In a surprise judgement an Evesham court has defended a customer’s right to repair his used car without consulting the car dealer who sold it to him.

The case concerned a Land Rover sold by used car dealer Sean McGrath in March 2010. The customer, Garry Barnes, claimed the car suffered gearbox noise two weeks after purchase, but rather than contacting the dealer to ask him to fix it or even informing him of the fault, he had a replacement gearbox fitted with a local repairer at a cost of £2750.

The first the dealer heard of the gearbox failure was when he received a demand for payment three months later with a threat of court action under the Sale of Goods Act if he did not settle the bill.

District Judge Savage accepted the honesty of both parties here but ruled that the car had broken down and that the cost of the repair had been reasonable. ‘While Mr Barnes ought to have consulted the dealer first, as a member of the public he may not have known this and there is nothing in the Sale of Goods Act which requires him to do so’ said the Judge.

Despite Mr Barnes being unable to produce the old gearbox or a receipt for the purchase of the replacement gearbox Judge Savage ordered Mr McGrath to pay him £2751.04 plus £443 costs.

Mr McGrath’s appeal was that it was well accepted practice and defined in the Office of Fair Trading’s guidance on the Sale of Goods Act that he should have a right to examine the vehicle and instruct his own repairers. Despite this leave to appeal was refused because it was claimed that McGrath’s “returns and repair” policy should have been defined at the time of sale in his terms and conditions.

Few dealers have any ‘returns or repair’ policy defined in their conditions of sale explains motor industry legal expert Lucy Bonham Carter but customers in future can be sure that alert dealers will be amending their contracts very quickly to cater for this scenario…

And to balance this new rationale, the good news is that customers are more likely to be informed of their (reasonable) right to repairs under the Sale of Goods Act within 6 months of the used car sale.

FOXY’s experience is that too many motorists are still fobbed off with a 1 month or 3 month used car warranty despite the fact that the customer has used car rights, within reason, when faults arise within the first 6 months of ownership. But they aren’t always told this…

FOXY Steph

Women drivers looking for an honourable and female friendly garage when their car needs repairs can try the FOXY Choice approved garage network.

Not being a motor industry person, I occasionally read or hear things that make me wonder why…

One such recent prod was when I read that new car salesmen (and women) in UK car dealerships are paid more than those who work in customer facing roles in car servicing departments. I had imagined that they would be paid a similar amount with or without commission incentives because many dealerships tell me that garage services including car servicing and repairs are worth c50% of their income. And because I believe that with a bit more effort car servicing could be a bit more lucrative too .

I am not talking about technicians here as clearly their skills  are not/should not be transferable.

But shouldn’t they be seen as equal in customer facing roles? If one knows about car sales and the other about car servicing shouldn’t they be working together, marrying their skills in a form of a coalition in car dealerships as it were?

Why not move staff around more, so they understand the big picture not just their part of it. And make car servicing staff feel as important not less important than sales staff?

Why is it that garage services are so often hidden away at the back, unless they are a separate business like Renault Minute or Ford Rapid Fit perhaps?

It makes sense to me and there are clearly customer service lessons to be learned in both areas so why not make the car two dealership departments female friendly buddies rather than very separate silos, one more highly regarded than the other.

After all the route to the showroom might be via garage services and garage services might end up accounting for more than half the new car sales income.

The reason must be the franchising car manufacturers I imagine?

FOXY Steph