A low coolant warning light showed within a week of the purchase of a nine-year-old Volvo and was returned to the dealership which drained and topped up the coolant.
The warning light reappeared just over six months later and the Claimant took the vehicle to a third-party mechanic who did the same thing, drained and topped up the coolant. A month later, the Claimant was told by a main dealer the vehicle required a new engine. The Claimant issued proceedings against our member for the full cost of the vehicle.
In cross-examination, the Claimant accepted it was more than six months from purchase when the fault occurred and that she had driven 10,000 miles between the first warning light and the next. The Claimant argued that on the balance of probabilities, the warning light that appeared shortly after purchase was indicative of the fault that eventually led to the failure of the vehicle.
In his evidence, our member argued that numerous issues could have caused the overheating and ultimate failure, and the water coolant warning was not necessarily the same issue. Our member argued that given the period of time before the fault occurred and the lack of expert evidence, the Claimant has not discharged her burden of proof given that more than six months had passed since the purchase.
There was concern from the court over the same warning light being illuminated shortly after purchase and again before the fault, but agreed with our member that on the balance of probabilities, the Claimant would not have been able to cover 10,000 miles with an underlying fault and no further warning light being activated. The car was by no means an old wreck, but an older car of nine years old. Within a week, the low coolant warning light came on, and the Claimant returned it to our member, who topped up the coolant.
The car then functioned for over six months until the light came back on. The Claimant took it to a third party who drained and refilled the coolant. The light came back on after a few more weeks, and she took the vehicle to a main dealer who found a problem with the cylinder head and concluded it needed a replacement engine, rendering it beyond economic repair.
The judge accepted the Claimant’s evidence about dates and warning lights. However, the main dealer diagnosis did not deal with the underlying problem, how or why it would arise, and whether they considered it was present at purchase.
The Claimant argued a conclusion could be drawn that a fault was present at purchase due to the continuity of the warning light and that it provided a link between the two events. The judge was sympathetic to the Claimant, but could equally see our member’s point that there could be other problems and that the warning light hadn’t come back on for six months, so showed no indication of a continuing problem. The judge found it was not low coolant that had caused the failure but overheating, and that it was not present until more than six months after purchase.
The case against our member was dismissed.
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