prove anything!

trading standard discussed our case with him and told him we wanted to reject the car but still he is refusing. he has agreed to sell the car on our behalf and when it sells he will send us a cheque for almost what we paid - £300 short.

what worries me is that this could take ages to sell and in the meantime we are suffering.

i am considering getting legal advise but i dont know where to start as i have never had to do anything like this before?

Can anyone help me? I'm sorry for such a long 1st post!

in addition, the car is a Landrover freelander. 1999. pad £2295 + Tax disc at £185.

also when we paid the deposit, the sales guy told me that the car had FSH but this failed to materialise!

[Steward]

You can use Google to search the web using these links below:-

[raydetinu]

Record all this in writting, give him 7 days to return all monies or you will take him to court under SOGA. see what happens.

[wen-tom]

well we have put things in writing to him (via email but still as good) and he refused the rejection. i wanted to get advice before i threaten with court action but solicitors seem unwilling to give me any advice and trading standards have done all they can... ?

[raydetinu]

have you got the car and using it, is it ok now or have you still got problems?

[iconic558]

I'm a little puzzled on this one, has the dealer has repaired the car?

[ltc1607]

How long have you had the car and are you using it at the moment?