hello, a friend bought a car from a second hand dealer but within the 3 months she has owned it she has had to pay out for repairs (breakdowns). it broke down most recently and is now off the road/a write off with the dealer not wanting to know. just wondering if now it could be worth my friend pursuing the matter through the civil court/mcol and is there anything that she could do to strengthen a claim or be aware of? thanks.

Hi guys, first post so I apologise if this is an old issue but I couldn't find one that exactly fits my scenario. 4 weeks ago we purchased a Peugeot 307 from Durnford motors in Southampton. Within 3 weeks we reported that the clutch wasn't right but were referred to Warranty management services who are administering the warranty. They put us onto a local garage. The local garage said we have to pay for an inspection so they said drive it around until it snaps and then you will be covered even if it's wear and tear. A week and a half later the clutch has gone completely and it was recovered into them. Now we find out that it won't be covered if it's wear and tear even though we've only had the car a month!! I have spoken to the dealership on a number of occasions who have said that it's probably wear and tear and said "what do you expect from a used car" I need to know what my recourse is. I'm expecting to be considerably out of pocket within a month of purchasing a new car. IS there anything I can do under the sale of goods act to get the dealership to pay for this? Or to reimburse the costs? I have contacted trade standards (the dealership is apparently part of their high standards scheme!) and they say the dealership has to prove that the car was fault free when we purchased it. But how do i go about instigating a proceeding against them? Please help me someone.

Hello all, hope you can help me. I bought a second hand car from a dealer which was not described as having any faults and also a new MOT (was actually MOT'd begging of December) on Friday 23rd December 2011 i.e. around three weeks ago. The car is a Jaguar X type 2001 model (automatic), paid approx £2100 after a very small allowance for my old car as PX. Immediately as I went to take it off the dealers forecourt the engine management light (EML) came on. I stopped there and then, went back into the dealers office and told him of the problem. He stated to me it had never happened before and to take it anyway and see how it goes. Indeed the light went off about two minutes later so I just put it down to a transient fault. On Saturday 24th December I though I better check it over properly before heading off on a journey. I found all of the locking wheel nuts loose (i.e.could be turned by fingers) on every wheel, the windscreen washers didn't work. Tightened up the wheel nuts and found the inoperative washers to be down to a pinched washer tube, straightened out the tube and then found the washers were so badly aligned that they didn't even spray on the windscreen so I corrected this, however the washers are a clear MOT fail and if this simplest of things had been 'missed' at the MOT then what else I wondered? Drove to the shops and the ABS light came on. Stopped car, turned off engine, turned back on, light out - it is an intermittent fault. Then took car on a journey, seemed to run fairly cool and transmission was a bit jerky but didn't think anything of it, ABS intermittent as before. Then (26th December) took car on a 300mile journey, after 250 miles they car started running very cool then hot with a restricted performance mode cutting engine in and out. Had to call out the breakdown recovery and was transported to my end destination. Ended up then spending a day trying to find someone to look at the car, fault was traced to a faulty (missing!) thermostat. This was replaced and engine ran OK except that the EML light came back on within about 5 miles and has stayed on. The ECU was read and the codes P0420 and P0430 were present (this means the catalytic converters were operating below efficiency). As I had to return home the next day there was no time to do anything else so drove home. The journey back was horrendous the gearbox would slam into gear very violently when using the kick down and was generally very jerky, I had to nurse the car back home in the slow lane as overtaking was practically impossible because of the violent kickdown. Went straight back to the dealer on 31st December and told him of the problems and that I wasn't happy, he said he would ring me back on the Tuesday 3rd January, of course no call came. I waited until the Thursday then called him, he then gave me the details of the garage that he wanted me to take the car to (it was on a farm in the middle of no-where). Eventually I got it organised with the garage to repair the car for Thursday 12th January. Took the car to the garage and left it with them, they cleared the ECU fault codes and took the car for several drives clocking up around 50 miles, they stated that the ECU light would not come back on. On Friday 13th January they carried out further tests, found a faulty ABS sensor and stated that they could not get the EML light to come back on. Asked me to take the car home and bring it back on Tuesday 17th January, of course when driving home the EML light came back on within 5 minutes! Took the car back yesterday, Tuesday, the garage played around a bit more and have decided that the catalytic converters are on the way out, they have also replaced the ABS sensor and are today carrying out an oil change on the automatic gearbox. I have spoken to the dealer today and he is now effectively refusing to get any further work done, this ended up in a very heated conversation in which he effectively accused me of damaging the car, he states that I overfilled the car with oil (it is marginally overfull when I checked it immediately after getting it home and I have never topped it up) and that he can prove it because there is an empty oil can in the boot and that I am a lier! Yes there is, there's also lots of other things in the boot in a box which I transferred over from my previous car I don't think this proves that I have damaged the car!! He also states that the car is not jerky and that he and the garage have driven it and it is fine!! The dealer eventually conceeded that if I supply the catalytic converters he will pay for them to be fitted. My question is what do I do now? All faults were apparent within 400 miles of collecting the car some immediately. The garage where the work is being done is in the middle of nowhere and the dealer won't supply me with any alternative transport. I don't see why I should be paying for faults to be corrected that were present when (or very soon after) the car was purchased. I am also suffering considerable inconvenience when I don't have the car. I have spoken to the credit card company hoping for some help under the consumer credit act, they have stated that I need to get an independent garage report into the faults present on the car and to give the dealer 30 days to rectify the faults after being presented with the report, if he doesn't then they 'may' take action. This seems pretty useless and the person I spoke to in their disputes department didn't even seem to understand the sale of goods act! Any advice would me much appreciated. Thanks