"The selling garage is entirely liable for failures within the first six months."

Not strictly true, the garage is responsible for faults present at the time of sale, not faults that develop after sale, even then considerations will be made for age/condition/cost.

Are you really saying that every vehicle sold via a trader comes with what is essentially a 6 month no quibble guarantee against all faults regardless of the vehicles cost, age and condition?

If I was to buy a 12 yr old £750 PX with 130k on the clock and no service history and 5 months later it dropped a valve. Would you expect recompense from the seller and for the courts to back me?

Dream on!!

In simplistic terms, in the first 6 months the dealer has to prove the fault WASN'T present at point of sale, after 6 months the buyer has to prove the fault WAS present at point of sale.

If the fault can't be proved, whoever by, to have been present at point of sale then a subsequently developing fault has to be considered against the age, mileage and price of the vehicle.

Only if it is something which "a reasonable person would consider makes the item unsatisfactory" which, obviously, on a used car is a sliding scale on age, price and mileage as they are part or sometimes almost wholly worn out devices which are expected to need maintenance and worn out parts replaced. A seller is NOT generally responsible for bits which wear out through use and meeting the end of their natural life.

In simplistic terms, if you think you've got under comeback on the aforementioned hypothetical £750 130k car after 5 months it is b******s.

You've covered it all SL076, the only spanners that should have been laid on this car were by the selling dealer's chosen mechanic, and it should have been returned to seller soon as it pegged out, i wouldn't have taken word of mouth authority to get it repaired elsewhere, i would have wanted written or email confirmation, the warranty (most are worthless) wasn't liable as such it was the selling dealer themself.

I agree with you about the bill to fix, it does sound like the knee jerck reaction to a misfuel, or maybe it was indeed misfuelled and run till it finally ground to a halt.

I think getting a judgement here is going to prove very difficult, if i was a dealer i wouldn't be shelling out money like that either for some figure seemingly plucked out of midair by a LR specialist, this is more than likely going to be an expensive lesson.

Edited by gordonbennet on 08/02/2017 at 21:39