大象传媒

A second-hand car dealer, who advertises as a private seller online, has been selling his customers accident write-offs without warning them.

X-ray began investigating Dale Carr, from the St Mellons area of Cardiff, after a customer got in touch.

Catherine Morgan spotted one of his ads on Gumtree. She says the advert for a Nissan Micra described him as a private seller, but when she met Dale he told her that he sold cars as a business. He didn鈥檛 bother with a garage forecourt, though. His cars were parked up on streets around Roath Park in Cardiff.

Catherine paid 拢2,150 for the Nissan Micra car, but within weeks it began making a high-pitched noise. She said: 聽鈥淭he squeal was just so persistent and horrible. The gear wasn't going into reverse and I was nervous that if I was driving at speed on a motorway the gears would slip.鈥�

Catherine then checked the car鈥檚 history online and was horrified to discover it had been in a crash. It was a Category D write-off, meaning an insurance company had decided it didn't make financial sense to repair it. That鈥檚 something Catherine says Dale Carr never mentioned. She wrote to Dale Carr demanding her money back, but says he never responded.

X-ray asked expert vehicle inspector Gareth Rees to examine her car and the news wasn鈥檛 good. Gareth told Catherine he could see 鈥渟erious distortion and an attempted repair. It's had severe impact damage and it's twisted and buckled the front chassis. By using this car on the road, you are not only putting yourself at risk but other road users as well.鈥�

X-Ray 聽found 10 adverts online for cars linked to Dale Carr. All had been in accidents. Five were the least serious Category D. Four were Category C write-offs where repairing them would cost more than the car is worth. And one was a far more serious Category B write-off, which should have been scrapped.

X-ray researchers then met Dale Carr posing as potential customers and wearing hidden cameras. He told them he sold up to seven cars a month. He said the Category B insurance write-off 鈥� a Ford Fiesta 鈥� hadn鈥檛 needed any work doing it and had a new MOT.

However, he didn鈥檛 reveal that the car only passed its MOT second-time round and had failed a few days earlier partly because of damage to the car鈥檚 structure, which seriously affected its strength.

The X-ray researchers also asked what would happen if anything went wrong after buying the car. Dale Carr said: 鈥淚 won't give no warranty on it, but nothing's going to happen like that. It's only got 49,000 miles on it.鈥�

That鈥檚 a clear breach of the law for a dealer, according to consumer law expert Huw Evans, who said: 鈥淗e's claiming he will not accept goods once they are sold, he is in clear breach of his obligations as imposed by the Consumer Rights Act of 2015.鈥�

Dale Carr also said he didn鈥檛 bother checking whether the cars he sold had been in accidents.

Huw Evans said: 鈥淗e has a duty under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations to exercise professional diligence - each car that is being sold for use you would expect it to be safe and so some basic checks about the history of a vehicle would be entirely consistent and would be expected.鈥�

Dale Carr has told X-ray he isn鈥檛 doing anything wrong. He said there was a mix-up with the Category B Fiesta, and he has now taken it off the market. He also said all his cars have new MOTS and are roadworthy.

Cardiff Trading Standards have told X-ray they will look into the programme鈥檚 findings.

And if you're thinking about buying a second car....

Last month, the government launched a brand new FREE service to help car buyers. Just enter the car make and registration number to see its MOT history and the mileage.聽

Click to go to the website.

Or for just a couple of pounds there are several websites which allow you to carry out a HPI check. This will tell you if a car has been written off - or if it has finance on it.. 聽

So it could save you a lot of hassle.聽

You鈥檇 expect to pay a lot for certain luxury products 鈥� vintage champagne could set you back 拢150 a litre and a top selling designer perfume could cost you 拢960 a litre. However, you might be surprised to know that drop for drop, printer ink is even pricier! You could shell out a whopping 拢1,700 a litre for standard black ink from one of the leading manufacturers.

Mum Bev Reed from Newport runs a chocolate making business and that means printing a lot of flyers and menus.聽 Bev says it can cost up to 拢40 every 4-6 weeks if she鈥檚 printing full colour with branded cartridges. But Bev was curious to see whether she could save cash without scrimping on quality, using cheaper remanufactured cartridges instead.

We put two of the most popular budget printers to the test: a Canon Pixma costing 拢25 and an Epson Expression we picked up for 拢33.

Both manufacturers recommend you only print with their pricey inks: that鈥檚 拢24.99 for a new set of Epson branded cartridges, or 拢20.99 for Canon - that's only around three pounds cheaper than the printer!

We decided to compare branded with unbranded, to see which gives you the most pages for your pound. For the Canon, we bought a set of remanufactured cartridges which are recycled casings that have been refilled with ink, costing 拢13.95. Other companies make cheaper alternatives too, so we tried some for the Epson which cost just 拢5.51

Using the official industry test we're going to compare branded and unbranded cartridges - to see how long they last and whether the quality differs.聽 And the results were鈥�

For Canon, the results were close:

路听听听听听听听 Branded cartridge: 185 pages (11 p per sheet)

路听听听听听听听 Remanufactured cartridge: 137 pages (10 p per sheet)

However, for Epson there was a clear winner

路听听听听听听听 Branded cartridge: 171 pages (14 p per sheet)

路听听听听听听听 Remanufactured cartridge: 351 pages 鈥� (1.5p per sheet!)

When we asked the companies why their branded cartridges cost so much, Canon said they work hard to keep costs down and customers who print a lot can buy extra large inks with a 'higher yield'. But Epson, whose ink worked out nine times more expensive than the cheap brand, didn't respond to us.

Technology journalist, Simon Williams, says you won鈥檛 tend to notice the difference in quality for every day printing like letters and reports.

His top tip for buying a new printer is to look at the running costs as well; how much are cartridges going to cost over the next three years?

When we asked chocolate maker Bev in Newport whether she could tell the difference between the two sheets 鈥� she got it wrong! In fact our brighter coloured printout came from one of our cheaper alternatives. So now she鈥檚 planning to switch!聽