So, I\'ve had my FD for nearly 2 months now and have enjoyed every second of it. My car was advertised as having an apexi power fc, but it had no commander. Fair enough i thought and carried on. I added a de-cat pipe and cat back system with the hope of getting it mapped shortly after. I\'ve been taking it steady since adding these items of course for safety reasons :)
Anyway, the other day I went to look at the ECU, only to find it was a stock ECU , now a power FC! I was really ....ed off... Could I have done any damage to my engine? Could I just put the cat back on and run the blitz system sefely with the standard ECU? Do I have a case against the guy who sold me the car? I think he even showed me the recipt for the power FC... and lastly, does anyone have power fc going cheaply, for a 1996 fd?
if you have the advert or it in wiritng you can take it to small claims court and win easily.
no damage will have been done. if anything the stock ecu is better as it lets you know when you might damage something and throws the car into limp home mode to save your engine. the apexi flashes a light.....
please name and shame bud
Bad luck mate, as above I wouldnt be too overally concerned about damage to the engine, especially if you\'ve taken it easy too.
Was it a private sale, i.e. sold as seen? If so I dont think you\'ve got much chance as with any sold as seen they view it as your responsibility to check before buying.
Was the guy you bought it off a reasonable type of guy? Any possibility that samething has happend to him, i.e. someone told him it had an FC when he bought it and never bothered checking? So he\'s just sold it onto you thinking the same?
Bad luck anyway mate. There\'s always something you have to pay out with these cars! Never ending money pit! :(
Quote from: dave-izzle;625877So, I\'ve had my FD for nearly 2 months now and have enjoyed every second of it. My car was advertised as having an apexi power fc, but it had no commander. Fair enough i thought and carried on. I added a de-cat pipe and cat back system with the hope of getting it mapped shortly after. I\'ve been taking it steady since adding these items of course for safety reasons :)
who sold it to you
Quote from: Kevin;625895Bad luck mate, as above I wouldnt be too overally concerned about damage to the engine, especially if you\'ve taken it easy too.
Was it a private sale, i.e. sold as seen? If so I dont think you\'ve got much chance as with any sold as seen they view it as your responsibility to check before buying.
"Sold as seen" rarely holds up in the small claims court - especially when a lie has been told about the item concerned.
If you can find the advert, or email conversation confirm it is being sold with a PFC, whack it into the small claims court (I think you can do it online these days). Won\'t cost you a penny and chances are you\'ll get a PFC from the seller.
im sorry but 2 months later i cant see how you\'ve got a leg to stand on. otherwise if i was unscrupulous, i could go and buy any car advertised with a pfc, swap it out for a stock ecu and then threaten the seller with court action left right and centre.
Unfortunatly, the ad from piston heads has now gone :(
The guy claimed he purchased the car on a whim and never modified it himself..... Myself and \'trevtubby\' from here went to view it and he seemed a decent guy... usually the case in these sort of circumstances... will go check paper work now
tbh i think you would be best just looking at this as part of the learning curve of rex ownership. . as previously said the other guy may have sold it to you unaware himself. i was sold a rex with a large street port. i sold it on saying it had large street port. but when the engine was taken apart it actually as on standard ports.
good luck with rex ownership dude.
ive been advised in the past alot of people dont realise that you on your car insurance you sometimes get legal cover ...
they can get a solicitor to represent you
thats really bad, im sure u have not done any damage, hopefuly you can find a power fc soon, keep an eye out in the for sale section and ebay
hey mate, get in contact with the guy and see what he says, if it cant be resolved that way tell him your going to take it to small claims court as youll not likley to come accross a cheap one, as for the sold as seen people seem to think that covers everything, in reality it covers very little espically if youve been lied to, youll only be able to win in court if youve got proof of that, get in contact with piston heads as theyll keep records of adverts, if you can get hold of it you should win hands down and the sold as seen will account for nothing if hes lied, if you cant however then they may try to push the fact that you should of throughly checked the car ie if he produced the paperwork for the fc then you should have actually checked the ecu, before going to court though try solving it first and only go as a last resort
I don\'t want to come over as negative now but, some of you guys seem to be missing the point that Jit made, it was over 2 months ago. If it was this easy to win then lots of people would be claiming things like this as soon as they buy a car. There is no way to prove it was or wasn\'t in the car. I don\'t think there is much that can be done, i\'m sorry to say.
