Letchworth VW Dealer

[steadiheli]

Hello all,

Two weeks ago I purchased a second hand 2006 (April 06) Golf GTI from Letchworth VW. Fully loaded with absolutely every option and 20,000 miles on it, I paid £20700. All along the purchase process I was told that the car had only one previous owner. Today I received the documents from DVLA and see the car has actually had two previous owners. My concern is that in addition to the second owner, the car may have been a VW demonstrator, quite common for a loaded car. This means that it was driven from new by many different drivers, and driven hard as a GTI demo car. No chance to be run in correctly etc..

My question is what would you do? Clearly the dealer has lied to me about the cars history. Unacceptable. Does the additional previous owner affect the cars value? Should I be concerned about the demonstrator issue? The fact is I am very very happy with the car. It's exactly what I was looking for and I don't really want to part with it. But I'm very very angry with the dealer for lying. Any advice and suggestion would be greatfully received. Many thanks to you for reading.

Best

Matt

[Ben]

i'd write a letter of complaint stating what you have said here, but also keeping it polite, before you post it recorded (so it can't get 'lost') physically go in and see them and explain the situation. You are unlikely to get any money back but see if you can haggle a free service whan it is next due and enter this in to the letter as well. Also include as many names as you can - who told you wrong so they can be re trained. Also send a copy to vw uk and state this in the letter you send to the dealership.

I can understand that you are pleased with your car, i was with mine. But this mis information can leave a bitter aftertaste.

i had similar experience with different dealer, said they would clean and look in to an issue. Not only did i get it cleaner but i fixed the issue.

[Crasher]

One of my customers bought a nearly new Golf 5 GTI from a VW dealer only to find it was an import from Malta, they totally ignored his requests for reimbursement over the now reduced value. VAG customer service! What's that? All they are interested in is sales figures.

[steadiheli]

Thanks for the responses so far. VAG or not they have broken the Law (Consumer Rights/Sale Of Goods Act. Item not as described). As I see it they are not in a position to ignore me. How does the extra owner affect the cars value? Does the possibility it was a demonstrater affect it's saleability in the future. Those are my concerns.

Matt

[Crasher]

An ex demo car would not, in my opinion, de-value the car and the extra kit would offset any possible loss, an extra owner will have a small affect on its resale value and make the car very slightly more difficult to sell privately but not as a trade in.

[steadiheli]

Thanks to you for your kind responses, I did send them a 'firm' email yesterday and today they emailed me back full of apology, offering an extended warranty. Manager claimed the docs were not with them as the car was previously on private plate, and sales man had assumed. Thanks once again for the support.

Matt

[Crasher]

So they didn't HPI check the vehicle before they sold it to you! How do they know it doesn’t have outstanding finance?

[Eshrules]

So they didn't HPI check the vehicle before they sold it to you! How do they know it doesn’t have outstanding finance?

my presumption too....

that's disgusting to say this dealer is a VAG dealer....

although they've not techincally broken any laws, it is very annoying to find out about a cars hidden history.

when i bought my car, i was told it was a 2 owner car, Full service history etc etc.

after i bought it, i found out it had had 3 owners, the first of which was a rental company, you can imagine how much i complained about that at Evans Halshaw, i had it in to them 6 times for various complaints and each time i made sure they put it in writing that they had checked the fault.

there's very little you can do to prevent this, other than to physically check the documents before purchase. i know it's a little late, but at least you will know for the next time.

[steadiheli]

Thanks for the comments. Despite my general lack of faith in human nature they are doing their best to appease me. I asked about the HPI issue and they didn't really give me an answer. However, they are extremely apologetic. They have now offered me a 1 year VW warranty extension (to run after my warranty expires so I'm effectively getting a 2 year 4 month warranty) and they have also offered me a £300 goodwill gesture payment. I've accepted. I happy with this outcome. I don't plan on selling the car in the next few years so the warranty will be peace of mind in case the DSG disindigrates!

Regards,

Matthttps://www.vwaudiforum.co.uk/forum/images/smilies/beerchug.gif