Trading Standards finds rats nest and weeds in car during dealer inspections

A nest containing live rats and weeds growing from a vehicle’s bodywork were among the discoveries of a Trading Standards investigation into used car retailers.

Trading Standards officers from West Berkshire Council made the grizzly discoveries as they visited 12 car retail premises as part of checks aiming to clamp down on vehicle clocking and ensure the roadworthiness of cars being sold across West Berkshire and Wokingham.

The Reading Chronicle said that the operation resulted from a high volume of complaints related to car dealers in the region.

It reported that officers found rats had eaten the bonnet lining and chewed through a coolant tube of one car that was being offered for sale for £1,895, while a weed was also growing out of the wheel arch.

A total of 20 vehicles were examined by independent vehicle engineers to ensure their roadworthiness.

A statement issued to the Reading Chronicle by West Berkshire Council’s Public Protection Partnership said: “On the whole most vehicles and premises were found to be compliant with just a few areas where we advised the business owners of some areas they need to work on.

“These centred on their refunds policy/statutory rights and distance selling requirements.”

Earlier this week a report published by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) highlighted the need for car retailers to be focussed upon delivering good outcomes for potentially vulnerable customers taking out finance agreements.

The FCA’s ‘Borrowers in Financial Difficulty following the Coronavirus pandemic’ report revealed that motor finance was falling short of the standards achieved by market segments including ‘high-cost short term loans’ and ‘home collected credit’ in “monitoring customers susceptible to financial difficulty”.

The report was published this week, just days after the deadline for businesses to create an FCA Consumer Duty implementation plan.