Now for the serious stuff

[Lozzer]

Remember the Wheeler Dealer 3200 clocks all bridged across the bulbs on the dash!

Wheeler Dealers took 8 months to sort that 3200 out!

 

[Wattie]

this will pan out in to a blame game game and/or ignorance, whilst shocking i think it would be difficult to prove who was actually responsible, just thank your lucky stars it came to light

Yeah this. It’ll involve an enormous amount of time and effort and nothing will be achieved.
Thankfully u weren’t injured or reliant on it and have the opportunity to put it right.

 

[philw696]

Yeah I second Wattie you have found it and move on.
Rogues in every profession sadly and lots in the selling of cars us mechanics on the other hand mostly have far more ethics.

 

[RichardSEL]

Thanks for the replies so far guyz... I'll make dealer also aware now, although the assessor did require me to sign a paper for the Court in Agreement with their
"full & final settlement".
Always assuming my letter to the Minister does get the action it deserves, there may be an avenue for more action that those experts on the MOT desk know about that I don't for the kludging of the airbag fault light.

Reverting back for a moment to when I was employed -- at that time there were many actions for fraud, conspiracy to defraud, etc. being taken for ludicrously small sums -- particularly for fare evasion from the train and LT companies, illegal copies of DVDs sold on the street, even "charity" collectors with their tins looking exactly like the official ones. The transport operators were big enough to expand/modify their own existing procedures unless the suspect refused to give their details

Those fraud cases that did eventually come to court had already racked up some three to five grand each in paper shuffling costs paid for by our taxes. So when previous chancellor Hammond told CPS that unless a "serious public interest" was involved then no fraud cases should be prosecuted where the sum was less than ten grand, he did that with the best of intentions.

Unless you're the victim of course...

 

[RichardSEL]

I am not sure what I would do, but with only one previous keeper I think I would be very tempted to make contact and ask them if the car had faults when they sold it, chances are it did and the dealer is to blame.
Can’t imagine anyone who buys a QP new, would be the one doing this dangerous bodge and given the other faults that the dealer had been responsible for it makes sense to me that they are to blame.
I think I would be knocking on their door.

I did write to the previous (first) keeper listed at the address shown in the service book, asking as an enthusiast, if there were any receipts saved. But no reply.
There are those that do buy new cars even at this level, spend nothing on them, and when faults get too many/too costly to repair just trade in for something else.

 

[philw696]

As a former UK MOT tester it's a visual inspection if the lights on its a fail.
If it comes back for retest and it's off then it's a pass simple as.
Unlike checking saw a brakes or suspension part which you can clearly see the repair done a warning light for SRS there's nothing you can see.
The fraudster is the person that knowingly did the bodge.

 

[Oneball]

I did write to the previous (first) keeper listed at the address shown in the service book, asking as an enthusiast, if there were any receipts saved. But no reply.
There are those that do buy new cars even at this level, spend nothing on them, and when faults get too many/too costly to repair just trade in for something else.

Bloke my dad used to work for bought an 850csi new. While he was picking it up he bought two 525i for the finance director and sales director, had no problem spending a wad buying a car but would never spend anything else on them.

Whilst my dad worked for him he had an 850csi, Mitsubishi 3000GT and Nissan 300ZX all bought from new with cash. None of them were ever washed, vacuumed out or serviced.

 

[RichardSEL]

As a former UK MOT tester it's a visual inspection if the lights on its a fail.
If it comes back for retest and it's off then it's a pass simple as.
Unlike checking saw a brakes or suspension part which you can clearly see the repair done a warning light for SRS there's nothing you can see.
The fraudster is the person that knowingly did the bodge.

Yes, were I to be out on the street again, my dim memory would lead me to a fraud with the so-called "auto-electrician" conspiring to defraud

As far as the lights' not auto-levelling and being askew, rust hole in front sub-frame, and torn control arm torsion bush is concerned, yes they were visable once on a ramp and lit.

Have just looked back at my records and see that I first appealed this December '19 MOT in August '20 online (no reply). And again 20th October this year by signed for post.
Royal Mail tell me just now that my letter was posted but there's no signature for it at D V S A Swansea. Obviously not delivered.
No, no problem there of course. It's just some kind of co-incidence.

 

[Scaf]

I have to say I don’t hold up much hope of action following letters to dvla etc.
Think your only chance any satisfaction would be taking action yourself.

 

[Saigon]

Some may know of my trials and tribulations purchasing a QP5 '08MY with 84k up, one owner, ZF box, immac, one year MOT, new Pirelli Pzero's all round from a Sheffield dealer.

After sorting NS diff oil seal, thru rust to front sub frame, torn lower control arm torsion bushes, failed headlight auto height adjustment, crushed power steering pipe, dumping useless CD changer for a Loudlink unit (that pairs with my BT 'phone but doesn't seem to answer or make calls), failing to fix the onboard 'phone, not to mention having the cam variators done to fix start up clatter, having to have the tracking done twice, you'd think that'd be enough to get it put right...

Dealer's insurance coughed for roughly half of the repairs' costs -- some saving grace I suppose. At least ended up with a rather nice and now rather valuable QP5.

But no... Just after the dust had settled from the loss assessor's agreement to pay up: intermittant drivers' airbag fault coming up on dash. Tracked down (via TXA3 diagnostic) to clock spring the component that connects horn and drivers' airbag/igniter in steering column to
the airbag sensors' ECU system.

