My daughter recently bought (mistakenly in my opinion, but she didn’t tell me until after she had bought it) a 6-year-old MG TF soft-top with 30,000 miles on the clock. On Christmas Eve she was driving from Liverpool to her boyfriend’s in Croydon when, in her words, she heard a bang and the engine died. Two local garages said they couldn't fix the problem (one wouldn’t touch it because it was an MG), so the vehicle was taken back to Liverpool under the terms of the rescue policy to the selling garage, as there were still a few days left on the 3-month warranty they had given her.

The garage has now contacted my daughter (still on holiday in the USA) saying that the engine has been ruined because water and oil have become mixed and that this could only have happened by her putting oil into the water filler or vice-versa, and that a new engine is needed and that this is solely her responsibility. She is adamant that she has put in neither oil nor water since buying the vehicle from them, but they are unmoving. Where does she stand legally please? Should she ask them to do the repair, pay for it, then seek to claim it back from through the small claims court? Or should she press her claim that there must have been an inherent fault in the vehicle when she bought it from them?