Legal A’d

I have a 5-year-old Mercedes A140 with only 37,000 miles on it. I bought it at less than a year old from the Mercedes dealer. I have now been told that I need a new gearbox at £4,000. I feel I should sue the dealer as surely a gearbox must have an intrinsic fault to fail at such a low mileage? Have you heard of anyone successfully suing in these circumstances?

Asked on 5 September 2009 by

Answered by Honest John

No. Some people believe they have a statutory right to expect cars to last 6 years without faults but I have never heard of successful legal action on this contention. But these cars are well known disaster zones and I have been advising owners to sell them asap for many years. The Mk 2 from 2005 is a vastly better car. To minimise the cost of repairing yours (a lot of which is actually extracting the engine and transmission), try a member of www.fedauto.co.uk

Tags: technical issues gearboxes owning

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