Removed and found clock spring unit had been shorted by two off 220Ω resistors. So, in the event of a prang the drivers' airbag wouldn't go off anyway. Even the resistors were'nt connected properly -- just twisted together by the wires and stuffed back into their socket holes.
View attachment 78246

View attachment 78247

The point of this post is: were there to have been a prang involving life threatening or life changing for the hapless driver, then whomsoever had done this dangerous kludge would be up on a criminal charge. If the prang had resulted in death that could otherwise been avoided then that charge could be manslaughter.

Fair warning: anyone involving themselves knowingly with dangerous repairs such as this will be dealt with.

Maybe not a great idea to put on a public forum how to inhibit such systems, (220 ohm you say)! Maybe next time they will solder the connections. Anyway, I totally agree that’s its criminal to do such a thing. It all depends what you are after, compensation I doubt it, but who ever did it should be held to account. It is most likely that if there was only one previous owner, he or she did have an airbag problem and had it resolved. And they know who resolved it for them, if they did not do it themselves.

 

[RichardSEL]

I have to say I don’t hold up much hope of action following letters to dvla etc.
Think your only chance any satisfaction would be taking action yourself.

Previous to my last employment where I was "re-programmed" I would've done
It's not just a letter to DVSA, but it's part of their "service" offered on-line.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/complain-about-an-mot

I've also written to dealer again, and to the assessor to see whether they'll accept the additional claim with an application to "set aside".

Lower-than-£10,000-fraud allegations are now being handled by an outfit called "Action Fraud". They'll issue you with a crime reference number, some platitudes, a there there, with a pat on the head, and a woeful apology that "due to the pressure on resources, etc" "Covid-19 etc" bla-blather, "we regret we're unable to investigate further in this instance" bla-blather....

 

[philw696]

Been dealing with the City of London Action Fraud Team for 8 years over my private pension fund that has been mis appropriated and now worth diddly squat and they don't even respond to emails anymore.

 

[RobinL]

Problem is identifying where the 'issue' arose.
I'm not sure any dealer would risk this sort of activity. If the dealer became aware of the fault they would have other ways of covering the cost of replacement. Additionally any dealer skilled in the art of deception would have ensured the wiring was at least 'rattle proof' with a bit of solder.
The MOT test does not include a wiring check, you can't test air bags and have to rely on vehicle read outs, (warning lights) and an electronic check such as OBD would always have issues of compatibility. (Though I do think that a vehicle check capability could/should be included to identify recently cleared or pending issues??)

My bet is that previous owner knows about the fault and either fixed or had it fixed.

Contractually you can only go against the seller as you have no contract (or recourse) against either the MOT station or the previous owner. And I don't believe they could be shown practically to have an effective duty of care to you

Annoyingly, despite much effort and comment, this will likely go unresolved.

Maybe time to ask the local newspaper what the best course of action should be?

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5010 using Tapatalk

 

[Oishi]

As car folk, we love to make our motors unique by various modifications. But what about the chap who fits aftermarket wheels, sells the car and a wheel subsequently fails? Or a new brake system ( because ours is NLA)? When I was gathering info on 3 pedal 4200's over on ML, one owner had replaced his steering wheel with a very nice Nardi style classic wheel (looked great). To fit it he had to disable the drivers air bag ( the new wheel had none). That modification would be clear to us car guys, but maybe not to a less knowledgeable buyer. Reading this thread has got me thinking about all the things we do to cars that could be a potential problem down the road. I don't think any of us would make a car unsafe on purpose, but things happen.
BTW I'm not excusing this cr@p.

 

[RichardSEL]

Before this bout of classic-car-itus, I was a VW fan. This is pre-emissions scam of course. Had a Passat for 10 years (2.0L tFSI 196bhp stock tuned to Stage 1 236 on dyno) But why would I want to change wheels? Much of the changes to lights, etc I could do via the OBDii port as other countries permitted operation (indicators as DRLs, fogs as turn in indicators, etc) were just a coding away.
Lowering's not a problem as the Sport was 20mm lower anyway and you can get the parts OEM for that. As well as Bilsten shocks kits and mod kits for vented discs and calipers.

But swapping steering wheel for a non-airbag one's daft. You'd lose all the steering wheel buttons for a start. I didn't have to change mine for paddles. And there's even a mod available to link loom control signals for head unit to aftermarket headunits that replace their sad Blaupunkt (no BT, no-MP3 play) -- for Pioneer and JVC

Why, oh why do motor manufacturers insist on inflicting on their customers sad old 80/90s headunit technology in the 21st Century?

Just a slight wibble there ;-) Meanwhile, back in Sheffield the home city of the dealer, there's The Star, Sheffield Telegraph, and The Mercury...

 

[RichardSEL]

Been dealing with the City of London Action Fraud Team for 8 years over my private pension fund that has been mis appropriated and now worth diddly squat and they don't even respond to emails anymore.

Financial Ombudsman Service?

Mind you, when TSB went tits up over it's IT system crashing I found them to be good at swapping bits of paper about and nothing much else.
TSB, like RBS were too big to fail...

 

[philw696]

Constant change of staff didn't help you never new where you were on top of that fraudsters thinking their above the law and not turning up to trials.
All in all a shambles.

 

[alfatwo]

Guys, Life's hard work, there's no free lunches..
You lot could moan for England!

Dave

 

[philw696]

Guys, Life's hard work, there's no free lunches..
You lot could moan for England!

Dave

No I'm chilled about my loss now as wasted far too much time on it.
I'm in a far better place and life moves on.
As Delboy said this time next year Rodney we will be millionaires

 

[rs48635]

To the OP, maybe trading standards might be interested? The car as sold to you was at least faulty, maybe even not fir for purpose.

As has been said, depends what you want out of it. Seems like you now have a decent QP to enjoy. Leave the deerstalker on the hat rack and sit down with a pipe