E Bay Seller

I recently purchased a P38 from a chap at Ross on Wye who it seems is a dealer hiding by registering the vehicles in his name.
The vehicle arrived by transporter due to virus regs and seemed Ok until the next morning when the suspension would not rise,this was initially cured by reprogram,then the instrument panel failed and various other faults came to light.
A mismatch of wheels and tyres which caused the vehicle to wander,later found to be the odd wheel was buckled,phoned the guy who promised to swap the vehicle for another( after 5 weeks) he had which was an autobiography again advertised on ebay,did a vehicle check and found that the car showing 133000 miles had in 2006 been clocked to the tune of 88000 miles told him about it and it re appeared on ebay with no mention of the false mileage.
At this point I gave up and he agreed to pay for the front suspension ball joints and steering parts to be changed.
Since this point I have been unable to get any reply to my emails so having got a vosa inspection report it looks like a court case.
I wonder if anyone else on here has fallen foul of him.

Sounds like a right sh!t. Best of luck with the case.
Shame this sort of fu ck can't be well and truly outed easily and legally.

I had a bad experience with a well known car dealer last year when purchased a E39 saloon. When I viewed & road tested the car it was shod with Michelin tyres, I paid a deposit & arranged to collect the car when transfer of the balance had been confirmed a few days later.
The following day, with the car on my drive, I checked the tyres & was shocked to find that (a) two of the tyres were different makes to the rears, all the DOT codes showed them to be old (oldest was 19 years) & although all had a decent tread none of them was a Michelin I was straight on the 'phone & of course my accusation was vermently denied so I ended up buying four new tyres. I know I was right, but had no proof … had I checked the rubber again when collecting the car, but who thinks of the need to go to those lengths

norseman said:

I had a bad experience with a well known car dealer last year when purchased a E39 saloon. When I viewed & road tested the car it was shod with Michelin tyres, I paid a deposit & arranged to collect the car when transfer of the balance had been confirmed a few days later.
The following day, with the car on my drive, I checked the tyres & was shocked to find that (a) two of the tyres were different makes to the rears, all the DOT codes showed them to be old (oldest was 19 years) & although all had a decent tread none of them was a Michelin I was straight on the 'phone & of course my accusation was vermently denied so I ended up buying four new tyres. I know I was right, but had no proof … had I checked the rubber again when collecting the car, but who thinks of the need to go to those lengths

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Was there any service history with the car?
Any receipts for the Michelins?
Did they also "Vehemently claim" to have done the servicing mentioned in the service record book?
I'd be tempted to contact Trading Standards to see if there is anything you can do, also to get it serviced by a main dealer and get them to tell you of anything they find peculiar. If you can get any ammo from all this then you may be able to use it as leverage.
If they are tight enough to change the tyres, what else might they have done/not done?
Have heard similar terrible tales of what some unscrupulous garages will do. Bet they do this tyre trick all the time.

Did you go and see the vehicle before buying?

The first decent car I bought, a mark 1 escort looked great on the dealers forecourt, he showed me all round it, including the boot and engine bay. After a week I had a puncture but the spare was missing, it was definately there when I viewed the car.

Col

I got stung a bit with my recent FL2 purchase.
It looked good in the pictures, and actually it is pretty good. However the ebay description said it had a "misfire possibly injectors".
After I'd won the auction, I quickly checked over the vehicle (which was running when I got there), apparently he needed to move it from his storage yard.
It was running on 3 cylinders as expected, but after I stopped the engine and restarted it, I could tell it was down on compression on 1 cylinder. I'd assumed this to a dropped swirl flap before bidding, so was expecting it to be low on compression on 1 cylinder.

So I drove it home, happy with it, as it seemed as described.

However it was a few weeks until I got the time to start working on the car.

The first thing I noticed was 3 reverse sensors were missing, although it was difficult to tell if they were missing in the Ebay pictures.
While looking at the Ebay pictures in more detail, I noticed the the OSR tyre wasn't the same as the listing picture (it matched the other 3 on the vehicle).

When I got the head off, I discovered the cause of the low compression (it was a nut in the combustion chamber ) , requiring a replacement piston and extensive head repair work.

The once I got the engine back together, I find it still has a misfire, which I'm putting down to a faulty ECU.

So I decided to contact the seller about the missing sensors and odd tyre (presumably he swapped it as the car didn't get what he wanted in the auction), only to find the business has closed down, and the ebay account deactivated.

I'm not out of pocket as such, but the car is going to cost me more than it should have, if the seller hadn't been such a tosser.

Brave buying something from a description, presume you didn't get to see the car beforehand? not something I'd do if I'm honest.

You simply cannot beat viewing a car in the flesh, but I reckon all he dealers are going to only be doing remote viewing with delivery or click and collect, which you dont want, what you want is them to deliver the car (foc to you) that way it comes under the distance selling regs, which gives you 14 days to refuse the car.
If they refuse, then you know they are not to be trusted and can move on to find another.

the bad news is the dealers are struggling to find decent used stock, so they are buying any old carp, and selling it on to you!

