Four months after they had bought a used Hyundai from a car dealer in Oss, Jeroen (33) and Roos (28)’s car stopped in the middle of the highway. The Nijmegen couple went to investigate and discovered that the car had been involved in an accident in Germany and had been declared a total loss. On Thursday they demanded before the subdistrict court in Den Bosch that the car dealer would refund them the full purchase amount.
The fact that the car dealer had not said anything about the accident damage disturbs the couple the most. According to Jeroen, he had asked at the time of purchase whether there were any damage problems. He was told that the car only had user damage. “If we had known that there was more going on, we would never have bought it,” he said in the court of Den Bosch. It was their first car. They paid 8600 euros for it, but assumed that for that amount they could take a car with them that they would get ‘no hassle’ with.
It went well for four months. Until Roos wanted to visit her parents last summer and the car on the A2 near Urmond came to a complete stop. Roos: ”I was in a panic, I noticed that nothing worked anymore.” There had been no signs of anything wrong with the car: no flashing lights or strange noises. “Only when the car came to a complete stop did a red light come on.”
They managed to trace the previous owner in Germany through the maintenance booklet in the car. He was shocked that the car had gone to the Netherlands as a used car after the accident and had been sold for a lot of money.
Owner Van Ginneken of the Osse car company disputes that he could have known that the Hyundai of Jeroen and Roos had been involved in an accident. “We do not buy damaged cars.” Moreover, according to him, the photos of the Hyundai after the accident show that there was mainly visual damage, but certainly not in a place where the engine could have been hit.
His company makes a living from the import trade of used cars, which mainly come from Germany. “There are hardly any good used cars for sale in the Netherlands, so we have to import them.” A lot has to be done before they are admitted, he explains. “These cars are appraised by an independent company and pass a lot of inspections before they can go on the road with a Dutch license plate.”
“We have delivered a neat car at a decent price,” he says during the session. “It seems very bizarre to me as an entrepreneur that they first drive it for months and if they get engine damage say that they never wanted to buy it.” He had offered to replace the engine, but Jeroen and Roos did not like that. “It’s still a damaged car.”
On March 17, they will hear what the judge thinks about it.