What car checks are done by dealers?

Can I expect that a dealer will have done a car check and will know the car history if I purchase a car from them? Can I trust them not to sell me a car that is still on finance or has been written off? Will they tell me how many owners the vehicle has had, if it has been in a crash and its service history?

Asked on 8 February 2017 by Lise Marron

Answered by Honest John
A dealer is legally obliged to tell you everything he knows. The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations May 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.
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