[AR_Six]

Yeah maybe. This is from the BC Sale of Goods Act.

Implied conditions as to quality or fitness
18 Subject to this and any other Act, there is no implied warranty or condition as to the quality or fitness for any particular purpose of goods supplied under a contract of sale or lease, except as follows:

[...]

(c) there is an implied condition that the goods will be durable for a reasonable period of time having regard to the use to which they would normally be put and to all the surrounding circumstances of the sale or lease;

Arguing about what a reasonable period of time is having regard to the use for which it would normally be put is a matter for dem lawyers. But your question is, "should the dealer who sold me the car bear any responsibility?" and my answer would be "potentially yes".

Spoiler!

[1975] 1 All ER 139

Court of Appeal, Civil Division

Lord Denning MR

'The plaintiff, Mr Crowther, is a young man interested in art. In 1972 he bought a secondhand motor car from the defendants who were reputable dealers in Southampton. It was a 1964 Jaguar. He bought in on 17 July 1972 for the sum of £390. The dealers commended it. They said that 'it would be difficult to find a 1964 Jaguar of this quality inside and out'. They added that for a Jaguar 'it is hardly run in'. Mr Crowther looked carefully at it. He took it for a trial run. The next day it was tested by the Ministry of Transport officials. The report of the test was satisfactory. So Mr Crowther bought the Jaguar. He did not take the words of puff seriously. But he relied on the sellers' skill and judgment. There was clearly an implied condition under s 14(1) of the Sale of Goods Act 1893 that the car was reasonably fit for the purpose for which he required it and which he made known to the sellers.


That was 17 July 1972. The mileage as stated on the mileometer at that time was 82,165 miles. Mr Crowther took the car. He drove it on some long journeys. He went up to the north of England and back. He went round Hampshire. He went over 2,000 miles in it. He found that it used a great deal of oil. But he managed to drive it for three weeks. Then on 8 August 1972, when he was driving up the M3 motorway, it came to a full stop. The engine seized up. The car was towed into a garage. The engine was found to be in an extremely bad condition. So much so that it had to be scrapped and replaced by a reconditioned engine. The car was out of use for a couple of months or so.


Mr Crowther brought an action in the county court for damages from the dealers. He called as a witness a previous owner of the car, a Mr Hall. He gave evidence that he had bought it from these selfsame dealers about eight months before. He had paid them about £400 for it. He had used it for those eight months and then sold it back in July 1972 to these very dealers. When he resold it to them he knew the engine was in a very bad state, but he did not disclose it to them. He left them to find out for themselves. He was himself an engineer. He gave a trenchant description of the engine:


'At the time of resale I thought the engine was clapped out. I do not think this engine was fit to be used on a road, not really, it needed a rebore.'


The judge accepted the evidence of Mr Hall. He held that there was a breach of s 14(1) of the 1893 Act. He awarded Mr Crowther damages in the sum of £460 with costs. Now there is an appeal to this court by the dealers. They say there was no justification for the finding that this car was not reasonably fit for the purpose. The mileage when they sold it was 82,165 miles. The mileage when it 'clapped out' was 84,519 miles. So that in the three weeks it had gone 2,354 miles.


Counsel for the dealers, who put the case very cogently before us, submitted that a car which had covered 2,354 miles must have been reasonably fit for the purpose of driving along the road. He drew attention to a case some years ago in this court, Bartlett v Sidney Marcus Ltd. We emphasised then that a buyer, when he buys a secondhand car, should realise that defects may appear sooner or later. In that particular case a defect did appear in the clutch. It was more expensive to repair than had been anticipated. It was held by this court that the fact that the defect was more expensive than had been anticipated did not mean that there had been any breach of the implied condition. But that case seems to me to be entirely distinguishable from the present case. In that case it was a minor repair costing £45 after 300 miles. Here we have a very different case. On the dealers' own evidence, a buyer could reasonably expect to get 100,000 miles life out of a Jaguar engine. Here the Jaguar had only done 80,000 miles. Yet it was in such a bad condition that it was 'clapped out' and after some 2,300 miles it failed altogether. That is very different from a minor repair. The dealers themselves said that if they had known that the engine would blow up after 2,000 miles, they would not have sold it. The reason obviously was because it would not have been reasonably fit for the purpose.


Some criticism was made of a phrase used by the judge. He said: 'What does “fit for the purpose” mean?' He answered: 'To go as a car for a reasonable time.' I am not quite sure that that is entirely accurate. The relevant time is the time of sale. But there is no doubt what the judge meant. If the car does not go for a reasonable time but the engine breaks up within a short time, that is evidence which goes to show it was not reasonably fit for the purpose at the time it was sold. On the evidence in this case, the engine was liable to go at any time. It was 'nearing the point of failure', said the expert, Mr Wise. The time interval was merely 'staving off the inevitable'. That shows that at the time of the sale it was not reasonably fit for the purpose of being driven on the road. I think the judge on the evidence was quite entitled to find there was a breach of s 14(1) of the 1893 Act and I would therefore dismiss the appeal.'