peugeot 1007 - Car clocking ,legal responsobility

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Wed 28 Sep 2011 22:27
peugeot 1007 - Car clocking ,legal responsobility - tony g

hi ,im a small time car dealer .i recently bought a car advertised on e bay from a private individual .the car was just three years old and had not been mot ,d.

I paid cash for the car .Had it mot,d serviced ,fixed a few minor faults .then sold it via autotrader .the car was showing 47000 miles ,and was advertised on e bay with the same 47000 miles.thier was no service history with the car .i kept a copy of the e bay add ,did an hpi check ,and checked with peugeot uk .peugeot dont keep centralised records .they could only tell me that the car had been supplied to a finance company . im guessing that the car had been supplied on a non service lease .

i rang 3 garages in the general area that the car had been registered to .non had a record of the car being serviced by them .

in short, i beleive that i did all the possible checks, to make sure that the car was as represented .

The people i sold the car to in march ,kept the car for 4 months ,then part exchanged it with a main dealer .

the main dealer tried to dispose of the car via a major auction house .

the auction house said that they had previously sold the same car with a higher mileage .

The main dealer has now written to the people i sold the car to, saying that they want a £2000 refund because they beleive the car has been clocked .

So given that i did all possible checks ,before i bought the car , and nothing showed an incorrect mileage ,whats my liability to my buyer .and what is thier liability as a private individual to the main dealer .they part exchanged the car with.

it seems complicated ,perhaps some one has come across this issue before.

regards tony g

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Thu 29 Sep 2011 00:55
peugeot 1007 - Car clocking ,legal responsobility - bathtub tom

For a 'small time car dealer' it seems you did an awful lot of checking on this car. Do you check all your cars in this way?

As long as you can prove you weren't the the person you claim to have bought the car from on ebay and can prove this, then I'd suspect the courts would only chase the ebay seller.

I presume the auction house can supply details of who they sold it to?

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Thu 29 Sep 2011 14:42
peugeot 1007 - Car clocking ,legal responsobility - tony g
Hi,Tom a cynical response ? .small time or not ,it's important as a car dealer to do all the possible checks.
I do the same checks on all the cars I sell ,including the part exchanges.
Nobody in their right mind would want to risk a criminal conviction for negligently or recklessly selling a clocked car.

As a follow up I spoke to trading standards today .They gave some suprising information.
First ,they said that as my buyer had sold the car on ,my contract with them no longer existed .they cannot make a claim against me .

Second,my buyer would have signed an order with the dealer ,who took the car in part exchange , that said to the best of my knowledge and belief the mileage is correct.
As I said in my previous post ,I did all the checks that were possible when I bought the car.I passed that information to my buyer .My buyer could not have known that the car had been clocked .So my buyer cannot be expected to compensate the dealer they part exchanged the car with.

Trading standards final comment was that the dealer who took the car in part exchange was on a fishing expedition .In effect they are trying to frighten my buyer into parting with money.

A complicated business ,hopefully with the right outcome.

Thanks for reading

Tony g
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Thu 29 Sep 2011 19:59
peugeot 1007 - Car clocking ,legal responsobility - alan1302

Wish all dealers were as diligent as you in checking thinsg out with their cars.

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Sat 1 Oct 2011 00:21
peugeot 1007 - Car clocking ,legal responsobility - tony g
Hi,thanks for the response ,it's the only way a dealer can hope to protect themselves against a civil or criminal prosecution .
Having said that, if the dealer who put the car through the auction is correct,that the car has been clocked.Their is no way a dealer can be absolutely certain that any car they sell has not been clocked.
Perhaps it should be mandatory that auctions should register the mileage on cars they sell with the dvla.

Tony g
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