Disclose known faults when trading in?
Does anyone know if you are legally bound to disclose known faults when trading in a car to a car dealer or selling to the likes of WeBuyAnyRubbish etc. ? If I was asked I wouldn’t lie about them but am I required to volunteer the information? I guess it depends on the faults. Minor stuff on a cheap car probably not, but if you are selling a premium vehicle with a known serious fault - or even an old banger where you know the cost to repair will be more than the car's worth, then personally I wouldn't misrepresent the sale.That being said, we did sell a car where an injector seal blew the day before we were due to trade it in and the repair was perhaps not quite up to usual standards... We needed a new copper washer and they were not available off the shelf, so I ended up fitting one of the same diameter but a little thinner from a kit of assorted washers from Halfords. Still a copper washer, but it was unlikely to last too long before it would need replacing again! Needs must at 6 o'clock on a Friday evening! If I was selling privately I would, regardless of legality.
Selling to a stealer. Wouldn't give it a second thought unless I had a decent relationship with them. They'd screw you over quite happily and laugh it up in the pub while spending the extra commission they got pumping up the APR, under-valuing your trade-in, tacking on over-inflated extras and selling you a something they know has problems with promises (you'll have to jump through hoops for) to fix it. Selling privately I’d let any buyer know. Selling to any kind of webuyanycar place then they can take what I give them. They know they stitch people up and I guess it’s in their figures to pick up some dodgy cars along the way. Recently helped sister in law buy a new VW, she traded in her old 116i which has been nothing but trouble and over the last few months was popping up drivetrain error. We just said the cars fine when trading in, we drove it 50 miles to get there.
The salesman was her best friend when doing the deal, saying how great the 116i was condition wise (it was rough). When it came collection day she was so scared they were going to say her car was faulty and not take it, told her not to worry or feel bad as her new best friend who rang every day up to collection won't give a toss once you drive away in the new car.
True to that she had to wait over a month for a deposit refund and some cash back from her trade in as she didn't want to put it all down on the new car. Every time she rang the salesman was either busy and would call back etc.. never did.
Stealers know the game and I've bought enough cars now to play them at it. I remember paying out £1000 for the cat on my wife’s Seat Ibiza before trading it in only to be told by the Ford dealer that we shouldn’t have bothered as it was going straight into auction.
When trading in our Mini Cooper at the same dealer 5 years later I didn’t mention the faulty power steering. Traded in my Mazda6 on-line to a dealer in Warrington, didn't disclose issues with the air con and the speakers on the drivers side.Dealer collected it with no issues at all.
I live in Cornwall (just outside) Padstow.A month after the trade-in, I park up in a supermarket near me and my old car pulls up in the next but one space to me.I say "nice car" to the driver, and ask him where he got it from - same dealer, paid £200 more than I traded it in for.I ask if he got a warranty - "yes, 6 months" was the reply, at which point I told him to get the aircon and speakers fixed: he then 'twigged', and said - are you the guy from Padstow who was the previous owner?
So the dealer has probably valeted the car, and then either stuck up for sale with no checks at all OR sold it after discovering the issues and didn't disclose them.Which reinforces the above view of: private sale - disclose; dealer - let the buyer beware. All sales are sold as seen as far as I am concerned. As above I wouldn’t sell a known fault to a private buyer though. Any kind of dealer though and buyer beware. If they ask about a visible fault when they check it over then I wouldn’t lie though. When i traded my old Insignia estate in for a new one it had been having numerous DPF faults for ages leading to forced regens, drivers side heated seat didnt work and a dodgy ABS sensor was causing a light to come on if you turned to far to the left and the electric handbrake was a bit iffy. When the salemen went outside to value it he did so at gone 5pm on a January evening so it was pitch black so kind of got the impression unless something was falling off the car they didnt really care what they were getting. I had a red car suffering from such awful paint oxidation, it was a light pink on horizontal surfaces. We spent all morning polishing it back to a clean red for the trade in and when we got there they didn't even check whether it was in their car park data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
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