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Radically Altered Classic (RANT)


Faker

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Ok… so this is truly a pet hate of mine.. custom or heavily modified cars, that are sold on as road legal vehicles under the banner of being MOT and TAX exempt… This eBay Ford Anglia… whilst absolutely stunning.. has had a roof chop, chassis channelled, chassis lengthened, supercharged BMW engine fitted… with BMW back end… with the add reading “hand built from scratch”, at which point do the rules apply?! Heaven forbid it’s involved in a collision and Cops or Vosa are involved! SVA/IVA aside, it’s not an historic vehicle and remotely a period modified Anglia! It’s a total custom ground up build! Again it’s stunning…. But fenders? Bumpers, sharp edges, list is endless!!  Clearly a chopped up anglia on a modified 3 series floorpan of sorts… 

Similarly there’s loads of old bodies welded to modern MX5 or S2000 floorpan weldathon builds that SHOULD be IVA inspected Q plate registered vehicles….. yet are advertised and sold on auction platforms as MOT and TAX exempt vehicles! Insane!

 

Rant over… apologies 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I can appreciate the welding that’s gone into it but realistically it’s not roadworthy is it? Plus no insurer would touch that without an engineers report which would recommend it’s not fit for the road. 

Sierraman you are correct… but given it is “mot and tax exempt”…. It’s going to be insured as a lightly modified classic car on a classic policy with an agreed value. All well and good until something goes wrong..

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It’s like many many modified cars, they won’t have disclosed everything if at all to the insurer. It’s like when you see people remapping lease cars, by rights if it’s spotted by the dealers they’d demand immediate termination of the credit agreement plus loss of value of the car now it’s not fit for retail. Read this recently about a Seat Cupra that some throbber had mapped whilst on a lease. What a dickhead! It wasn’t his car to modify! 

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4 minutes ago, sierraman said:

It’s like many many modified cars, they won’t have disclosed everything if at all to the insurer. It’s like when you see people remapping lease cars, by rights if it’s spotted by the dealers they’d demand immediate termination of the credit agreement plus loss of value of the car now it’s not fit for retail. Read this recently about a Seat Cupra that some throbber had mapped whilst on a lease. What a dickhead! It wasn’t his car to modify! 

there was a youtuber a few years back who had BMW finance cancel his finance agreement on his M3, which he'd heavily modified (water injection etc), filmed and put on youtube!

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11 minutes ago, riek said:

there was a youtuber a few years back who had BMW finance cancel his finance agreement on his M3, which he'd heavily modified (water injection etc), filmed and put on youtube!

I mean boot on other foot, someone has took a credit agreement out with you on a car you still own, they’ve now rendered the car unsaleable now through the channels you offer so you’d then have to lose great sums punting it on through the auctions. You’d take him off the back of that to the cleaners in legal terms. 🤣

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Thing is, as a private seller you can advertise anything as being tax exempt, or any other statement you like, regardless of whether it's true or not.  It's for the buyer to beware and determine if they are happy to go through with the purchase.

I could advertise a 1997 MX5 as tax and MOT exempt, fitted with an LSv8, gets 90mpg, ideal learner car.  All of it is bollocks, but that is up to the buyer to determine.  As I am not a business, it's not false advertising and there can be no comeback on me.

However, if I am a car trader, now I have to be truthful about all my claims, to the best of my knowledge.

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Keep the original registration number

Your vehicle must have 8 or more points from the table below if you want to keep the original registration number. 5 of these points must come from having the original or new and unmodified chassis, monocoque bodyshell or frame.

Part Points
Chassis, monocoque bodyshell (body and chassis as one unit) or frame - original or new and unmodified (direct from manufacturer) 5
Suspension (front and back) - original 2
Axles (both) - original 2
Transmission - original 2
Steering assembly - original 2
Engine - original 1

Source

the mot exemption is lost alot easier than the historic identity if the car, just an engine swap could do that

What is unclear though is if you change a lower spec part for a standard one off a higher spec car , like a 2300 magnum axle in place of a 1256 one,,hard to judge if they're both 'standard' parts

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5 minutes ago, Jikovron said:

Keep the original registration number

Your vehicle must have 8 or more points from the table below if you want to keep the original registration number. 5 of these points must come from having the original or new and unmodified chassis, monocoque bodyshell or frame.

