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I bought a retail 9 year old excellent condition used car back in late 2021 and within days and weeks a number of faults became apparent. Over several months the dealer attempted to fix the problems but was unsuccessful and eventually they stopped responding to my requests to fix them. I enlisted some legal assistance and over several months more of them attempting to communicate it became apparent that the dealer was no longer trading. We were now into 2023.
As I paid the deposit on a credit card, the solicitors told me to use the CCA section 75 to make a claim which I did. Wind forward another few months and I got an independent assessment paid for by the credit card company and the report is ready to share with them. I decided to do some research first, triggered by the legal wording of some of the report.
All communications with the dealer were in writing, and where an in person or telephone conversation was had, I followed it up in writing – so its clear that the faults occurred, the dealer accepted them and that they tried to fix some of them. Therefore, its my view that the car had faults that were present at the point of sale (due to becoming apparent within days/weeks) and that the credit card company is equally liable for them.
I slipped up and a conversation 6 weeks after sale about one of the faults was not in writing as the dealer, who was initially very helpful land apologetic (hence I had no reason to distrust at the time), told me that it was insignificant and I believed them. It did not become documented until a year later when my usual repair garage pointed it out – by this time the dealer that sold me the car was no longer trading. So in effect I have no black and white evidence of this fault until early 2023. And to complicate things, the repair garage said it should be fixed immediately and so I paid them to do it, only for the fault to reappear very recently several months further down the line. In all honesty, I am not 100% convinced that the repairer fixed the source of the fault and hence the original fault may have still existed until it got much worse and recently became obvious.
To summarise, its possible the source of this fault remained throughout and continued to develop. As it was discussed with the (now out of business) dealer at 6 weeks but not documented until over a year after sale, where do you think I stand with this particular fault?
In case I have to rely on claiming the car did not last a reasonable amount of time, with this particular fault unable to be proven to exist at the time of sale, I know age, condition, mileage, and price paid comes under consideration but what is the significance of “durability” when considering “satisfactory quality” under the CRA 2015? I have done some reading and get conflicting views on this, with some websites not even mentioning its existence and others not giving a clear view. Is durability expected for some time after sale or is it purely measured by the age of the car? I see wording such as “what a reasonable person would expect” which is not helpful.
All expert help greatly appreciated!
As I paid the deposit on a credit card, the solicitors told me to use the CCA section 75 to make a claim which I did. Wind forward another few months and I got an independent assessment paid for by the credit card company and the report is ready to share with them. I decided to do some research first, triggered by the legal wording of some of the report.
All communications with the dealer were in writing, and where an in person or telephone conversation was had, I followed it up in writing – so its clear that the faults occurred, the dealer accepted them and that they tried to fix some of them. Therefore, its my view that the car had faults that were present at the point of sale (due to becoming apparent within days/weeks) and that the credit card company is equally liable for them.
I slipped up and a conversation 6 weeks after sale about one of the faults was not in writing as the dealer, who was initially very helpful land apologetic (hence I had no reason to distrust at the time), told me that it was insignificant and I believed them. It did not become documented until a year later when my usual repair garage pointed it out – by this time the dealer that sold me the car was no longer trading. So in effect I have no black and white evidence of this fault until early 2023. And to complicate things, the repair garage said it should be fixed immediately and so I paid them to do it, only for the fault to reappear very recently several months further down the line. In all honesty, I am not 100% convinced that the repairer fixed the source of the fault and hence the original fault may have still existed until it got much worse and recently became obvious.
To summarise, its possible the source of this fault remained throughout and continued to develop. As it was discussed with the (now out of business) dealer at 6 weeks but not documented until over a year after sale, where do you think I stand with this particular fault?
In case I have to rely on claiming the car did not last a reasonable amount of time, with this particular fault unable to be proven to exist at the time of sale, I know age, condition, mileage, and price paid comes under consideration but what is the significance of “durability” when considering “satisfactory quality” under the CRA 2015? I have done some reading and get conflicting views on this, with some websites not even mentioning its existence and others not giving a clear view. Is durability expected for some time after sale or is it purely measured by the age of the car? I see wording such as “what a reasonable person would expect” which is not helpful.
All expert help greatly appreciated!
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