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Browsing local ads, I've noticed the phrase 'no warranty express or implied' in some ads where the car has been traded in. Is this a loophole for traders - I thought any car not bought privately had to have a warranty?
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They pretend it's a getout, no such thing of course. What they have to offer in terms of quality, accuracy of the advert etc are totally unchanged by writing that type of thing on the advert.
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Dealers that do that are the ones to avoid IMHO !
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If they mention what's wrong in the advert then you have no comeback, but otherwise it does not remove your statutory rights.
I think if it says explicitly that it is sold as 'scrap parts only' then you couldn't really complain that something had failed on it.
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>> I think if it says explicitly that it is sold as 'scrap parts only' then
>> you couldn't really complain that something had failed on it.
>>
The traditional wording is 'for spares or repair'.
I sometimes use it for stuff that is roadworthy i.e. has an MOT etc, but also has some faults... purely because it is potentially less weary.
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Every dealer is subject to the Sale of Goods Act.
That though is in itself a can of worms.
I have found an anomaly when I sell something on behalf of someone else as a favour e.g family member/friend..."you sell it for me, you know what you are doing".
If I sell it as a dealer, I am liable for a form of warranty under the Sale of Goods Act.. however if it were a private sale, that wouldn't apply.
If I bung it on e-bay or Autotrader at a 'private sale' price...purely as a favour to someone else..am I liable or not? ...and who would believe me?
I've had to turn people down because I don't want the hassle.
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Thanks, Sooty. Am I right in thinking that no actual warranty has to be issued, but that the dealer has to be able to prove that a fault wasn't present at the time of sale if you uncover one in the first 6 months?
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>> Thanks, Sooty. Am I right in thinking that no actual warranty has to be issued,
>> but that the dealer has to be able to prove that a fault wasn't present
>> at the time of sale if you uncover one in the first 6 months?
No quite so cut and dried. In the real world (you can claim SOGA as much as you like - we are talking your chances of getting it to work on your side) Problems by which you can demand your money back depend on the problem, what price you paid for it, its age, mileage and obvious physical condition at time of purchase.
Last edited by: Zero on Sun 30 Nov 14 at 19:26
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"chances of getting it to work on your side"
The art of the possible, in other words.
Thanks to all for clarifications!
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>> No quite so cut and dried. In the real world (you can claim SOGA as
>> much as you like - we are talking your chances of getting it to work
>> on your side) Problems by which you can demand your money back depend on the
>> problem, what price you paid for it, its age, mileage and obvious physical condition at
>> time of purchase.
>>
You can go all the way to getting a CCJ against the supplying dealer, but that still doesn't mean they'll pay up. Lots of intricacies related to company names etc means that bailiffs can't enforce the debt.
I won in the CC against a Plymouth dealer when my sister bought a Daewoo Leganza for £2k and it died three weeks later. They weren't interested, Court bailiffs couldn't help.
They still have the car. I've been waiting for a year or so for it to disappear from their forecourt, at which point I'll report them for theft and hopefully have more success with the police.
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Well it has to be reasonable to what the car cost, 6 months might be reasonable maybe not depends on the car price really. A main dealer at £15,000 would have different expectations to a £500 car from a lock up.
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I myself got caught out with this as a young naive 23 year old. I didn't even have a driving licence at the time but my dad had an injury which meant he couldn't drive for a few months. I needed access to a car for my business.
Out on a stupid whin I when I bought a £350 Fiesta MK3.5. It was pretty solid apart from one small rust hole I filled in with body filler. All seemed fined, the engine had the usual HCS clatter from the tappets but the oil looked cleanish and there was no smoke. The dealer told there it was a trade sale and thus no warranty offered - I should have walked away but me desperate for a car when and bought it with the intention of driving on L plates with my dad in the passenger seat.
I was pleased with my car car, until a few days later I when to start it on a foggy morning and realised my entire street was filled with smoke. The engine was belching out thick blue smoke which it didn't when I bought it.
Turned out the seller and filled the engine with STP stop smoke, which thickens the oil to stop it leaking past the worn piston rings. I soon discovered the engine used about 1 litre of oil per 200 miles but 8 months later it managed to pass an MOT by using the stop smoke. I kept it another month until the engine finally died.
I lost around £250 on the car but I got a lot of driving practice in it and was worth every penny. My point was though the dealer knew he was selling a car that needed a new engine and tried to use "trade sale" as a get out clause.
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Anyone buying a car, or anything pricey, should read up on SOGA and the Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. Traders not only can't abandon your rights by selling to a consumer with sold as seen or any other waffle on the paperwork. In fact they are also creating a breach, by omission, if they fail to proactively tell you something pertinent about the cars condition or provenance that would have made the average consumer make a different buying decision. That can be the gearbox they know will only get you out the gates because it is full of sawdust, or the one owner in the paperwork was actually Arnold Clark Hire Drive.
There are boundaries though on age, price, mileage and description, so i's not an open charter to get your money back if a banger wont start three months down the line. Usual dispute remedies are repair, replace or refund.
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>>I lost around £250 on the car
No... you ran a car that cost you £30 per month in depreciation (plus no doubt quite a lot of very cheap and possibly second-hand oil). Bargain!
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I spent more on the oil than I did on petrol! To be fair in the 9 months or so I had it, it covered less than 2000 miles. My dad used as his car when he recovered as the MOT had lapsed on his Escort and it was stored in a very damp garage for about 12 months. By the time he did MOT it failed on about 30 different things mostly caused by rust.
The oil was just cheap 10w 40 mineral oil which was about £10 for 5 litres back then I seem to remember. In the last few months it was just breaking down too often so it had to go. It had a habit of breaking down on my street but once it got beyond my street would carry on working.
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Trade-ins - sooty123
