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In another expose of dodgy advice being given to car dealers by crooked lawyers in order to avoid customers exercising their rights under the new Consumer Rights Act 2015, in particular the customer’s right to return the car within the first 30 days, they are recommending that dealers carry out a new car style pre-delivery inspection (PDI).

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

The lawyers suggest that the dealers check everything per a standard check list and provide the customer with a copy so that if the customer returns with a fault on the car the dealer can refer to his PDI and suggest that the fault didn’t pre-exist. This is wrong because many faults with cars are what I refer to as ‘the final straw syndrome’.

A badly stressed part inside a gearbox, as a result of poor manufacture, may appear to be sound during a test but give the car some welly and that could be the final straw. If this happens and the part shatters within a few days or weeks of taking delivery of the car the customer has every right to return the car and ask for his money back.

It is wrong to suggest to a car dealer that provided the gearbox was performing fine during the PDI that the fault developed post delivery. And it doesn’t stop there. These lawyers, in an attempt to stop cars from being legitimately returned, have now suggested that dealers take a video of the car before it is collected to show customers that say a burn mark in the seat that wasn’t noticed at the time of purchase was clearly showing in the video so the return of the car is rejected.

They even go so far as to say that if the car is being returned for a full refund that the reason should be substantial and not minor. In fact the law states that you can return the car for a full refund for ANY fault, not just a serious fault. Let’s say a few days after taking delivery of your car you find that the rear wiper on your hatchback doesn’t clear the dirt from the screen.

Even though this could probably be resolved by changing the wiper blade you still have the right to reject the car and ask for a full refund. Now I may not agree with this but it’s the law. I noticed one lawyer, whilst advising car dealers, said that drivers had no right to return a car if the fault is ‘relatively minor’. This simply isn’t true. Also for the sake of clarity a car can be returned within 30 days of taking delivery of the car and the customer is entitled to a full refund, even if he has added a further 5,000 miles to the speedo.

However, between 30 days and 6 months you can still reject the car but only after the dealer has been given one opportunity to fix the fault. If it is still faulty, and not necessarily with the same fault, the car can be rejected and a full refund claimed less an amount considered reasonable for the use of the car for the period concerned.

This isn’t the cost of hiring a car for that period and it isn’t the difference between what was paid for the car by the customer and the current trade value. If necessary the court will decide what that amount should be. By Graham Hill

I am sitting here with a smirk on my face as I am surrounded by women who believe that they are less aggressive drivers than me and men in general! As if?

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

Well I can announce today, thanks to a survey carried out by telematics technology provider, In-Car Cleverness, that women are faster drivers than men – it’s official, we have the statistics and as we know statistics never lie!

In order to come up with this astounding piece of information they surveyed the driving habits of those driving rental cars. They monitored the hire of over 10,000 rental vehicles and found that female customers were more likely to exceed speed limits than men. In fact the survey showed that women exceeded the speed limit 17.5% more times than men.

Having said that they returned fewer damaged cars than men. In fact they found that 84% of cars returned with scratches, dents and punctures were driven by men. Hmmm. By Graham Hill

Having a blog means that I get to hear some very dopey stories. The latest was a car that was delivered by transporter to a customer. As excited as he was about driving his new car something wasn’t right.

Thinking of a change but unsure as to the best way to finance your car? Then you need a copy of my car finance book, Car Finance – A Simple Guide by Graham Hill. Click on the link below to buy the best car finance book on the market, available as a Kindle Book and Paper Back.

He couldn’t put his finger on it but each time he walked towards the car a bell was ringing in his head but what was it? He walked all around the car trying to find a dent or something obviously wrong but could find nothing. After two days of driving the car he realised what it was, there was something wrong with the registration number.

He checked his agreement and realised that the car had been issued with a different number to his agreement. As it turned out there were two identical cars on the transporter, delivered on the same day to two different customers. Whether the dealer had issued the paperwork incorrectly or the delivery driver dropped the cars off to the wrong owners I couldn’t get to the bottom of, but as both cars were insured by the drivers on the other’s registration neither were insured to drive the car they were driving.

The fact is that they may never have known until the cars were returned or sold – how crazy is that? The other driver didn’t have a clue but apparently went loopy when he was told! And I don’t blame him!

The two drivers had their cars swapped and received a free first service. So when you have your car delivered check that the registration number agrees with your documents. By Graham Hill

Brokers don’t work for the leasing companies, they actually work for their clients, in the same way as an accountant or a solicitor does but without the need for a qualification, just a Consumer Credit Licence, which can be obtained fairly easily if the program about loan sharks aired by BBC’s Panorama is anything to go by. When I started as a broker, many years ago, the situation was the same, we worked for our Read more »