I've read the whole thread and there's a lot of lessons to be learnt from this.
SOR is fraught with legal loopholes. READ THE SMALL PRINT.
The dealer is not your friend. He might be your friend before and after the sale, keep things civil but once you are in negotiations he/she is your business partner and should be open to full scrutiny and not to take offence at awkward questions, like 'Where's my money, B!tch?'.
The other lesson is that forums have a responsibility too. It's a fine balance, but the Maserati community is small and suppliers are aware that we talk offline as well as online. So any continued poor service gets round quickly. Pistonheads actions are questionable as are the other porker forums.
I don’t work for PH but a little insight into the law: if aggrieved person x (apx) makes a claim on your website forum, it is not apx who gets the legal letter, but you.
Now imagine trying to police that on a site of PH’s scale; for every one genuine complaint there is likely to be another two who are either unreasonable or from the weirdo fringe. You the website, are you really going to be in the position to verify every claim of impropriety? That’s a full time role for at least three people, which just isn’t going to happen.
The blanket rule sucks, but without it much worse can arise.
And if you’re silly enough to buy a car without researching where it’s coming from then you really need a word with yourself.
More unforgivable is the approved dealer scheme from certain breakdown services which is basically just signing a piece of paper and paying a fee, rather than an my forensic investigation.
www.911uk.com
