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Rover soled

My son and I are desperately in need of some advice and I wondered if you could please help. Two weeks ago, my son bought a used Rover 75 from a local dealer. The car is an '02' plate 75 Classic CDT SE with 110,000 miles on it and £2,295 was paid. This included £295 exchange allowance paid for my son’s Citroen XM - which the dealer sold within a week to a collector. Last weekend my son found it difficult to put the Rover into gear and we have now found out that the clutch slave cylinder in leaking. We have had a couple of quotes for the repair - these being about £1,000 and £1,200. The selling dealer will not accept any responsibility but has offered to pay for the actual cylinder (about £125). The Rover was supplied with a new MOT certificate. Do we have any legal recourse? My son has only done 200 miles since buying the car.

Asked on 21 March 2009 by

Answered by Honest John
It's a cheap car, 7 years old and it is not "reasonable" to expect a
£2,295 car 7 years old to be entirely fault free. In theory the dealer is responsible for all faults present in a car when sold. But I think a court would hold that his offer of paying for the new slave cylinder was "reasonable" and the £1,000 and £1,200 quotes for the repair are "unreasonable". However, it might order the dealer to take the car back and return your son’s £2,295.

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