10:26 am, June 19, 2024
A used car dealer and his business must shell out more than £22,000 after selling a Ford Mondeo that was so badly riddled with corrosion that it could have caused the rear suspension to collapse at any moment.
Ali Mohammed, who is the director of Dynamic Car Sales in Sedgley Road, Dudley, admitted selling the ‘dangerous and unroadworthy’ car last July when he appeared before town magistrates on Friday (Jun 14), said Dudley council.
The customer, who paid more than £2,500 for the car, was unaware of how much danger they’d been put in until they took the Mondeo in for a service in November.
It was then that the serious corrosion underneath the vehicle was found, with a subsequent examination confirming that it had been there when the car was sold.
The corrosion was so bad, in fact, that it was later assessed as ‘likely to result in the imminent potential failure of the rear suspension’.
The sale was reported to Dudley council’s trading standards, which investigated it and brought in a vehicle examiner.
The examiner said ‘the degree of excessive corrosion and deterioration on the underside units and components is consistent with long-term degeneration over a prolonged period of time’ and that the ‘defects were existing…at the time of sale’.
Dynamic Car Sales had bought the car from an auction for £1,050 about two weeks before selling the car, the council said, but the dealership didn’t carry out any pre-delivery inspection checks on the car.
Mohammed was fined £10,000 and Dynamic Car Sales was fined £2,500, together with a victim surcharge of £2,000.
The court also awarded the customer full compensation of £2,576 and awarded the council full costs of £5,069, making a total of £22,145 that Mohammed and his used car business must fork out.
In addition, the court said the car must be scrapped.
After the hearing, Mayada Abu Affan, director of public health at Dudley council, said: ‘This prosecution shows that Dudley trading standards will not tolerate traders that ignore their responsibilities to ensure what they sell is safe.
‘Car traders must take reasonable precautions to check the vehicles are safe before they display them for sale. Relying on auction house checks and MOT test results does not amount to taking reasonable precautions.’
She added: ‘Dudley trading standards will not hesitate to investigate complaints where consumers have been misled or where they have been sold a dangerous vehicle.
Mohammed was charged with supplying a motor vehicle in such a condition that use of the said motor vehicle on a road would involve danger of injury to any person, contrary to Section 75 of the Road Traffic Act 1988, as amended.
Dynamic Car Sales admitted that as a trader it did knowingly or recklessly engage in a commercial practice which contravened the requirements of professional diligence under Regulation 3(3)(a) of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008.
Within the charge against the dealership, it said the Mondeo wasn’t properly described and was of unsatisfactory quality, adding ‘the vehicle was sold in a dangerous and unroadworthy condition’.
The charge also said that Dynamic Car Sales ‘failed to uphold the consumer’s rights and remedies under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 relating to the receipt of goods and satisfactory quality, and allowed the consumer to drive a dangerous vehicle on the public highway’.
This article was originally published at 10.26am on June 19, 2024 and updated at 2.22pm the same day with the exact wording of the charges, following a request to Dudley council by Car Dealer for the information
Main picture via Google Street View