Part Points
Chassis, monocoque bodyshell (body and chassis as one unit) or frame - original or new and unmodified (direct from manufacturer) 5
Suspension (front and back) - original 2
Axles (both) - original 2
Transmission - original 2
Steering assembly - original 2
Engine - original 1

Source

the mot exemption is lost alot easier than the historic identity if the car, just an engine swap could do that

What is unclear though is if you change a lower spec part for a standard one off a higher spec car , like a 2300 magnum axle in place of a 1256 one,,hard to judge if they're both 'standard' parts

That’s been well documented to be fair. Upgraded parts from a similar model, period upgrades or swaps, and modifications that can be documented as being 30 years old. Back in the day there were tuning companies fitting Rover V8 and Small Block Chevy engines in to Capris. That’s a period modification and actually in keeping with the vehicle. In the same way as fitted RS2000 running gear in a 1.1 pop escort is perfectly acceptable. 30 odd years ago folk were fitting fiat twin cam engines in everything (custom car and street machine regulars)…. Again all period modifications and in keeping. SR20 swaps in a Morris Minor…. Not so much.. 

Based on the points system!! The anglia has absolutely none of the original point scoring components whatsoever…

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39 minutes ago, Talbot said:

Thing is, as a private seller you can advertise anything as being tax exempt, or any other statement you like, regardless of whether it's true or not.  It's for the buyer to beware and determine if they are happy to go through with the purchase.

I could advertise a 1997 MX5 as tax and MOT exempt, fitted with an LSv8, gets 90mpg, ideal learner car.  All of it is bollocks, but that is up to the buyer to determine.  As I am not a business, it's not false advertising and there can be no comeback on me.

However, if I am a car trader, now I have to be truthful about all my claims, to the best of my knowledge.

I understand what you are saying, although slightly misleading, as there are plenty of lesser offences that could be more applicable (making false declaration for insurance - failing to update V5 - fraud (as in road duty) the list goes on).

However it doesn’t detract from the original post… there’s loads of vehicles like this one about the place! Heavily or radically altered and modified vehicles on the roads, that have never been examined or tested by any authority…. and being used or sold as MOT and TAX exempt.

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1 hour ago, Talbot said:

Thing is, as a private seller you can advertise anything as being tax exempt, or any other statement you like, regardless of whether it's true or not.  It's for the buyer to beware and determine if they are happy to go through with the purchase.

I could advertise a 1997 MX5 as tax and MOT exempt, fitted with an LSv8, gets 90mpg, ideal learner car.  All of it is bollocks, but that is up to the buyer to determine.  As I am not a business, it's not false advertising and there can be no comeback on me.

However, if I am a car trader, now I have to be truthful about all my claims, to the best of my knowledge.

Good luck with that in a small claims court.

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6 minutes ago, GrumpyCat said:

Good luck with that in a small claims court.

I'm fairly sure that is where the term "let the buyer beware" comes from.

Private sales are covered by almost no legislation at all, and what little they are covered with is notoriously difficult to enforce.

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  • Faker changed the title to Radically Altered Classic (RANT)
17 minutes ago, Talbot said:

I'm fairly sure that is where the term "let the buyer beware" comes from.

Private sales are covered by almost no legislation at all, and what little they are covered with is notoriously difficult to enforce.

About the only thing that can be enforced on a private seller is misrepresentation of age - year of vehicle. Extract from .gov 

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This is one of my favourite recent custom builds, it seems to be really well done from the photos I've seen of it and the appearance of it has gradually evolved and refined from where it started.  I like it a lot and it's great to see so much effort going into a show car.  That's the thing, I always assumed this was a show car because it doesn't look road legal and it's not the sort of thing I'd expect to see someone driving on the road.  Fair play if they had actually gone to the trouble of putting it through the SVA/IVA stuff, as has been proven elsewhere you can get pretty radical stuff through without compromising your vision completely and, if you're smart, you can have the ugly bits you need for road legality be removable for show use.

Claiming it as an historic vehicle that's MoT and Tax exempt is a bit rich though, this is a very recently built kit car, effectively, and should be logged as such.  Do older kit cars become historic though?  If you built a kit car forty years ago and haven't changed anything on that build since, then technically that would presumably now be MoT/Tax exempt.

Whatever, this car looks like a potential can of worms for the next owner because of a choice by the current owner to ignore legal obligations.

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I'm just here to repeat that it looks bloody awesome.

I don't know when it was modified, but it drove <1000 miles in 4 years according to the MOT history, if that's 250 miles a year looking like that then he's hardly spending all day, every day, scything down people on the M25 in it, is he? Any owner of this would know the craic - drive it past a copper and you'd (rightly) get stopped. 

It looks awesome. I said it again. 

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21 minutes ago, vulgalour said:Do older kit cars become historic though?  If you built a kit car forty years ago and haven't changed anything on that build since, then technically that would presumably now be MoT/Tax exempt.

A 40 year old Dutton Sierra or Mellos in standard trim - as in running escort running gear as per build manual  and correctly registered would indeed be MOT and TAX exempt. One with say a Cossie Turbo not so much, unless the conversion was completed over 30 years ago and has documentation to prove it.

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1 hour ago, Talbot said:

I'm fairly sure that is where the term "let the buyer beware" comes from.

