SLB Cars Ltd Today Wednesday 15th October 2008 pleaded guilty to selling a car unfit for the road and in a dangerous condition at Crewe Magistrates court. Court heard how SLB Cars Ltd had sold a Blue Saxo VTR in May for £1300 and had agreed to service the car and carry out minor repairs. The car had been bought from and advert on their website.
The car was returned to SLB on many occasion for the repairs to be completed but after they had 21 days to repair the central locking and failed it wasn’t taken back again as every time the tried to fix it they broke something else.
The car was MOTed early after fears about its safety and when it was found to be a dangerous car by the MOT inspector Trading Standards were called and they got an expert Ian d Lee consulting to look at the car. The report read out in court indicated the car was excessively corroded in vital part of the suspension and braking making the car a death trap and this was long standing rust. He believed the steering and braking would be greatly effected by this. The fuel filter was loose which made a fire highly likely. He concluded the car was dangerous and past repair and in the event of an accident the car would fall apart.
SLB then blatantly lied in court saying the car had been placed on the forecourt and wasn’t for sale as it had not passed their inspection. You will see above in bold that it had been advertised on their website for 3 weeks so that was a lie. They then came on with a sob story of how their car sales had dropped a director had resigned and several staff have left and they are poor.
They were fined £2000 and £1000 cost and pleaded they could only afford £400 per month by direct debit. They were asked if the car could be now destroyed but they objected to this. The only reason we can think of is that they want it back to try and resell it to some other mug who want know its done 190000 miles as it only says 88000 on the clock. If they were so concerned and taking into account the expert who said it was past repair they would be happy to scrap it.
What they didn’t mention in court was that SLB refused to do anything about the car when they were asked after the MOT in fact they told me to F off. They didn’t mention the car was sold with 88,000 mile son the clock when it had done 117,000 miles in 2005’s MOT. The fact that the lights front and rear were illegal wasn’t mentioned and one would expect any reasonable car dealer to know the lights were illegal.
If they had settled then it would have only cost them repair to the car or a replacement. Now its cost them over £5,000 and loads of bad publicity which they deserve for there customer service. At no point did they offer to reimburse for the car or even say sorry its lucky we paid with a credit card as under the Consumer Credit Act you can claim your money back off the card company worth remembering.
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