REASONABLE FITNESS OF CARS
| Date | 01 November 1975 |
| Author | M. Whincup |
| Published date | 01 November 1975 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1975.tb01435.x |
REASONABLE
FITNESS
OF
CARS
FROM
the consumer’s point of view probably the most significant
rules of English law are those contained in
s.
14
of the Sale of
Goods Act 1893, as amended by the Supply of Goods (Implied
Terms) Act 1973, now itself amended by the fourth Schedule of
the Consumer Credit Act 1974. In essence the rules require the
business seller
or
credit-broker to ensure that his goods are reason-
ably fit for their usual or specified purposes and are of merchantable
quality. These requirements have the status of conditions-basic
terms
of
the contract, breach of which entitles the buyer to repudiate
his own contractual obligations and/or to claim damages. Familiar
though these propositions are, however, there
is
surprisingly little
guidance as to what they actually mean in the context of one
of
the most common and yet most important consumer transactions,
the purchase
of
a
car. Tales
of
defective cars, both new and second-
hand, are legion-but how serious do the defects have to be before
the buyer can reject the car and demand his money back?
Law reports and text books on sales of goods give little
or
no
answer to this question. They are of course most helpful and
informative on the rights of buyers who find excess sulphites in
their underpants, stones in their buns
or
arsenic in their beer,
or
whose onions sprout
or
whose catapults break, or whose eight-
cylinder Bugattis do not meet their more leisurely tastes,’ but these
particular misfortunes seem
so
far only to affect a relatively small
minority. Bearing in mind the number of complaints one hears about
the dangers
or
deficiencies of motor vehicles it is difficult to explain
the paucity of authority on the ground that buyers never wish to
return their purchases
or
claim damages because of them. More
probably the reasons lie in the buyer’s ignorance
of
his
rights, the
obscurity
of
these rights in themselves, and the strong resistance
of motor dealers and manufacturers to any such action. This is
certainly the view taken by the Ontario Law Reform Commission
in their valuable report in 1972 on
“
Consumer Warranties and
Guarantees
in
the Sale
of
Goods.”
“
The accepted policy
of
the
companies appears to he not to reimburse the purchase price except
undar the compulsion of
a
court order and to replace the defective
vehicle itself only in the most exceptional circumstances.
.
.
Three
of the manufacturers had received, in the aggregate, in excess of
500,000
warranty claims over a three-year period. However, none
of
them had refunded the purchase price on a single vehicle and among
them they had replaced only
15
defective vehiclcs. The question
remains whether they would have fared as well
if
consumers were
more litigation minded.
.
. .”
:’
1
References
are
no
doubt
superfluous!
L’
At
p.
90.
3
For
footnote,
see
p. 661.
660
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