Bent in the rules

My daughter recently bought a Peugeot 206 from a garage chain. She has had some problems in the six weeks she has had it even though the car had less than 40,000 miles on the clock and she has driven only a few hundred miles since purchase. She suspects that the car may have been in an accident.

How can she check this and should the garage have informed her before purchase if this was the case? Also if it had been involved in a crash without being notified what is her legal right to giving the car back and receiving a total refund?

Asked on 19 September 2010 by ME, Wakefield

Answered by Honest John
See: www.honestjohn.co.uk/faq/consumer-rights.

“The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPRs) contains a general prohibition against unfair commercial practices and, in particular prohibitions against misleading actions, misleading omissions and aggressive commercial practices. The Regulations are enforceable through the civil and criminal courts.

This creates an offence of misleading omissions, which would not previously have been an offence if the consumer had not asked the right questions. So if a salesman knows a car has, for example, been badly damaged and repaired and does not tell the customer, he could later be held liable if the customer subsequently discovered that the car had been damaged and repaired.”

As far as I know this has yet to be tested in court and there are no case precedents. As soon as there are and I am made aware I will include them.
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