Hi members
Hoping for some insight into a problem I have with a used car I purchased.
I bought a 2016 BMW 4 series about 4 months ago.
I started noticing juddering/jerking while changing gears (manual gearbox).
The garage I took the car to said the clutch was at end of life and needs replacing, which will be around the £800 mark.
The car has 6 months warranty under a 3rd party company but the warranty company said the clutch replacement would not be covered as it falls under wear and tear.
I’m wondering if the trader I bought the car from should foot the bill?
Do I have any legal recourse to have them provide the repair as I’ve only owned the car a few months? Or am I out of luck and have to cough up for the repairs myself?
Much appreciate any suggestions
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My expectations is the clutch is a consumable and therefore not a claim.
However, if you haven’t done much milage ( or practiced race car and drift racing), you may be able to claim on the garage saying it wasn’t fit to be sold.
Sometimes these things are fixed by the garage doing it at cost.
Afterthought, interesting that such a young car would need a clutch, what’s the milage, engine size and fuel?
Have you actually spoken to the dealer yet, if not that would be my first port of call?
7 year old car isn't that young. I've a 2016 BMW with 90,000 miles and would expect to be replacing the clutch fairly soon, if I hang on to it.Originally Posted by joe narvey
That's the gamble with buying 7 year old used cars. Mine drives like it did when new, the next owner will get a car that looks and drives the same as it did when it cost £30,000 but will be paying less than a £10k. Shelling out for clutch/exhaust/tyres/disc and pads etc. is the price you pay for not buying new.
I’d approach the seller to get their input, unlikely to replace it - you never know- but you get them to make a contribution to the cost? They would be my first port of call before any more time goes by or it gets worse.
Did you test drive it. If you did was there any jerking, trouble finding the gears, was the Clutch pedal high bite, if not put it down put it down to experience.
It had done 65000. 2.0 litre petrol.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Haven’t spoken to them yet as I wanted an idea of where I stood first.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Legality is not my forte however i think its fair to assume you'd expect a newly purchased vehicle to be trouble free for a bit longer than a few months. 3 years down the line it would be a push to go back to the dealer complaining about the clutch however a few months is somewhat different. As someone said previously this is the issue with buying secondhand however it doesn’t absolve the dealer of any responsibility. Any dealer worth their sorts shouldn’t quibble about this…of course if you've had a tow bar fitted and it was evident when removing the gearbox the clutch has been slipped or got hot then thats a different matter.
Speak to the dealer.
I thought a change in law a while ago think it was from the EU ment any dealer is liable for any problems on a car within the first 6 months
Except that in the UK the courts take quite a sensible view, so that a clutch failing on a 6000 mile car that was just outside manufacturer's warranty would be seen as quite clearly a problem that the dealer should fully sort out, whereas a 65k car from 2016 with a clutch failing four months later would be seen as a much greyer area, particularly if you've done a reasonable number of miles in the 4 months you've owned it.
Even if you took it to court and were successful I'd be amazed if you got more than a contribution (perhaps 50%).
Have the conversation with the dealer. Even if you can get a few hundred pounds off the price it's a win in the overall scheme of things. Were you launch into them expecting them to fully foot the bill I suspect you'd get nothing, so it's worth lowering expectations and trying the most conciliatory approach you can muster.
I would ask the dealer you bought it off, but not hope for any contribution. I wonder what its previous life was as I’ve had BMWs up to nearly 200,000 miles on the clock with never a problem. The £800 is an interesting figure as that’s less than I paid to have a Golf one done about 5 years ago. Is that just changing the clutch plate? As while they are in there they might as well change the flywheel.
Sent from my iPhone using TZ-UK mobile app
If the OP is sure there has been no abuse then clearly the fault was starting at the time purchase as its only lasted a few months. The dealer does have responsibility for this and if the box is removed and there is mechanical failure or there is no signs of bad driving/abuse then the dealer should cough up 100%. A clutch should be expect to last well in excess of 65k
Last edited by Franky Four Fingers; 24th October 2023 at 13:51.
I don’t entirely agree with you there Franky.
The dealer presumably bought it in to sell and has no real knowledge of how it has been driven prior to that.
If the clutch was faultless at the time the OP purchased the vehicle, the dealer was probably equally unaware that it was on its last legs at that time. If there was nothing to suggest the clutch was in its way out, it’s unfair to expect the dealer to fork out for the clutch. A contribution would be nice but not obligatory in my opinion.
Hard as it is to swallow, I’d probably put it down to experience and bad luck.
Lesson here is read insurance warranties very carefully, they all wriggle out of something, especially electrics
Isn't the dealer held to a higher standard (in terms of expertise) than a private sale?
