As DX100 has already pointed out, category N is non structural , ie cosmetic damage it means the car has had a very minor accident in the past that wouldn't affect it's safety integrity or roadworthiness. It will affect the price because it's registered and accident repaired, but as cars get older, this becomes less significant. All you can do is chalk this up to experience, you could have done what your buyer did and checked the car's HPI report when you bought it. Ultimately though if you've had the car for a while, had good use out of it then what did the category N status matter?, it's only an issue now when trying to sell but what i suggest is to put in the advert that the car is cat N, explain what this means and then you'll only get inquiries from people who (rightly) aren't bothered by this.

According to the OP the faults were not limited to the EM light. Are you involved in the motor trade in any way?

There's a difference in buying a car privately or at auction, and buying one from a retail seller, regardless of the price. buying from a dealer you have certain statutory rights as a consumer, and you pay a premium for the supposed benefit of buying from reputable source. An engine management light could be a minor problem, the issue here though is that the seller delivered the car with the light on, then dumped it and made a quick exit, that gives a fair idea of his attitude to customer service. If the engine management light came on while the car was in the process of being delivered, any reasonable seller would have told the buyer the light had come on and taken the car straight back to sort it, not done a runner and hoped the customer wouldn't notice.

That wasn't what i asked.

Of course you are, would you say it was reasonable or fair for the seller in this case to keep both the car and the majority of the buyer's money as well?

Are you one of them by any chance?

so you think the way the seller has behaved is entirely acceptable then?

I would respectfully disagree. Whilst the buyer paid well over the odds for this car, it's clearly worth more than it's scrap value, the bottom of the market will be underwritten by whatever the export price is for the l200 ATM, now that's not a market i follow, but i'd be astonished if it wasn't well above the scrap value. I'd agree that buying any older vehicle is a gamble, and i'd also agree that the buyer has been somewhat naive, even foolhardy in buying a vehicle unseen from this type of trader. you say to get a 'faultless' vehicle buy from a 'proper' dealer, which is a fair point, but in this case the buyer thought they were buying from a proper dealer with a good reputation. Now it may be obvious to those with more experience that this was clearly not the case, nevertheless, the buyer did set out to give this impression, his success in giving this impression may have depended on the gullibility of potential buyers, but that doesn't absolve the seller of responsibility. It's victim blaming to suggest it's the fault of the buyer to fail to notice the seller was dodgy, clearly the fault lies with the buyer for being dodgy, however obvious this is. This was presented as a retail sale, at full forecourt price, the very least you'd expect is for the car to have no major faults on delivery, and i'd class a bad oil leak as a major fault. you'd also expect the seller to respect your basic consumer rights, you certainly wouldn't expect the seller to take the car back on pretext of repairing it, then have them keep both the car and nearly £3K of your money.

I does sound like it, unfortunately when you get to cars of this value, you have to take into account what sort of profit margin the dealer is going to be taking out of it, and what sort of potential after sales service this can support realistically. the end result is when you get to the bottom of the market you've got the more arthur daley type retailers who are making money either from expensive finance options for people with poor credit ratings, or from essentially ripping people off by selling cars at the full retail mark up, but not giving the backup one would expect after paying the top whack forecourt price. I think there's an argument when you're in this price bracket for buying privately after doing some research into the type of car you want, you'll end up paying less, and you can put the money saved aside for the inevitable repairs and maintenance.

sounds like a problem with the DPF (diesel particulate filter), these are expensive to replace but you can i believe clean them, either with magic additives or by taking them off and cleaning the cartridge manually. as below https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv01BlfqXoY you've paid £1600 for an older car, i think in such circumstances one has to manage one's expectations as to what the car might be. Personally, i'd be inclined to steer clear of older diesel cars unless you have a good mechanical knowledge and are able to do some of the work yourself, though as modern cars become more complicated, doing any work yourself becomes more difficult. however, you've got the car now and need to make the best of it. I'd suggest getting a professional opinion on it, then do a bit of google research and find out what your options are to sort the problem in the most cost effective way. If the dealer won't fix an ABS sensor as a good will gesture i think they're unlikely to help you on this issue.

The buyer should indeed have studied the terms, there are a number of red flags in this advert and from this seller, most have already been mentioned, however, i was not suggesting that the buyer hadn't been foolish or naive in making the purchase, my point was that the seller is at least posing as a reputable dealer, clearly he isn't one, but nevertheless If one was buying a vehicle from a reputable dealer at full forecourt price, one might reasonable expect it to be fit for sale. the age of the vehicle is immaterial, it's entirely possible for a vehicle of this age and mileage to be reliable and mechanically sound, a relatively modern vehicle that's covered 116K is by no means worn out. reasonable wear and tear would be acceptable, major mechanical faults would not be, and would be reasonable grounds to reject the vehicle.

It's likely that it's covered by the garage's trade policy, if the OP has rejected it it would be part of their stock. garages and traders don't insure cars individually, they have bespoke insurance policies that cover all the cars in their stock as well as covering them to drive customers' cars if applicable.

The car is advertised as having relatively low warranted milage and is supposedly sold with no faults and 12 months mechanical warranty, so yes, it would be reasonable to expect it not to have major faults, because that's what the advert says, and the buyer is paying a considerable premium for this. If you bought this car privately or at auction then yea, you'd expect to take your chances, but you'd also expect to pay a lot less, this one is being sold at a considerable premium, on the back of giving the impression that the seller is a reputable dealer with a good reputation. to say the buyer should just suck it up is ridiculous. OP, i would suggest talking to trading standards about this. i would think the best outcome your neighbour could expect here is to get his car back and put the rest down to experience, effectively the dealer has stolen it from him, but i suspect the police would not see it that way. and you'd be left with pursuing a civil case. which if you won, you'd then have the problem of enforcing. with any civil case, the chance of recovery depends on what the person you're suing has to lose, if the seller has a proper business with a proper premises that it still in operation, then if one won one could send bailiffs round to enforce the judgement, if he's a fly by night operator posing as a proper dealer with nothing concrete to lose, then getting anything back might be more difficult. that said, he has the car, that is the property of your neighbour regardless of the £500 refund, if the dealer thinks he's owed that, he has to take the neighbour to court to get it back, he can't just take the car and keep it. i'd be looking to get the car back and let him argue the toss over the £500

You asked for advice, and the suggestion that you name the dealer was part of that advice. That's the problem with asking for advice, sometimes the advice isn't what you want to hear. the people on this forum are giving up their time to advise people for no advantage to themselves, but said advice will be objective, rather than tailored to your specific pre conceived views. when people give you advice in good faith that you have solicited, and you ignore said advice and say actually, i know better, what sort of response do you expect to get? There are two good reasons to name the dealer, one is that it will further you ends of getting a prompt refund, the other is that by putting the name in the public domain, anyone else who is considering purchasing a car from this company and who has the good sense to stick their name into a search engine before parting with the money would find this thread and be able to use this information to decide whether they wanted to go ahead with the purchase. The second aspect is possibly the more important, i would suggest that Bankfodder's impatience with you in this matter stems from the fact that you have come here expecting to be helped by volunteers who give their time for free, but are not willing to help others yourself by imparting information that could help them avoid the same situation that you find yourself in.

I had similar experiences with lloyds business banking in the 90's, both with the aggressive selling of useless health insurance add ons to my current account and with the insistence that i take out unsuitable payment protection insurance on a business loan