I purchase a second hand car on 17th December 2021 through a

Hello and thank you for your question. My name is ***** ***** I will be very pleased to assist you. I'm a practising lawyer in England with over 15 years’ experience. Please be aware that although I will endeavour to reply to you promptly, I am also in full time private practice and so I may not be available to respond immediately and it may also take me a few minutes to prepare a reply. The site will notify you as soon as I respond. I look forward to working with you to answer your question fully.

1. I am very sorry to read of the above. For the avoidance of doubt, may I confirm if the garage has had any prior opportunity to repair the vehicle before now please?
2. May I also confirm that did not reject the vehicle within the first 30 days following purchase in writing?

thank you. You have an extensive set of rights implied into your agreement with the garage by virtue of the Consumer Rights Act that the car must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. During the first six months, any faults are automatically assumed to be inherent as opposed to having been caused by damage - in other words the dealer has to prove they were not present when you bought the car and have been caused by damage by you; you do not have to prove that you have not damaged the car. After the first six months, the burden of proof switches to you to show that any faults are inherent as opposed to having been caused by damage though this is not usually difficult as damage is usually fairly clear - e.g. physical damage by an accident failure to maintain properly such as keeping oil topped up and so on.

The Consumer Rights Act gives you the right to reject a car if it is faulty but that right only exists for a short period - a little under a month, but you still have rights under the above legislation. Under these rights, providing you can show the fault was caused by a fault and not damage caused by you (remembering this is assumed during the first six months), you can insist upon a repair or replacement at the dealer's discretion. You are required to give the dealer reasonable opportunity to repair at least once. If the dealer cannot or refuses to replace or repair the car or fails to repair the car more than once, then you can seek as an alternative a price reduction or exercise a final right to reject the vehicle and return it for a full refund less any reasonable deduction to take account of your use of the car.

under section 75 consumer credit act, you also have the right to impose the same set of rights as against the finance provider as you have against the dealer themselves. In other words, you can effectively treat the dealer and finance provider as one and the same person for the purposes of any claim and choose to pursue either one of them or both of them jointly.

In terms of how you may consider proceeding at this point, I cannot see that you can avoid allowing the garage one opportunity to repair as this is their right under the consumer rights act at this point as discussed above. However, if they decline to repair the vehicle or unsuccessful in doing so within a reasonable period, you can consider writing to them again advising that if they do not reply with their substantive proposals within 14 days of the date of your letter you will have little option but to issue proceedings against them in the county court - remembering you also have the same rights as against the finance provider

If you decide to issue proceedings for breach of contract as above the simplest way to do this is by using the money claim online court service.

https://www.gov.uk/make-money-claim

the consumer  rights act provides that any costs that you can show are a direct consequence of the dealers breach of contract would form damages you can claim from the dealer providing those costs are reasonable. It certainly would follow that the costs of recovering the vehicle from the dealer following a repair would constitute a loss you can claim from the dealer and as a consequence of section 75 consumer credit act as discussed above, by extension, which you could recover from the finance provider remembering you can effectively treat them as one and the same as the dealer.

You may also have a claim for any reasonable costs you incur in terms of temporary transport whilst the car is being repaired

I'm glad the above answers all your questions for now. If you have any follow up questions please revert to me.

I'm very glad the above was of soome assistance