New Car - big problem....

Have a big problem, bought a second hand car about 2 months ago.... not cheap almost €20k, bought from a car trader, not a garage. Car had logged service history and had just past NCT the week I got it.

One corporate owner, before the trader (who had it for about 2 months).....

Problem : Head Gaskey failure............ when I got this repaired the garage told me that this had been fixed before, but not the root cause which was due to a water pump problem....

Question is what recourse do I have with the guy I bought from ?

Really depends on your contract with him- did he offer a guarantee? Did you sign an SIMI agreement? Did he say whether the car had any previous repairs-i.e did he hold the car out to be perfect or did he say you buy as is?

No written contract. He did state that the car was in perfect order and verbally said if there were any major problems to get back to him.

This was verbal, but is fact!!

Irldigi said:

No written contract. He did state that the car was in perfect order and verbally said if there were any major problems to get back to him.

This was verbal, but is fact!!

Click to expand...

if it was "sold as seen" with no warranty... then your out of luck...

So the verbal agreement means nothing ?

At this point, part of the issue is that I want to know if any other "work" was done on the car. It would have saved me a lot of money this time if I knew there was a history of head gasket failure before removing the head.

No of course the verbal contract is very important- naturally it is harder to prove than a written one- but that is only if the dealer denies having said this. Do you have any witness to this verbal contract?

Chances are if he is a reputable dealer, he will stand over his word- after all reputation is important. Have you gone back to him yet and asked him to repair the car, or is that what you want?

In the first instance, you should look to the dealer to either repair or replace the car. If he refuses, then I'd get onto my solicitor pronto.

BTW the fact that he is a dealer rather than a private individual is in your favour- if he was a private individual, really caveat emptor ( buyer beware) usually applies. But for a car dealer who is an expert, he should have to stand over the goods he sells.

I know a fleet manager who sells all his good cars to employees and the lemons to traders.

I'd see what the trader has to say first. He may not have known about the history either.