I would have definately checked everything thata he said was on it before buying it though. It\'s all well and good everyone telling you when its done though. I think lesson learned and one everyone should learn from.
There are obviously alot of people that know nothing about taking things to small claims court on here. 2 months is not a long time at all if you can get a copy of the ad you have a really good chance you could try the cab office for advise. Really his only argument he can make is that you have removed the ecu and you\'re making a false claim. Him saying he thought it had one is not a defence as he should have checked his ad was correct. At the end of the day small claims is just like any other court and with reasonable evidence will always side with the victim.
Checked my paper work today, it turns out I don\'t have a receipt for the Power FC, contrary to what I originally thought. The car has however been to re-worx! The chap is called Lee Reid of southhampton, who purchased the car from as a fresh import from a garage called \'magnum motors\' on 23 - 09 - 2006 in Farnborogh, hampshire. Will email Pistonheads and see if I can retrieve the advert.
Give Citizens Advice a call - they should be able to answer any questions about mis-sold items. It\'s unlikely that there is a time limit applicable in law i.e. 1 month from purchase as it\'s entirely likely that the mis-selling would be guaranteed to come to light within a time period.
The longer from purchase to discovery of any untruths in an advert would weaken any case you put together though - more time for you to change something and \'try it on\'.
Small claims for the cost of a replacement ECU would be a reasonable route if the seller isn\'t prepared to do the decent thing.
It\'s also entirely possible that the seller didn\'t know anything and either was misinformed at original purchase or made assumptions that were incorrect.
Legally you do have a leg to stand on. wether he knew it had a pfc or not, he still sold it to you as having one, maybe you should have checked, maybe you shouldnt have to.
but you need evidence.
get in touch with piston heads and get them to send you a copy of the ad
speak to the guy too, feel sorry for you mate, but remember we are dealing with used cars here, and its a very dodgy game. I dont even trust the integrity of some tuners who have fantastic reputations on the forum. In my experience they have \'lied or misled to line their own pockets.
I hope you get resolve. those pfcs aint cheap. i would be very cross.
I assume youve seen this - penultimate post might back up your claim
http://www.mazdarotaryclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=50946
Thanks for that jit, that should help him a bit.
Cant believe he wanted 10k at first...wow.
Id like to say good luck with your case and that if the Power FC was removed then thats not on BUT part of me hopes you dont win purely because from my perspective (somebody who sells a fair few cars), winning would set a precedent such that I could potentially be left wide open to similar cases from chancers who unscrupulous buyers trying it on (note im not saying you are one of them but theres a lot of dishonest people in the world who would happily spend 5 mins changing an ECU and then another 5 mins writing an email and filling out forms to make a few bob)
Thank you very much for that link. should prove invaluable if i decide to go ahead and try to claim on this...... he also originally advertised it with a de-cat, but i\'m positive the PH advert didn\'t mention this, and it did come with a regular cat.... proof that he\'s removed things before?
This is the white one i think, its got very minimal mileage to if memory serves me correct?/
To be honest reading that advert, the guy really sounds like he generally doesnt have a clue. If I were to be perfectly frank I dont think your car has probably ever seen a PFC or decat. Well judging from his post I dont think he would have a clue about removing them, or even where they are to be honest.
Thing is who has told him that he has....
Quote from: lee_reidie;594568I have been told that the car kicks out approx. 320bhp with mods that include
De-cat
Apexi Performance Power FC
Mapped
Apexi Air Filters
MazdaSpeed Performance Exhaust
Quote from: matt p;627185This is the white one i think, its got very minimal mileage to if memory serves me correct?/
yeah, currently about to turn over to 28k soon
and yeah, I doubht he opulled them out of his ass.... told by the garage maybe?
Quote from: Jit;625932im sorry but 2 months later i cant see how you\'ve got a leg to stand on. otherwise if i was unscrupulous, i could go and buy any car advertised with a pfc, swap it out for a stock ecu and then threaten the seller with court action left right and centre.
EXACTLY....dont fill they guys head with false hopes...JIT is right....but if you do pursue it, i wish you luck......as its really unfair that this type of thing happens........win or lose learn from it.