[Image: WP Motors]
Fernell Waydon Pretorius made sure to get his money’s worth, but not in the way the dealership intended.
He took WP Motor Sales in Cape Town to the National Consumer Tribunal after a second-hand car he bought broke down just two days into ownership. Talk about a bad deal!
On January 17, 2020, Pretorius forked out R276,607.49 for the used car, which was financed by Nedbank, IOL reported. Two days later, the thing gave up the ghost. It was supposed to be a smooth ride, but instead, the car, with 115,567 kilometres on the clock, suffered an engine failure on January 19, 2020, while Pretorius’s dad was driving it from Cape Town to Heidelberg, Gauteng.
Now, most people would have lost their cool at this point, but not Pretorius. He quickly informed the dealership, and by January 20, they came to pick up the car. He also sent them an email, clearly stating his desire to cancel the deal and get his money back. Fair enough, right?
But the dealership wasn’t having it. They responded, promising to look into it and get back to him. Pretorius, not letting it slide, sent a follow-up email, reinforcing that he wanted out of the deal to avoid the financial headache.
The dealership dug in their heels, refusing to cancel the agreement and insisted they’d repair the car at their cost. Pretorius wasn’t impressed. They blamed the breakdown on the driver and didn’t even provide a proper report.
This tug-of-war went nowhere, so Pretorius escalated the situation to the Motor Industry Ombudsman of South Africa (MIOSA). In April 2021, MIOSA sided with Pretorius, recommending the cancellation of the deal. But, surprise, surprise, the dealership ignored that recommendation. So, Pretorius took his complaint all the way to the National Consumer Commission (NCC).
The NCC found that the dealership had breached the Consumer Protection Act and referred the case to the tribunal. During the hearing, the car was returned to Pretorius in June 2020 – five months after it broke down – but with a fresh new problem: a water leak. He immediately notified the dealership, and they collected the car again five days later.
The dealership tried to claim that Pretorius had driven the car for about 10,000 kilometres. Only, there was no evidence to back it up, and the timeline didn’t fit.
WhatsApp messages from the NCC showed that the car stayed with the dealership for eight to ten weeks before being handed back on June 3, 2020, and picked up again on June 8. The maths didn’t add up, and Pretorius suspected the dealership might have been using the car while it was in their possession. After all, he got slapped with a traffic fine in February 2022, suggesting someone else was driving it.
The dealership denied all the allegations, claiming they were baseless. They even threw shade at Pretorius for allegedly leaving out key details in his complaint and during interviews. They accused him of misleading the NCC and the tribunal, arguing that he had accepted the car after repairs and thanked them for it, therefore, he had essentially canceled out his original demand for a refund.
But the tribunal cut in, making it clear that the dealership had failed to meet the Consumer Protection Act’s standards. Pretorius, as a consumer, had the right to expect a car that was in good working order and free of defects, no excuses, even if it was second-hand.
The engine failure was enough to render the car unusable. The tribunal found that the dealership should have collected it within three days, which only confirmed that the car wasn’t built to last.
The tribunal ruled that Pretorius was within his rights to demand a refund, as the defect appeared within the six-month warranty period. And since he had clearly chosen to return the car, they were on his side.
In the end, the tribunal sided with Pretorius, slapping the dealership with a R200,000 fine (as the NCC had requested) and ordering them to refund him the full R276,607.49.
I guess if you’re willing to put in the fight, when the fight is right, you should come out with your money’s worth.
[Source: IOL]