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
A line has to be drawn somewhere, would you naturally draw that same conclusion if this was engine failure? An engine could potentially fail at anytime for any given reason just because it was ok at the time of purchase doesn't absolve the dealer of any responsibility. The dealer should take the car in, if its mechanical failure or just worn out then its down to them, if the OPs been driving like a prat, there is heat build up, obvious signs of slippage then hes on his own. A clutch is expected to normally last longer than 65k.
Yes, of course, but if there was no indication that the clutch was on its way out, how could the dealer have known?
What if the indicators for driving like a prat were from the previous owner?
Where do you draw the line? I don’t know but I wouldn’t put it all on the dealer in this instance.
Then its down to them, as a dealer they would understand what they’re selling, its part of their risk. They would have bought the car in to make a reasonable/maximum profit, when it goes wrong its on them. As i said a year -18 months id agree but 4 months…no way. You could assume the fault was either there or developing at the time of sale
I know jack shit about clutches but I would assume that they don't go from 100% to 0% in a short time. Either it is something the computer can pick up when the car is plugged in, or there are checks that can be made indicating the wear...
As I said, as a professional his expertise is relied upon, which is why you buy from a pro rather than on private car ads.
Again, this is just my understanding.
When a pro sells a car he took in part exchange to get rid of it, they can write "sold as seen" in the ad as a way to relieve themselves of the liability but I am not sure it works. Which is why they often use car auctions.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Very little in terms of clutch diagnosis unless there was a mismatch of input speeds of the gearbox V the output speeds….some cars have this but unsure about BMW.
Unless there is a mechanical failure then you're assumption is correct. Checks to be made are simple road-tests, gear change tests, the other would be a stall test however i doubt that any garage/dealer would even think about that before selling a car. It would probably get the cursory thrash down the road and thats it.
Actually, you're the one assuming that. And you might well be correct, there's a good chance that it was a pre-existing condition.
With secondhand cars, the courts take the view that the higher the mileage, the older the car, and the further it is away from the point of sale, the more likely it is that a purchaser will need to be aware of possible failure, especially on consumable items like clutches.
In this case, if the owner had said within 4 days that the clutch was going, yep, you have a point - back to the dealer. 4 weeks? Again yes, but slightly less so - it doesn't take much to destroy a clutch. 4 months? At that point you'd really need to have good evidence that you didn't cause it and short of getting an engineer to strip it, then trying to prove that the clutch was damaged through misuse AND that it was misuse from the previous owner, not the current one. All for a percentage of £800? All the while, of course, the OP doesn't have their car to drive, they're generally pissed off with the world, have incurred costs for an engineer's strip down and assessment, and now they're taking time to argue with the dealer or warranty company (who will be in no hurry to address the issue).
You have to look at the average clutch life - more than 65k, certainly, but no-one's going to say that the average is over 100k. So now you're at the point where, if you're lucky, you have a car with a clutch that should be 2/3 worn, maybe more and the OP is expected to know this. Even if the court were to say that yes, it's a pre-existing condition, they'd be very unlikely to get awarded the cost of an entire whole new clutch.
This isn't just me spouting, by the way - Mrs LBC's a barrister. Her view - speak to the dealer, try to get a contribution. Then get the car fixed, learn a valuable lesson about car warranties and put it behind you. Don't bother trying to take it to court, you're just throwing good money after bad.
Thank you. I believe I would have no problem going back to my garage in this situation, and we would come to a fair agreement (I don't expect them to be psychic either). But then they've done my cars for a while.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
If you purchase a 2nd hand vehicle you assume its of a certain quality and have some durability, however it’s also reasonable to expect some kind of wear and tear but clutch failure at 65k on a 16 plate car is rare unless of mechanical failure, previous ownership or current owner abuse. If it were the 2 former he’s had the car 4 months, the garage should be doing this FOC. If the box is removed and its been slipped to hell and the clutch is hanging out of it then yeh is down to him. Shouldn't the consumer act especially protect consumers for exactly this kind of thing?
If the clutch has been trashed due to owner abuse, how is the OP going to prove the damage was caused during the previous ownership rather than his? He’s had it for four months which is plenty time enough to wreck a clutch!
The clutch is not faulty, it’s a wear item at the end of its life. The only difference between a clutch and tyres is that you can see when they’re nearly worn and ask the dealer to change them before purchasing the vehicle. If the tyres are still legal, the dealer is entitled to refuse and the buyer will have no comeback if they’re beyond the legal limit four months later.
Going back to LBC’s post, if the clutch is expected to last 100,000 miles, the best the OP could hope for is a 35% contribution as a 65,000 mile car Would be expected to have a 65% worn clutch anyway.
Who said it was at the end of its life at 65k? If so you've answered your own question, the garage should have put a new one in before sale.
