Faulty Car

Aylesbury_Duck

RubyI said:

tightauldgit said:

I believe that if you sell a car that's not roadworthy you have to legally declare it as such and it can only be sold as for spares or repairs. I think it might even be a criminal offence to sell a non-roadworthy car without informing the buyer of the condition. To what extent a private seller is supposed to know if a car is roadworthy or not when selling it I have no idea.  

The car was mot’d before I bought it, they noticed the oil was low and just topped it up

Is that all? I thought you said the oil kept draining? It sounds like an older car has consumed some oil and had tyres that were at the end of their life. Not grounds for any kind of rejection or refund.

tightauldgit

Aylesbury_Duck said:

RubyI said:

tightauldgit said:

I believe that if you sell a car that's not roadworthy you have to legally declare it as such and it can only be sold as for spares or repairs. I think it might even be a criminal offence to sell a non-roadworthy car without informing the buyer of the condition. To what extent a private seller is supposed to know if a car is roadworthy or not when selling it I have no idea.  

The car was mot’d before I bought it, they noticed the oil was low and just topped it up

Is that all? I thought you said the oil kept draining? It sounds like an older car has consumed some oil and had tyres that were at the end of their life. Not grounds for any kind of rejection or refund.

I think they are saying that on the MOT it was found short of oil but they just topped it up, OP mentioned since they've had it they've had to fill up the oil 4 times. 

I think given it had a recent MOT then probably any claim that the seller knew it was unroadworthy would fail and there's no comeback on other faults unless the seller explicitly lied about them I don't think.

Seems like its a 'file under lesson learned' situation. 

fatbelly

Could it just be an oil leak rather than damaged pistons/rings? If it passed an MOT, presumably there was not a lot of oil being burnt out of the engine.

Could be a cheap and easy fix, which is what you often have to do when buying secondhand.

As for the tyres I've often replaced them early after buying secondhand because I don't like running mixed and/or budget rubbish.

DullGreyGuy

SpudGunPaul said:

DullGreyGuy said:

Alderbank said:

you have few rights when buying from a private seller but the car must be roadworthy, ie it must meet the legal requirements for being driven on public roads. Was the car legal to drive when you agreed the sale?

Which law states a private sale car must be roadworthy?

Clearly if its described as such then it should, but even that would be only to the extent Jo(e) Public can reasonable assess it to be, but never heard of a law saying a private seller cannot sell a non-runner etc

Section 75 of the Road Traffic Act. 

A non runner is different to being unroadworthy. If you sell and unroadworthy vehicle and they drive it away you commit the offence.

I wonder what the case law looks like on this? 

Average Jo(e) Public could honestly believe the car is roadworthy, "it past its MOT 2 months ago with no advisories" etc but unknown to them a problem has occurred. Under contract law they'd be judged as a layman and so if they didnt reasonably know of the problem they wouldnt be liable. Do judges accept "ignorance" in these cases or expect the average person to be able to expertly determine if a vehicle is roadworthy? 

A non-runner is different however things that can make it a non-runner can also make it unroadworthy (ceased brakes in my case)

born_again

Oil level is not even something checked in MOT.
So MOT tester would not have touched that.
Excessive oil leak would lead to a fail.