Motor Vehicle Disputes Tribunal

meoldchina, Dec 11, 1:40am
Does anyone have any experience of the MVDT and how long it takes to receive the tribunal's ruling?

kazbanz, Dec 11, 2:34am
What exactly do you want to know?
A decision if its a straightforward case is made within a week. you will get notified by e mail then followed up by snail mail.
The Process takes a bit longer.
First you must file your case with MVDT. They then send out to the dealer.
The dealer is required to do their very best to resolve the issue.
Usually they are given two weeks.
given there is no resolution reached then a hearing date is set.
You will also be given instruction from the court-stuff they want you to do

meoldchina, Dec 11, 2:48am
Thanks Kazbanz. My MVDT hearing was on Nov 13th but I have heard nothing. I thought my case was fairly straightforward and the facts of the case were not disputed by the Ford dealer, so I can't understand why it's taking so long. I have phoned the MVDT a couple of times. The first time was after I had waited two weeks and they said it would take 1-2 weeks, the second time I called they said 2-3 weeks. We are now in the fourth week and I don't want to hound them over it. They also told me that they phone me with the result, which surprised me.

kazbanz, Dec 11, 2:52am
Edited --AHH ok china. It makes no sense to me that a decision would take so long.
I suspect you might have misunderstood the answer you got. They do phone you to let you know that a decision has been made.
BUT to my knowledge they don't tell you what the decision is over the phone.
What they do instead is let you know they will send you an e mail with the decision.This is followed up with a copy through the mail.
I have to ask -What effort did the dealer make to resolve the issue?
I would have thought a swap into a petrol car of the same age/milage would have been reasonable given the ongoing issues

meoldchina, Dec 11, 3:15am
The dealer made little or no effort to resolve the matter. They tried to sell me a secondhand car.
The adjudicator asked the dealer why he hadn't replaced our faulty car or refunded our money when we formally rejected it in June and the dealer replied: "Because Ford wouldn't let me." To every question the adjudicator asked, the reply was either "because Ford wouldn't let me", or, "because Ford told me not to".
It was very stressful preparing our case for the tribunal, and now it's proving to be very stressful waiting so long for the judgment.
Patience is a virtue, and, all good things come to those who wait etc. etc.

kazbanz, Dec 12, 12:26am
China-to be honest If they offered you a petrol example of the same year,model,miles as your as a swap I would probably have taken it.
but the word is SWAP

rpvr, Dec 14, 12:19am
So what the dealer is saying, is that although their business is independent, decisions are actually made by the car manufacturer? I'm sure this isn't what the law stipulates. Looking forward to the outcome on this one.

kazbanz, Dec 14, 1:44am
if decisions are made by the manufacturer then I would have to ask why the manufacturer wasn't represented at the hearing.

bumfacingdown, Dec 14, 1:51am
Independent but a franchisee?

meoldchina, Dec 14, 6:44am
I have now been told to expect a phone call by the end of the coming week (14-18 Dec) to advise me to check for an email with the outcome of my tribunal hearing. The ruling will also be sent by post. This means it will have taken five weeks since the hearing. I'll keep you up-to-date as some of you have been very helpful to me with your advice, which I appreciate.

kazbanz, Dec 14, 7:06am
china--Purely my opinion here. Unless the "judge" has been ill then its a pretty complicated case of decision would have been quick fire.

tgray, Dec 14, 7:10am
Yes, do let us know the outcome.

meoldchina, Dec 14, 7:42am
The person I spoke to at the Ministry of Justice, without making any apology for the delay, said the "judge" had a backlog of 14 cases outstanding. I don't think my case was particularly complicated, especially as the dealer didn't dispute any of the facts I put forward in my evidence, but I could be wrong.

tgray, Dec 14, 8:29am
So it has been 6 months since you formally rejected the car.
Interesting to know the current time frame, cheers.

meoldchina, Jun 19, 2:32am
We formally rejected the car in June but the dealer would not replace the car or refund and insisted on carrying out more attempts to rectify the fault. In August I started the MVDT process. In mid-November we had the hearing.