I’m paying £450 a month for a Peugeot EV I can’t drive

My brand new Peugeot EV stopped working within a fortnight of delivery.

The dealer postponed the repair appointment by a month because it was too busy. Peugeot Assist, operated by the RAC, eventually collected it for repair under warranty two weeks ago, but it never reached the dealer.

The RAC claims the dealer refused to accept it because it was still “too busy”.

I have called Peugeot and the RAC 36 times and sent multiple emails, but no one has been able to locate my car or even get back to me.

I am paying £450 a month for a vehicle I have been unable to use for more than two months.

AS, Woking

You wrote to me towards the end of January. The RAC managed to locate your car within a day of my contact. It told me that it had been put in storage after being refused by the appointed dealer and was then delivered to a different dealer once a headline loomed.

The RAC paid you £250 for failing to keep you in the loop. That, alas, was just the beginning of the saga. At the time of writing you have still not got a fully functioning car and have joined the stranded multitudes enduring indefinite waits for vehicle repairs.

Spare parts shortages have been the excuse since Covid disrupted supply chains, but in your case it seems the dealer can’t work out what is wrong with the vehicle and Peugeot doesn’t care.

In early February, two weeks after it vanished into the repair workshop, Peugeot told me it would be paying you compensation for the delays and service failures. It promised a courtesy car, which never materialised. You eventually collected your car at the beginning of March and discovered that it could not be charged, that the boot did not open, the driver’s window, in contrast, opened and closed itself of its own accord and the remote locking facility was faulty.

Back we both went to Peugeot, which advised blithely that a necessary spare part had now been arranged. However, the dealer insists that you bring in the car, which you cannot do since it can’t be charged.

Since January, when you had been without wheels for two months, you have attempted to rescind the contract with Leasys from whom you lease the car, but Leasys has refused. Its logic was that the car, according to the dealer, is driveable and that another repair is planned to resolve the charging problem. Leasys never responded to my requests for a comment. And so you are enduring an expensive weeks-long impasse.

Peugeot and Leasys should be ashamed. Customers have a right to reject faulty new vehicles under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 if an attempted repair fails or is not carried out within reasonable time. Since you have a credit agreement with Leasys, your case comes under the remit of the Financial Ombudsman Service and I have suggested you complain to it.

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