The dealer according to the OP.
What he didn’t say was that it was at the end of its life four months ago.
But, yes, if the dealer had known that it was at the end of its life before purchase then he should have replaced it before sale. Apparently neither the dealer nor the buyer knew at that stage though.
Last edited by Dave+63; 24th October 2023 at 16:22.
It should. But here you have something that's specifically excluded from the warranty as a wearing item, is (probably) 2/3 worn, maybe more and a consumer who'd been using it for 4 months. How many miles in 4 months, how's it been driven? Only the OP can tell us that.
I've replaced a fair number of clutches (mainly on bikes, to be fair) and although you can sometimes see scorch marks or blueing on the plates if it's been slipped a lot, I've no idea how you'd know whether it was particularly recent. I also know that I've managed to kill at least two clutches I can think of within a day (not slipping in the morning, no warning signs, dead by the end of the day). Offroad bikes getting a lot of abuse, admittedly, but car clutches can easily get killed in 65k and it's not necessarily something dealer could or should have known about.
Up to the OP - only they know how determined they are, how much of a relationship they have with the dealer, how much time they're prepared to put into this, and ultimately what they would have to achieve to classify it a success.
You can tell if it’s particularly recent. General wear and tear (wearing thin) has a huge build up of dust inside the bell housing and around the clutch, the clutch will also look thin. Whereas abuse, towing, is very different. Heat marks and high spots are evident on the the flywheel, you have an unmistakable clutch burning smell and in extreme cases the clutch can be literally shredded. If that were the case then yep I’d agree it’s down to the current owner. Anything else is the dealers problem. 65k and 4 months isn’t reasonable end of
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
The OP hasn’t approached the dealer yet. It’s the garage he has taken the to have a look at the clutch who has stated that the clutch is at the end of its life.
It’s not end of though is it? It’s just your opinion and one that is unlikely to hold up in court.
You’re right, I stand corrected.
Its not reasonable though is it…would you buy that car and the first thing you'd consider is that the clutch may fail in 4 months time or at least expect it? If we’re to accept this then an engine would be another example which is clearly wrong. To expect some wear and tear would be correct but a failure isn't.
I agree, it is unfortunate and you wouldn’t really expect the clutch to be worn out at 65,000 miles. The four months is irrelevant as it’s the total mileage over seven years that is important. The OP is unlucky but, as pointed out by LBC, the clutch would reasonably be expected to be 2/3 worn and if it is taken to court, the judge would probably only award the OP 1/3 of the cost of its replacement.
Whether it’s worth the aggravation for a little over £250 is down to the OP.
Armed with this knowledge, it is worth approaching the selling trader (note that the OP said trader rather than dealer) to see if he can get a contribution. If he goes in with zero expectations and gets a contribution then that’s a win in my book, if he gets over £250 then he’s come out on top IMHO.
If we’re saying that the clutch was already worn to a point that only 4 months and xxx amount of miles was enough to wear it totally out then it was already like it at POS.
No, it was xxx miles away from being worn out. The OP had no issues for the first four months. The dealer probably expected it to do 100,000 miles too and will be equally surprised that it needs replacing at 65,000.
Id agree if the car was 12 years old and done 120k miles, its reasonable to assume that a clutch was either shagged or nearing its useable life, not a 7 year old BMW which has covered 65k.
https://www.businesscompanion.info/f...s-act-2015-cra
Section 9.8 - The example.
Last edited by Franky Four Fingers; 24th October 2023 at 21:08.
On my late lamented TD5 Defender the clutch could be juddery, which starting off in 2nd with a good few revs and plenty of clutch slip a couple of times would normally sort for a while, due to oil getting on the DMF, a common fault I think.
Obviously a TD5 Defender and a Beemer are comparable 😂 (not) but in all seriousness I would have thought a failing clutch would tend to slip so maybe a DMF issue. Have you tried googling for the issue with your specific car in case it's something like that or another issue that may be common to the car? You can guarantee most garages will go for the highest cost option to fix to maximise their revenue so always worth doing your own research!
What nobody knows is how the car was driven for the first 65k of it's life.
The more 'senior' driver, slightly hard of hearing, slipping the clutch springs to mind.
I can remember replacing the clutch under warranty in a Ford Cortina, back in the days when such Dagenham delights were common on the roads, only to witness the elderly gentleman who collected it slipping the clutch in the first two gears as he drove off!
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Same applies to more recent miles.
But that just confirms my point, the dealer and buyer expect the clutch to last at least 100,000 miles.
From the dealer’s perspective, he has a nice 65k mile car for sale with no apparent issues and sells it to the buyer as such. Neither have any idea that the clutch is approaching the end of its useful life.
