sold as seen car

[neilthewheel]

I recently brought a car for nearly �2000 the dealer i brought it from said it was sold as seen, is this legal at this price? do you get any warranty by law after a certain price?

[Stu Dent]

If you bought it form a dealer then there is no such thing as 'sold as seen' - even if you both agreed to such a term and the conditions were put up in huge neon lights!!

The dealer cannot contract out of the Sale of Goods Act 1979. There is an implied warranty in the act that the dealer has good title to sell the goods, that the goods should be free from minor defects, be fit for the purpose intended, and has various other implied terms.

[Buenchico]

Under the Consumer Transactions (Restrictions on Statements) Order 1976 it's a criminal offence for a motor trader to use a statement such as 'sold as seen':
http://www.hants.gov.uk/regulatory/tradingstan dards/motortrader.html

The statement made by the dealer who sold you the car is therefore automatically void.

There is no obligation upon any dealer to provide a 'warranty' (in the sense that the word is usually used with reference to car sales) with the sale of any vehicle (even if it was a brand new Lamborghini). A warranty is a 'gift' from the retailer (or manufacturer). However, you still retain your basic contractual rights (which Stu Dent refers to) in respect of the purchase.

For further advice, contact your local Trading Standards office:
http://www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/search/dbas e/searchlocal.cfm

Chris

[Twenty20]

But just to play devil's advocate, is a car dealer really liable for anything that goes wrong with a secondhand car? Especially one that is probably fairly old or has high mileage (i'm guessing from the price)? Surely there must be some limit to this? At under �2000 most cars are going to have at least some 'minor defects'.

[gouldc]

Not worked in a garage for a while, but I'm pretty sure the law states that, as noted previously, you can't sell ''sold as seen'', and all cars sold must have 3 months warranrty (covered by the vendor).

Obviously this should cover mechanical/electrical failures, and not wear and tear (ie tyres).

Whilst I'm not 100%, I thought that there was some sort of loophole allowing part-ex vehicles to be ''sold as seen'', and not the forecourt stock

[Stu Dent]

Twenty 20: If the buyer has accepted the minor defects after inspection or the seller draws the buyer's attention to them, then I suppose in those narrow terms, sold as seen can apply. But of course, the buyer may bot be able to properly inspect the gearbox or suspension, and yes, some allowances are made for age, price, and mileage. But in general terms minor defects will have to be repaired. It is complicated though and the answers can be found trawling through the case law. I could give you a better answer if a student friend would return my commercial law books to me!:-)

Gouldc: There is no loophole...as such. As stated above, if the fault is specifically drawn to the attention of the buyer, or the buyer has inspected the car, knows the fault is there, but buys it anyway, he has no claim on the seller for that fault. Otherwise, the buyer has a right to reject the car or demand it is repaired at the seller's expense - be it forecourt, trade-in, or even at auction.

I am a keen buyer of cars at auction. Even auctions don't seem to realise (or divulge) that their disclaimers are not worth the paint used to write them - if they are agents for a vehicle being sold by a bona fide dealer. Hence I always use my credit card (so I am covered by the Consumer Credit Act), and buy a car that is clearly trade-in stock being sold by a large main dealer - the stickers on the windscreen give the game away. A buyer has little opportunity to inspect the vehicle in an auction so doing as I do is just about the best advice I will ever give on here.

[deannatrois]

We are looking at the other side of the coin. My OH is a mechanic, and we sold an R reg Frontera on ebay. The car had a complete engine recondition, serviced, new battery and no faults showing when tested using vauxhall software. Yet the buyer has come back to us three weeks later with a long list of repairs, saying he's paid more than he paid for the car to repair it (he says he's been told even the tyre's won't pass an MOT when it was MOT'd days before he took it away and not even an advisory on it).., now he says the big end has gone (big end's don't just go.., u get rattles way before they go and there were defo no rattles before we sold it).

Now reading what is said, I am not sure what position we are in. Do we have to pay for all this. Obviously I am extremely upset he has had these problems but it looks like from what has been said, we could be paying out more than we got for the car.

When he first said there was a problem (initially he said the diff had gone - again no sign when we used it - but we haven't heard any more about the diff since then, it seems like every other part on the engine is a problem since), we did say we'd look at the car and replace it if necessary but he didn't come back to us.

The car was our personal car, and was sold as a private sale. What is our position?

[louisa7890]

I also have a question, i recently brought a car from a dealer he told us it was 'sold as seen', part exchange i have had it looked at at a garage,i have been told there is quite a few defects on it, it was brought 9 days ago could anybody let me know where i stand on getting my money back and how to go about it? thank you