Sale of Goods Act says regardless of warranty, an item must be of satisfactory quality and fit for purpose. With cars, age and mileage will be a factor.

The oil leak and rusty chassis rails were present at the time of purchase, so under SOGA you are entitled for the supplying dealer to repair it. You can also attempt to reject it and get a refund, but this may prove harder.

However, the dealer would have to prove that these two faults were NOT present at the time of purchase to be able to do nothing.

I assume this is a Mk2 MX5 (98-05)? As you say, these models are notorious for corroded front chassis rails, even on low mileage, well kept examples. They are load bearing and if in poor condition would fail an MOT. Was the car sold with a new MOT? The car would now fail an MOT, so easy to prove not fit for purpose. Good luck.

The MX-5 does not have "chassis rails" as such as it isn't a seperate chassis/body car - where exactly is it rusting?

All Mk 1 & Mk 2 MX-5s are very prone to rusting on the sills - particularly near the rear wheels arch. They all do it to a greater or lesser extent. This will only fail the MOT if it is severe or considered to be too near the seat belt mounting point. Unless the rusting is so bad as to make the car dangerous (i.e. it has a dodgy MOT).

They're all the same and part and parcel of owning one (although it isn't clear from your post where the rust on this one is). Every time you repair them the rust seems to pop up somewhere else - it is like the Forth Bridge.

The oil leak really depends on how much it is leaking. A major leak I think they should address.

I can't see you have any grounds for rejecting an 11 year old car 5 weeks after purchase unless the oil is pouring out or you run it through an MOT yourself and it fails on major corossion.

Edited by pd on 17/05/2013 at 17:40

I think you need to look at the two issues seperately. The rust issue really depends on whether the car is to MOT standard or not. You could simply run it through a MOT to find out. If it fails you may have some comeback that the car was not roadworthy when you bought it.

In the case of the oil leak, assuming it is not very minor, the dealer should try and repair it and they are within their rights to do so.

As far as a refund is concerned, if the car passes it MOT then you are a long way from being legally entitled to one. In reality, a refund on a 11 year old used car any time after the first few days of purchase is very difficult to enforce.

And as the car has an mot refused to look at the rust (taking the car for an mot with the covers removed would result in a fail, I have been reliably informed by another MOT tester)

Fairly clear cut then. They sold you a car with either

(a) a dodgy MOT certificate, or

(b) a serious structural corrosion problem at the time of purchase, therefore not fit for purpose.

Probably both. In addition, they cannot just avoid their responsibility to provide a fix or refund.

Keep going!

I think you should actually put it in for an MOT and perhaps, ideally, a "non-biased" one at,say, a local council depot.

A "word" of an MOT tester means nothing - an actual faliure sheet stating the car is dangerous is far more likely to get you somewhere.

I wouldn't hand over the car to anyone unless a clear agreement is in place.

Thanks for the advice - I'm going to get another 'proper' MOT done to verify before I go ahead with rejecting it.

I thought these Arthur Daley types had died out!