Waterproof Aluminium Car Cover - Buyer Beware!
If you've been looking for a car cover on ebay you would have come across plenty of these Waterproof Aluminium Car Covers, some even exclaiming that they have 8 layers (which is completely misleading and false), well, don't be fooled. After reading through the listings and being suckered in by the descriptions, I bought four of these covers for different vehicles.
In two simple words to describe these car covers, ABSOLUTE RUBBISH!
This response may seem a bit long, but I recommend you to read on to make yourself aware of the issues with these covers, and they're sellers 🙂
The concept of the aluminium material is great, but it's the way they're made that is a massive failure.
You'll see these terms on the ads...
"High strength waterproof aluminium"
"Extra thick high quality PEVA material"
"Don't waste your money buying cheap easy torned car cover which can not stay long under harsh Australia weather" (sic)
This is my experience with those statements...
"High strength waterproof aluminium"
- Ridiculously thin and tears literally like tissue paper. You can literally put your fingers through the material as you're either putting the cover on your vehicle or removing it, no kidding, the material is that pathetically flimsy and thin.
You'd think that because they are made out of some sort of aluminiumised material that it would give them strength, but it does nothing of the sort.
"Extra thick high quality PEVA material"
- See above point. The material is paper thin. And if you read through the listing where it shows the layers of the cover, PEVA doesn't even exist in it.
"Don't waste your money buying cheap easy torned car cover which can not stay long under harsh Australia weather" (sic)
- My immediate response to this statement if they're implying their covers are not like this is, "HAH! What a load of **bleep**!"
The description of these covers is an absolute blatant misrepresentation.
One particular cover had been used for only four months before it completely failed, it had literally come apart at the seams & had torn like a zipper. One thing they don't mention anywhere in the description is not to use these covers if there is any sort of breeze.
Subsequently I got in touch with the ebay seller whom I bought these off, and I will name them REMOVED, and basically they're response was, "Tough sh*t". Their exact response was, "it's over the eligible period for return or exchange. This item doesn't come with any extended warranty."
The relative Australian Consumer Law, states the following;
- Suppliers guarantee that goods sold, hired or leased to a consumer must match their description given by a salesperson or on packaging, labelling or advertising.
- An express warranty is when a seller or manufacturer makes extra promises about goods – they are guaranteeing that those extra promises will be met. These might be promises about the quality, condition, performance or characteristics of goods
The seller (or any of the sellers of these covers) clearly make promises about this product which are not met. The product does not meet these consumer guarantees.
After pointing this out to REMOVED and asking for a replacement or a refund this was their response...
"Can you please state what 'promise' you have been advised? What kind of warranty you have been advised prior to your purchase, if you can list the evidence you received from us that we have provided some kind of warranty of the product, I will certainly refund your order. "
As per the Australian Consumer Law, if a product is advertised to be a certain type, style or condition, etc then that is their guarantee, that is the evidence given by them. Just because a seller does not specifically say they offer any sort of warranty on their products, it does not absolve them from any consumer guarantees, which apply regardless of any warranties suppliers sell or give.
And in accordance with the Law the seller cannot deny a refund or a replacement. They are (supposedly) not protected by Ebay's policies, the Australian Consumer Law overrides Ebay.
The seller's response to this was, "awaiting your formal dispute through Fair Trading."
Well, again, don't be fooled, this time by the authority of the Department of Fair Trading. They're about as useful as **bleep** on a bull. They have no power to do anything whatsoever. The only thing they can do is try and speak to the seller and tell them that they've been very naughty, and that's about it. All the Department of Fair Trading is good for is collecting data on complaints. They are nothing short of completely useless when it comes to protecting consumer rights. So you can forget about any sort of recourse from them.
Obviously the seller knew this, no doubt having been threatened by other buyers before and discovering that the Department of Fair Trading can do jack sh*t.
I bought these covers on December 2017 and it is now November 2018 and two of the covers that are constantly used have had to have been repaired several times (by ourselves with the necessary skills). Over the period they have torn more and more until they're beyond repair, one has completely fallen apart and is literally in shreds.
One of the other covers doesn't get used at all, after the first use and putting their fingers through it, and the other gets occasional use, but is never used in windy conditions and are handled with extreme care so as not to tear them.
IN SUMMARY
These covers are made extremely cheaply and the seller's use dodgy practices to sell them to unwary consumers. As I said, the concept is a good idea, the issue is that the aluminiumised material is not supported by anything of substance to maintain any sort of strength. One layer is supposedly LDPE (Low-density polyethylene), but it's so incredibly thin and LDPE itself has no structural strength.
And the third layer is some sort of fluffy cotton material, which of course also has zero strength. This layer, although nice and soft, acts like velcro in picking up all sort of debris and getting stuck in the fabric, which can scratch the vehicle's paint, completely defeating the purpose of it being soft to avoid damaging the paint.
It would seem that, whoever created the advertising material for these covers, don't even know what these covers are made out of. In one section of the listing it describes having a PEVA (Polyethylene vinyl acetate - a non-chlorinated vinyl) material inside, yet further down in the listing it shows the cover as having an aluminium film, a layer of LDPE and a cotton layer, PEVA is nowhere to be seen. That should have raised a red flag, but it wasn't obvious to me at the time of purchase.
Another point worth making is that if you use these covers for longer than a couple of days, moisture builds up beneath them and cannot evaporate, there are no breather vents. If you leave these covers on your vehicle for too long the trapped moisture can wreak havoc on the clear coat protecting the paint.
So, if you want a cheap lightweight cover that you intend to use for only short periods of time, ensuring the vehicle is out of any sort of wind then by all means waste your money. But if you want a cover for which these are advertised as, then I wholeheartedly say DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY!
If you do buy one of these covers and it fails and you expect some sort of support from the seller forget about it, and forget about getting any support from ebay or the Department of Fair Trading either. These dodgy sellers know that they're untouchable because of a failure in the system.
MY ADVICE
My advice is to look elsewhere for a car cover of better quality, which wouldn't be difficult to find, anything is better quality than these poor excuse for car covers. You're better off paying a bit more for a decent car cover, it will way outlast any of these cheap nasty things, costing you less in the long run.
And I'd also advise not to buy them from ebay, any so-called consumer advocate doesn't seem to have the power to do anything about the protections ebay provides their sellers.
BUYER BEWARE.
