I've just bought a 71,000 mile 2004 Subaru Forester 2.5XT in an eBay auction. It was listed with a FSH. However, once I got it home I noticed that the gearbox whines and I see that it's never had the oil changed. It should get the gearbox oil changed every 30/36,000 miles.

Interestingly, the Subaru garage ticked the box (along with all the others in the list) on the worksheet but on the invoice they only listed the engine oil and there is no sign of a charge for the 3.5 litres of gearbox oil required.

Could I go back to the seller and either return the car or negotiate a reduction as the FSH isn't complete, despite the fact that the garage should have done the gearbox oil change?

Also, is the seller liable as I suspect he probably didn't want to pay the extra to change the gearbox oil at the time. Sadly, it wasn't changed at 60,000 either so I guess that FSH might mean that a car has been to a garage but there is no guarantee that they will have done everything required!

Going forward, I will change the oil myself and I hope that will either cure or at least stop the problem getting worse.