Knowing the car

Recently, we had a claim against one of our members who had sold a car to a customer, and within a couple of months and 1,600 miles, there was an issue with a sensor that they replaced free of charge. No other issues were mentioned at the same time.

Two months and a further 900 miles later, the customer returned to say there was a problem with the power steering. The customer expected our member to repair it, and understandably we did not consider this was their responsibility.

The customer, therefore, issued legal proceedings.

Now, our member has a lot of history with this vehicle. It was first sold by them in 2009, after which they exclusively serviced and repaired it for 12 years, and they bought it back from the owner when they wanted to sell it. Our member drove it themselves for almost 1,000 miles before being persuaded by the Claimant to sell it to them.

Our member knew this vehicle like the back of their hand, and they also put it through a new MOT immediately before the sale, with no advisories.

When the complaint about the power steering was made, therefore, they had sufficient knowledge to know that there was nothing wrong with the power steering when it was sold.

The judge listened to the Claimant’s evidence, and whilst she could confirm there was a fault, she was unable to provide any evidence of the fault having started to develop at the point of sale. 

Our member gave evidence, citing the extensive history they had with the vehicle, the fact that it had passed an MOT just before the sale, and also there had been no mention of a fault with the power steering, or indeed any other fault when the sensor was replaced. The judge quickly concluded that the vehicle was of satisfactory quality when sold, dismissed the Claimant’s claim, and awarded the princely sum of £18.20 to our member for parking and travel.

This kind of background history is seldom known, but when it is, it can be extremely helpful in proving that a vehicle is well looked after and not a bag of spanners.