What are my rights if a used car breaks down after I buy it?

The 30-day short-term right to reject

Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 a car sold by a trader to a consumer must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described. If it is not, the short-term right to reject runs for 30 days from delivery: you hand the car back and receive a refund of the price you paid, and you do not have to accept a repair instead.

Two practical points matter inside that window. First, telling the dealer promptly and in writing that you are rejecting the car — rather than only that it has broken down — is what makes the position clear later. Second, if you ask for or agree to a repair inside the 30 days, the period stops running while the trader has the car, so agreeing to let them look at it does not simply burn the clock.

After the 30 days, the remedy changes rather than disappears. Section 23 of the Act gives a right to repair or replacement, and the trader must do it within a reasonable time and without significant inconvenience to you. If that single attempt fails, or if the trader will not do it, section 24 gives a right to a price reduction or the final right to reject.

The six-month presumption, and what it does not cover

A fault that appears within six months of delivery is treated as having been present at delivery. That reverses the burden of proof: you do not have to show the car was faulty when you took it, the trader has to show it was of satisfactory quality when it was supplied. Beyond six months, the burden is yours.

The presumption is not unlimited. It does not apply where it is incompatible with the nature of the goods or with the way in which they have failed to conform. A consumable or wearing item that has simply reached the end of its life on a high-mileage car is the obvious case: a set of brake pads worn out over five months of driving has not been shown to be faulty at delivery merely because five months is less than six.

Nor does it convert into a repair bill anything the dealer told you about before you bought. A defect specifically drawn to your attention before the contract was made, or one that an inspection you actually carried out ought to have revealed, is outside the satisfactory-quality standard in section 9.

The exception most consumer guides miss: a dealer can deduct for use

Most UK consumer writing states flatly that a refund cannot be reduced for the use you have had of the goods in the first six months. For cars that is wrong. Section 24 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 sets out that bar, and section 24(10) is the exception: the deduction is allowed where the goods consist of a motor vehicle.

So the sequence is this. Reject inside the 30-day short-term right and the refund is the full price. Exercise the final right to reject later — after a failed repair — and the refund can be reduced to reflect the use you had of the car, even if you are still inside the first six months, precisely because it is a motor vehicle. Cars are the statutory carve-out, not an illustration of the general rule.

The Act does not set a formula for the deduction, so its size is a matter for negotiation and, failing that, for an ombudsman or a court. It is worth knowing about before you turn down an early repair in the expectation of a full refund several months later.

If the car is on finance, the claim is against the finance company

On hire purchase or PCP the finance company buys the car and supplies it to you, so it, not the dealer, is the trader you claim against. Section 7 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 makes a hire-purchase agreement a goods contract, which carries the satisfactory-quality standard, the 30-day right to reject and the six-month presumption across to the lender named at the top of your agreement.

Section 56(2) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 reinforces that from the other direction: the dealer's negotiations are deemed to be conducted as agent of the creditor, so what the salesperson told you about the car binds the finance company too. In practice that means the complaint goes to the finance company as well as the dealer, and it is the finance company that has to answer it.

Section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is the wrong tool here and is routinely misapplied to this situation. It requires an agreement within section 12(b) or (c) of that Act, and dealer-arranged hire purchase and PCP fall outside those paragraphs because the creditor is itself the supplier. Section 75 does still reach a car bought outright from the dealer where part of the price went on a credit card, and its limits attach to the cash price of the car — more than £100 and no more than £30,000. The full section 75 guide works through that.

One thing to keep separate: voluntary termination under section 99 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 is a right to end a finance agreement early, not a remedy for a faulty car. Using it does not put a broken car back on the dealer, and it carries its own liability rules — see the voluntary termination guide.

A breakdown is not automatically a breach

Satisfactory quality is judged by what a reasonable person would regard as satisfactory, taking account of the price paid, the description, and the car's age and mileage. A fifteen-year-old car bought cheaply is not held to the standard of a nearly new one, so not every failure in the months after purchase is a breach of the Act. What tends to decide it is whether the fault was developing at the point of sale and whether the car was roadworthy when handed over.

A recent roadworthiness test does not change the dealer's obligations either way. A test certificate records the vehicle's condition on the day it was tested against the items the test covers, and an advisory is not a failure. In Great Britain the first test falls due at three years; in Northern Ireland, where testing is run by the DVA rather than the DVSA, it is four. Our MOT due date checker works out when a car's next test falls due; the test record itself is published on GOV.UK.

A dealer warranty sits on top of these rights rather than replacing them. Section 31 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 prevents a trader excluding or restricting liability for the satisfactory-quality, fitness and description standards, so a warranty document that appears to sign away the right to reject does not do so.

Buying privately: almost none of this applies

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 governs a trader selling to a consumer. Buy from a private seller and there is no satisfactory-quality duty, no 30-day right to reject and no six-month presumption. The seller must still describe the car accurately — under section 13 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 it must correspond with the description it was sold under — and the car must be theirs to sell.

That is the practical reason the same fault produces completely different outcomes for two buyers of the same model. It also means the label on the listing does not settle it: someone selling cars in the course of a business is a trader whatever the advert says, and the rights above follow the seller's actual status rather than how the advert describes them. Repeated listings from one address or one phone number are the usual sign.

If the dealer refuses: the ombudsman routes

Put the complaint to the dealer in writing first, and to the finance company as well if the car is on finance, so that both have had the chance to answer. If that does not resolve it, there are two separate ombudsman routes and they cover different things.

The Motor Ombudsman handles disputes about the sale and the vehicle with businesses accredited to its codes. It is free to consumers, approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute, and its Vehicle Sales Code received full CTSI approval in October 2016. An outcome binds the business if the consumer accepts it, and the consumer is free to reject it and go to court instead. A dispute about the regulated credit agreement — the finance company's handling of your claim, for instance — goes to the Financial Ombudsman Service rather than The Motor Ombudsman.

The position in Northern Ireland

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 and the Consumer Credit Act 1974 are United Kingdom statutes, so the 30-day short-term right to reject, the six-month presumption, the section 24(10) motor-vehicle carve-out and the section 7 route against a finance company read the same way in Northern Ireland as in England, Wales and Scotland.

What differs is the vehicle-testing backdrop, which is administered separately: testing in Northern Ireland is run by the DVA rather than the DVSA, the first test falls due at four years rather than three, and the public online test history goes back only to 2017, against 2005 in England, Scotland and Wales. That affects how much of a car's recorded history you can check, not what the dealer owes you.