Minimum warranty on used cars

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Sat 9 Jun 2007 14:50
Minimum warranty on used cars - Kuang
I was just reading HJs column online and came across a post referring to the The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002. This effectively states that used car dealer are legally obliged to provide a six month warranty, and would need to prove that any fault arising within that period didn't exist at the time of sale.

I was completely unaware that this regulation existed and, judging by the adverts I'm coming across on AT, so are most used car dealers. It seems that almost all of them make a point of specifying a three month warranty, which is surely illegal?

I'm just about to buy another car and as I have little cash to play with I can't afford to make a bad mistake (as much as I adore Alfas... ;), and knowledge of this regulation changes things significantly. I get the feeling that querying this before making a purchase would result in being shown the quickest way to the exit, but if I accepted a car after being told that the warranty was three months would this weaken my case in the event of a problem?
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Sat 9 Jun 2007 15:07
Legal minimuwarranty length on used cars - Stuartli
To the best of my knowledge it was always a three month parts and labour warranty which was the minimum permissible - however this, of course, could have changed in the meantime.

It would probably apply to the one man band operation upwards.

These provides some information:

www.smta.co.uk/public/codeofpractice.asp

tinyurl.com/2akwlt
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Sat 9 Jun 2007 15:15
Legal minimuwarranty length on used cars - Kuang
Cheers for the links:

It seems that the first one does indeed reference the precise act HJ drew attention to and implies that six months is the required legal minimum warranty. It'd be interesting to see how any given dealer would respond to questions on this matter.
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