If you can’t afford a new car, with or without a scrappage, swappage or part exchange deal then it’s a used car for you, especially in a recession when money is tight. And very often that is the foxy thing to do regardless your budget, providing you choose the right model, a well looked after car and get a fair price. Less depreciation certainly.

Sadly many don’t get the new car buying process right and in 2009 HM Government’s Consumer Direct received 50,790 complaints about second-hand cars bought from independent dealers, up by 8% on the previous year and well over double the number of complaints about TVs and mobile phones.

Knowing that at least half of those buying a new car are likely to be women drivers, it is fair to imagine that a higher percentage of them will be buying and driving used cars than men. I say this based on speaking to many members of FOXY Lady Drivers Club where the typical family has children and two cars with Dad more likely to be covering motorway miles in the newer car and Mum more likely to be running the older car and doing local mileage with children on board.

And of course many secondhand cars are bought from private individuals who may or may not be known to the buyer. It is only when things go wrong (private sales are not recorded in the Consumer Direct 50,000 complaints remember) that the driver learns that they have no protection in law…

Yet as few as 20% of all HPI car checks are carried out by women drivers which means (I am guessing here) that they are more likely to have subsequet problems and be the complainants (or the affected drivers at least) about Arthur Daley-like practices in today’s secondhand car sales industry.

The Consumer Direct survey information is used by the Office of Fair Trading, Trading Standards and other enforcement bodies so it’s good news that the OFT has finally launched a report into this selling scandal and will tell us what they find in May this year…

I did email them to see if they wanted my feedback but they didn’t reply ;-(. This is what I would have said, if invited…

• Poorly maintained, badly serviced and shoddily repaired cars are potentially dangerous so those who sell them should be named, shamed and fined heavily.
• Based on my anecdotal experience, women drivers are particularly vulnerable here, especially older women living on their own and who think they can trust car dealers. They need to know their options and their rights.
• All used cars sold via a dealer should be sold with a HPI check – whether a franchised or independent dealer.
• All used cars sold via a dealer should also be sold with a signed and dated checklist to show the customer that all the important and safety related items have all been checked and are either fine or need attention.
• All used cars via a dealer should be sold with a minimum of a 6 month warranty (as in law) which that dealer must honour.
• All used cars sold by private individuals should either be sold caveat emptor (where SORN or for restoration project) or with a HPI, MOT and local car check carried out by an authorised garage. Then the buyer knows what he or she is in for… after all we have to declare the truth to sell a house and there are serious consequences now of not doing this.
• Finally an unbiased organisation should adjudicate when sales go wrong. It would be good to see the onus put on helping the buyer more than the seller; make any conciliation service friendly and free and help the motorist take matters further in law if need be. I don’t think that a service involving dealers should be run by a motor industry organisation with a vested interest in selling trade membership, for example.

Of course it will be difficult to determine the reasonableness of all this when the dealer has bought a car online/at auction and depending on the age and mileage of the vehicle.

But when you see ITV’s Debbie Dingle in Emmerdale collude with a driver to sell a cut ‘n’ shut car that is unsafe and illegal you know that the law isn’t doing its job here and the cost of that is being borne by innocent motorists looking for a bargain and who are too trusting to realise that if a car is too cheap there will be a very good reason.

FOXY Steph

“It is our resonsibilities, not ourselves, that we should take seriously.”
Peter Ustinov