In March 2010 I was offered a 10-month-old Civic EX by a Honda dealer in Bedford. Despite having an 09 plate the specification seemed to be inconsistent with a 2009 model. However, I checked the list of what it had against what the 2009 sales manual said, and concluded that this 09 EX car was missing the heated leather upholstery and the blue light in the drivers footwell, but it did have voice recognition DVD satnav, integrated Bluetooth HFT system, HID headlights, headlight washers and automatically adjusting headlight height, all of which were only available on the 2009 EX GT.

Having completed the deal I discovered it did not have the automatically dipping rear view mirror that had been confirmed as being on the car by the sales team. It was then that a Honda representative from the service department, NOT sales, informed me that the car was in fact a 2008 model. So it was obvious that the sales team had bought, from the other dealer, a car that had been made in 2008 but registered in 2009, and were unaware of what they had done. They did however agree to fit the correct rear view mirror free of charge. The price I paid was based upon the 09 plate. At the time of purchase that was what Stratstone were saying it was.

You can imagine my reaction, but I was assured that its future value would also be based upon that fact that it had an 2009 plate. There are many vehicles that fall into this category. Last year's model, this year's plate, but upon which fact are they valued? I suspect that on the forecourt it is 2009, but upon trade-in its 2008. What is your opinion? Do I have a case of misrepresentation if the reality is that I paid the wrong price?