11:25 am, November 14, 2024
A customer claim was dismissed in court when a judge found they could not prove that a fault was present at the point of sale.
The used car dealer who sold the car found themselves in court when the customer believed that a fault with their coolant had led to engine failure six months later and demanded the full price of the vehicle.
A week after the customer bought the nine-year-old Volvo, the coolant light came on and it was returned to the dealership who drained and refilled the coolant.
Six month later, the customer took the car to a third party mechanic when the coolant light came on again. They also drained the coolant and refilled it.
The following week, the customer took the vehicle to a main dealer who told them it wasn’t economical to repair the car.
The main dealer had found a problem with the cylinder head and concluded it needed a replacement engine, telling the customer it beyond economic repair.
Polly Davis, legal advisor at Lawgistics, said: ‘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.’
The car dealer responded that it could have been a number of issues that had resulted in this engine problem.
Davies said: ‘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.’
The judge found that it wasn’t coolant but overheating that led to the engine failure and decided to dismiss the case.
She added: ‘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.’