The dealer gives a six month warranty and the buyer drives it away and uses it happily for four months before it becomes apparent that the clutch needs replacing. The warranty won’t cover it because it is a wear item.
What has the dealer done wrong? And why should he be responsible for having a brand new clutch fitted, particularly when it’s generally acknowledged that the clutch in the car was expected to be two thirds worn anyway?
Last edited by Dave+63; 25th October 2023 at 09:56.
or playing devil's advocate, how it's been driven for the last 4 months of its life
And that's the point - the dealer/trader would not be. The only exception would be if they'd drawn attention to the fact that the clutch had just been replaced/had been checked by an engineer and was only 5% worn, that sort of thing. In that case the buyer could place reliance on the fact that the clutch was going to last for a very long time.
But that's not what happened here. The buyer acquired the car, drove it for four months, and found that a wearing part on a 65k miles miles car had worn out. If they could prove - and it's for him to prove, which means expending cost - that there was a pre-existing fault, then yes, they might well be able to get a contribution to a new clutch.
Really, we're arguing over £250, perhaps £500. The OP would spend that much trying to prove that the clutch must have been abused earlier in its life rather than by him and even then would have no guarantee that the court would find in his favour. It would take a year for the case to be heard and there's a cost to go to court (I think £80-100 just to register the claim), so if you're lucky you might get a few hundred pounds back in a year or so. Hardly a great use of your time.
My final advice to the OP: don't waste your time or emotional energy thinking of legal situations. Talk to the dealer and try to charm them. They might be a dick, they might not. In the very worst case, you might be down £800 or so but you have a clutch that will last for the rest of the life of the car. If the dealer is on the level, they may well do it at cost or give you £250 or so as go-away money, which I suspect is as good as you could get.
The dealer hasn’t done anything wrong but then again assuming no poor driving by the OP neither has he. He has purchased a vehicle any reasonable person would naturally assume is fit for purpose. A clutch failing within 4 months is either because, A: the previous owner was an animal. B: There has been some kind of mechanical failure or C: The current owner is an animal. At 65k miles its not normal for a clutch to fail on any car. Most drivers on here and probably yourself would agree with that.
Section 9.3 of the previous post
Whether a vehicle is of satisfactory quality will therefore depend on the particular facts and on the extent to which the actual condition of the vehicle matches the consumer's reasonable expectations. For example, in judging whether a recently bought seven-year old car was of satisfactory quality it would be reasonable to take account of the price of the car. This could be far less than for a new vehicle and so expectations should be lower. It would also be reasonable to assume that the performance might not be as good and the quality of the finish could fall far short of new condition. In summary, with second-hand cars, it is reasonable to expect some wear and tear and for it not to be in the perfect condition of a new car - for example, there may be some scratches to the paintwork. However, it would still need to conform to any description given to it and should be judged in accordance with the standard and performance that was reasonable to expect in a similar car of that age, mileage and model.
A clutch failing isn't something you'd expect given the above, if it had done 120k then i would agree but it hasn’t.
Its down to the garage to prove there wasn't an underlying fault within the first 6 months. If you take a car back within 6 months its down to them to prove there wasn't a problem before purchase….not the owner.
Would you mind pointing out the legislation that covers this and how it applies in this case?
My understanding is that, legally, you’re incorrect. Every day’s a school day etc, but I’m not aware of any automatic 6-month guarantee that dealers have to stand behind on a wearing part.
Certainly, look at the .gov website, even go to the Citizens device page, stick in the age of car and there you go, here https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/co...th-a-used-car/. Follow the start button, put in a date approx 4 months ago and take read.
Here….https://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rig...s-aAnMC5b0ZzJb
Which website……I've owned the car for less than six monthsIf you take the vehicle back within six months of purchase, the dealer should accept there was a problem when the vehicle was sold.If the dealer doesn't accept there was a problem when the vehicle was sold, they'll have to prove this.
The motoring ombudsman….https://www.themotorombudsman.org/kn...mer-rights-act
It’s worth bearing in mind that, if the issue occurs in the first six months after buying the car, it’s up to the selling dealership or garage to prove that it was of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described when they sold it to you. However, if you want to reject your car for a full refund within the first 30 days, or the problem happens six months or more after you bought the vehicle, you – the consumer, needs to be able to prove that the car was not of satisfactory quality, unfit for purpose or not as described when you bought it. This will normally be through either a diagnosis from a garage or dealership, or an independent technical report. You can find more information about independent technical reports here.
Why would none of that be applicable to this particular case?
Thanks for the links FFF, it certainly sheds a different light on the situation.
The only area of ambiguity is the bit I’ve quoted above.
At the time of purchase, there was no indication that the car wasn’t of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose or as described.
That's great! You've sorted the OP out - I wish them luck in getting that new clutch fitted.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
