I have, perhaps, sounded quite harsh on people who have missed out on the £50pm deal, as deals come and go and some may have missed out, and it’s just one of life’s issues and is tough luck.

However, in this case this sounds very much like mis-selling. It is not the finance company who you have the complaint with, but with the dealer. Your complaint is with them and your appeal is to Trading Standards.

Under the fair trading regulations, it is unlawful

and is a criminal offence

to withhold information that changes a consumer’s financial behaviour. Evidently, this is clearly falling into that category as the deal existed from the 28th November, and AFAIK there was no £70pm battery rental that you should have actually been able to sign on the 5th December.

Had you been informed of the change of battery rental around that date, there is no way you would have signed off on the £70pm. You would have said (or considered saying) something to the effect of ‘forget my deposit, then, because unless I get £50pm I’m not taking the car today and giving you any more money. I’ll just re-order the car and save myself money, if you aren’t prepared to offer me the lower rate’. The economic transaction of buying the car didn’t happen until the 5th Dec.

So therefore it is beyond doubt that the omission of information by the dealer caused you to ‘change your economic behaviour’, as the regulations put it.

This may be a problem for some people who ordered/signed just before then, but I believe your particular situation, given the dates, is absolutely black-and-white because the information and announcements were already made and the dealer did not advise you of this.

How you drop that bombshell on them is up to you, but I would say you would be in the right to accuse them of a criminal act under the consumer protection regulations, and if they do not remedy the situation you can seek to have them prosecuted by Trading Standards, or even lay information in a Magistrates’ Court yourself if you are so bold.

In the first instance, if I were in your situation I would have already handed a letter over to the dealership and RCI stating that I wish to cancel the battery rental agreement within the cooling off period, or would have done so had I been given full information at the time without omissions, and will take a new rental at the corrected rates, as announced prior to the signing of the rental agreement. How far you wish to threaten them in the first few exchanges is up to you, but I believe the law is very much behind you in this case and the dealer has no legs to stand on.

I became aware of the new rates on 28th Nov ( http://www.leaftalk.co.uk/showthread.php/17722-Renault-now-to-sell-Zoe-with-battery-%C2%A318-5k-with-battery-%C2%A314k-with-lease ). It was a pure and, IMO, criminal omission of information by the dealer when they failed to tell you this when you signed on 5th December.

There is a possible argument that you made some verbal agreement to accept a £70pm lease before 28th November, but I do not believe this would hold water because Renault could not have rolled this out in a day and must have been aware of a change of rental coming up. I think this would class as ‘omission of information’ so what really counts is the day on which the lower battery rental rates were signed off for the market by a Renault executive. It could be a very interesting case for people who have signed their lease in November. I think they would have a case to require Renault to state the date when they decided to launch the £50pm rate, and I think (just MHO) it must be retrospective to that date as anything less would fall into this ‘omission of information causing the consumer to alter their economic behaviour’ class of offence.

Apparently she managed to put diesel in his car 🙂

Be interesting to see if any of the other manufacturers are taking the patents on board, although for 4 times the size of the battery, they’re only getting 2.4 times the range of a Zoe, their tech doesn’t seem that innovative.

I ordered on exactly the same day and had the same conversation with my dealer. However, we came to the opposite conclusion and as I didn’t sign the battery hire until I picked the car up on the 19th December, the lower rates would be in force.

After this discussion he did some more digging and suggested all customers would have the lower rates, even those pre-existing.

Just checked the paperwork and I’m definitely on the lower rate. As we’ve ordered the car on the same date I hope that gives you some ammo to make them see sense.

Hi. I’d echo Dr Steel and others re Sheffield’s Renault dealers. They’ve been consistently good, from helping me out originally by finding an alternative supplier of the home charge unit because British Gas would have kept me waiting three months, to sorting out a SatNav problem to a trouble free first service.
Charging at present (in minus 3’s and 4’s) giving a suggested range of about 60 miles (though I know in reality in Eco mode I can up that to 85+) and riding on snow pretty good (weight of the battery giving good grip?)

We’ve Had our Zoe for 19 months now and haven’t seen that one yet, perhaps our battery was dry cleaned before delivery 🙂

I’m charging with a 3 pin plug granny cable, the noise is only noticeable when outside or with a window open, the noise is no louder with a 7Kw charger we have at work, so not a problem, I would say. Sound is like a 12v car battery charger, you would use to charge a ICE car battery.