See here, well worth a read, https://www.gov.uk/online-and-distance-selling-for-businesses

Stanleysteamer said:

Was there any service history with the car?
Any receipts for the Michelins?
Have heard similar terrible tales of what some unscrupulous garages will do. Bet they do this tyre trick all the time.

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1) Yes
2) No
This was all 18 months ago so water under the bridge as they say. I've put it down to experience, but thought I'd mention the saga in the hope of warning other perspective purchasers.
Thank you for your input though.

flat said:

Did you go and see the vehicle before buying?

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Yes I did & road tested it as well, the only fault found was a weak handbrake … something I later discovered to be a common fault with this model. It passes the MOT but as any form of emergency brake you might as well kiss your ass goodbye

I now always view a car on e-bay and really check it over before I bid (but see below). I don't mind buying a vehicle with faults, so long as I know what they are and the price is right. Nothing has changed, 30 years ago a mate bought a really nice Capri from a dealer, checked it, then went back 3 days later to collect it. Got it home - different engine, dealer denied it. Another one bought a Datsun at auction, looked good; respray. Got it home, lifted the carpets to clean it, red floor in the front, blue in the back. Its the same as it ever was, the only difference is, like on-line banking- we've come to trust it too much becuase its a computer and tech so it must be OK.
I once broke my golden rule and bought a car from Hartleypool unseen. Stupid becuase it wasn't especialy good value and I later got a better one 2 miles from home, I let impatience get the better of me. It wasn't an absolute dog, but it had been on the coast (Hartlepool; doh!) which broke my other golden rule. It had almost no surface rust, but inside, it was paper thin. Good news was 6 months later it got wrtten off by a flood and was on agval insurence.

potus said:

Brave buying something from a description, presume you didn't get to see the car beforehand? not something I'd do if I'm honest.

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I wouldn't normally, but there wasn't enough time to the end of the auction, considering it was over 100 miles away. It looked good in the pictures, and bids were low enough to take a chance. I got a nice straight FL2 in SE spec with 119k on the clock for £2,000. This was almost £4k lower then a similar but working vehicle available locally, so I'll not lose out on the deal.

I've bought several cars off eBay for myself or on the behalf of others. I have never once viewed one before buying, I know it's a risk but there seems to be lots of stories on here about people buying from dealers after viewing and test driving only to find after two weeks they have bought a dog, sometimes, they don't even get them all the way home before they realise it.

Col

Colthebrummie said:

The first decent car I bought, a mark 1 escort looked great on the dealers forecourt, he showed me all round it, including the boot and engine bay. After a week I had a puncture but the spare was missing, it was definately there when I viewed the car.

Col

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When I first started in the trade I worked for a large car retail company, and one of my first jobs was to remove both engine and rear axle from one excellent condition sold Ford 100E, that purchaser was told to collect the car next day giving me time to swap them for another 100E that smoked badly and had axle wine,
Totally unscrupulous company and being a 16 year old apprentice I did what I was told, all these years later it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth,

So here’s a question...
Do you need a working/fitted fog light on a 59 plate car?(As this is an import)
Something mrs did not check when buying motor off eBay

Hicap phill said:

So here’s a question...
Do you need a working/fitted fog light on a 59 plate car?(As this is an import)
Something mrs did not check when buying motor off eBay

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Rear fog light? If so then yes, they are mandatory after 1986. You only need one, but it must be on the centre line or offside, and must only come on with dipped headlights, and have an internal warning that the fogs are on. In theory they should also stay off after cycling the ignition, although I don't know of an MOT tester actually testing that function.

Report them to hmrc for running a business. And treat em like a dealer and assert yer rights. Other wise LBC and do em over.

I stand to be corrected but this - and other .gov sites - speak of 1 April 1980 for one obligatory rear fog light. (Two are mentioned in the RVLR 1989 for post 1st April 1986 'where two rear fog lamps are fitted to a motor vehicle first used on or after 1st April 1986 they shall form a matched pair')
There is no requirement for them to go out automatically on full beam although that WAS a quirk of some RRC incl my own '86. I initially thought this was a fault, but talking to a friend of mine he said that Leicestershire Police also noticed this on theirs & queried it with LR. The reply was that LR took the view that if visibility was good enough to use main beams you didn't need rear fogs on. When switched on they go off on main but back on on dip.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/mot-ins...ectors-and-electrical-equipment#section-4-5-1
"4.5.1. Presence, condition and operation
You only need to inspect:

• front fog lamps fitted to vehicles first used on or after 1 March 2018
• the 1 rear fog lamp which must be fitted to the centre or offside of vehicles first used on or after 1 April 1980"

Well I have given him plenty of chances to reply to me so yes its now a nice letter to hmrc and trading standards,(can you say you are not a trader when you advertise so many cars on ebay in a short space of time)
Strangely payments are made to his wife,so they must both be involved.