Private sales are covered by almost no legislation at all, and what little they are covered with is notoriously difficult to enforce.

I agree, but I'm not convinced that if you completely misdescribe a vehicle you cannot be held liable.

1 hour ago, DSdriver said:

It is not street legal without the tyres inside the bodywork or mudguards. Unless things have changed since a copper was looking down on the wider wheels on my friends mini to see it they were exposed back in the late 60s.

A number of custom and hot rod owners seem to think some things don't apply to them.

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26 minutes ago, Faker said:

A 40 year old Dutton Sierra or Mellos in standard trim - as in running escort running gear as per build manual  and correctly registered would indeed be MOT and TAX exempt. One with say a Cossie Turbo not so much, unless the conversion was completed over 30 years ago and has documentation to prove it.

Given their comparative values, I would be very surprised if there are any Dutton kit cars fitted with Cosworth YB engines...

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2 hours ago, DSdriver said:

It is not street legal without the tyres inside the bodywork or mudguards. Unless things have changed since a copper was looking down on the wider wheels on my friends mini to see it they were exposed back in the late 60s.

No things haven't changed - the Construction and Use regs refers to Community Directive 78/549, which says...

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https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1986/1078/part/II/chapter/K/made

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX%3A31978L0549

But of course we have taken back control so these regs could be repealed at anytime. Possibly to ensure that all wheels are fitted with flaying blades in the style of that friend of the continent Boadicea.

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3 hours ago, Talbot said:

Thing is, as a private seller you can advertise anything as being tax exempt, or any other statement you like, regardless of whether it's true or not.  It's for the buyer to beware and determine if they are happy to go through with the purchase.

Actually I don't think that is true?

I believe apart from a private seller needing the legal right to sell a car, they are also bound by their description. If something is claimed or a response to a question is given but it is not true, then the seller could be liable. Likewise it's illegal to sell an unroadworthy car, unless the buyer has been made explicitly aware it is otherwise. 

Of course actually enforcing any of that is a different matter. 

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2 hours ago, GrumpyCat said:

I agree, but I'm not convinced that if you completely misdescribe a vehicle you cannot be held liable.

As linked to above by faker, the only thing a private seller has to do is not misrepresent the age or mileage of a car.  And by that, that means not assert that it is newer or lower mileage than it really is.  Which is mainly intended for newer vehicles where someone is trying to up the value of the car by insisting it's a 2014 model, not a 2012 model, or by intentionally clocking the car back 30k miles.  Literally anything else I could claim in an advert and it has no legal bearing, it's up to the buyer to be sure.

"Never welded"

Buyer gets home and finds it's got oodles of welded patches on the floor.  Not my problem.. buyer should have checked.

"Comes with 4 brand new tyres"

Buyer gets home and finds it's got bald ditchfinders on it.  Not my problem.

Yes, I should have described it accurately, and misdescribing is a twattish thing to do.  But legally there is no comeback.

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20 minutes ago, Talbot said:

As linked to above by faker, the only thing a private seller has to do is not misrepresent the age or mileage of a car.  And by that, that means not assert that it is newer or lower mileage than it really is.  Which is mainly intended for newer vehicles where someone is trying to up the value of the car by insisting it's a 2014 model, not a 2012 model, or by intentionally clocking the car back 30k miles.  Literally anything else I could claim in an advert and it has no legal bearing, it's up to the buyer to be sure.

"Never welded"

Buyer gets home and finds it's got oodles of welded patches on the floor.  Not my problem.. buyer should have checked.

"Comes with 4 brand new tyres"

Buyer gets home and finds it's got bald ditchfinders on it.  Not my problem.

Yes, I should have described it accurately, and misdescribing is a twattish thing to do.  But legally there is no comeback.

Selling a car with mis-described bald tyres could see you in court for selling an unroadworthy car.

I won in court against a private seller who sold me a car which had the front chassis members filled with wob because it had been in a front ender and shoddily repaired. I had the benefit of an excellent litigation solicitor and my expert witness was the bodyshop manager of a Toyota main dealer. The judge was not impressed by the seller palming off a dangerous car which he had been told was for my wife to take our sprog to school,

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1 hour ago, Talbot said:

the only thing a private seller has to do is not misrepresent the age or mileage of a car. 

Again I don't believe that's true. The .gov.uk website gives examples of age and mileage, it's not the only thing. 

If I remember correctly from a lunch time chat with a in-house lawyer a while ago on this, while a private sale doesn't come under consumer rights act, the Misrepresentation Act can/will apply. 

While you can't necessarily take action against someone who sells a car with unknown faults, if the description says it works then it should. I.e. if the description is said to have "working cold air conditioning", it should be so. If there is no mention in the description about the air conditioning working then it is up to the buyer. 

Also as mentioned above by several other posters, it must be roadworthy unless otherwise mentioned. 

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