In early December my sister aged 18 bought her first car from a local dealership. A £2,000 car that she'd worked hard to save up for herself. It came with a 3 month warranty.
In early April, the oil light came on. I'm about as far from a mechanic as is possible, but looked under the bonnet anyway and could instantly see oil kind of seeping out of the top of the engine. Being that the car was out of warranty, I took it to a garage for her, one that I and people I know have used for years so is as trusted as is possible, who charged me £30 for a check over including written report - in short, the head gasket is gone and the repair bill was quoted at just over £2,000.
Absolutely gutted for her.
I started to research if she had any rights given that the car was only bought 4 months ago, and there seem to be stronger legal protections for the first 6 months, under the consumer rights act. I called the dealership who said, tough, it's out of warranty. I told them that the warranty doesn't change our legal rights, but they were having none of it and point blank refused to help.
We could try fighting this. I know I could write to them officially and give X days to respond etc. But being her first car, the insurance was £2,000 and so she will get a large chunk of that back if she just scraps the car now (worth about £250 for scrap). If she keeps hold of it whilst fighting the dealership, then whilst she waits for that process to happen she's effectively 'losing' the insurance money and tax money for a car she can't drive, with no guarantee that the dealership will do anything. Either way she's not currently in a position to afford another car, even with a partial insurance refund it wouldn't cover it.
I don't know what the best thing to do is so if anyone has any advice at all it would be really appreciated