What would you do? What can I do?
Posted: Sun May 29, 2016 12:20 am
Hi, as title.
Here's the story. Bought an 18 month old bike from a dealer ( not picked up yet ) but finance signed, deal done. Happy days (maybe not ).
Dealer advertised bike as ex demo with 7k miles and 3 months warranty. They would not budge on price as it was supposed to be heavily discounted (2k) less than new. I need the bike capable of taking a pillion, so it had to be fitted with racks, pegs and I wanted another (second hand) accessory which bumped the price up by £650 in total.
Now here's me being a MUG and to trusting. Drove 15 hours round trip for demo ride only to be told that the bike I'm buying is no longer on their fleet insurance but I could ride one of their new demo bikes. Sounded plausible at the time. Anyhow ride was fine, not to happy with deal but gave deposit and set finance in motion.
Got home started doing some research and found that the bike in question had done a major trip of 5k (at least 1k totally off road with desserts and thigh high water crossings). The bike has never been registered in the dealer's name, but was sold to the customer who did the trip. The customer has supposedly traded it in for another new one.
So the optimist view is I could have bought it privately and not found out about the history and been happy with my purchase.
The pessimistic view is it has never been a demo bike (as far as I can tell). It has been ragged to death on a major expedition (only one careful owner). The dealer as far as I'm concerned has been very sparingly with the truth and would I trust them.(probably not)
This dealer is very well known and seems to be well respected (hence no names)
What would you do? What can I do?
The bike is the only type suitable for me and in some ways knowing the history is online is appealing. However I think the way the dealer has used cloaks and dagger tactics during the sale has pissed me off a bit. Today the logbook came 4 days after signing up.
Sorry for the long post. Thanks
Here's the story. Bought an 18 month old bike from a dealer ( not picked up yet ) but finance signed, deal done. Happy days (maybe not ).
Dealer advertised bike as ex demo with 7k miles and 3 months warranty. They would not budge on price as it was supposed to be heavily discounted (2k) less than new. I need the bike capable of taking a pillion, so it had to be fitted with racks, pegs and I wanted another (second hand) accessory which bumped the price up by £650 in total.
Now here's me being a MUG and to trusting. Drove 15 hours round trip for demo ride only to be told that the bike I'm buying is no longer on their fleet insurance but I could ride one of their new demo bikes. Sounded plausible at the time. Anyhow ride was fine, not to happy with deal but gave deposit and set finance in motion.
Got home started doing some research and found that the bike in question had done a major trip of 5k (at least 1k totally off road with desserts and thigh high water crossings). The bike has never been registered in the dealer's name, but was sold to the customer who did the trip. The customer has supposedly traded it in for another new one.
So the optimist view is I could have bought it privately and not found out about the history and been happy with my purchase.
The pessimistic view is it has never been a demo bike (as far as I can tell). It has been ragged to death on a major expedition (only one careful owner). The dealer as far as I'm concerned has been very sparingly with the truth and would I trust them.(probably not)
This dealer is very well known and seems to be well respected (hence no names)
What would you do? What can I do?
The bike is the only type suitable for me and in some ways knowing the history is online is appealing. However I think the way the dealer has used cloaks and dagger tactics during the sale has pissed me off a bit. Today the logbook came 4 days after signing up.
Sorry for the long post. Thanks