Mr S – Complaint Against Blue Motor Finance

Mr S bought a used BMW M5 from a dealer for around £28,000, which he financed through Blue Motor Finance. Soon after taking delivery the vehicle suffered a sudden and complete loss of power and engine failure, resulting in it being recovered to BMW specialist.

This revealed that the cause was more likely than not to have been present at the point of sale. However, the supplying dealer and finance company disagreed, stating the damage was caused by drive on damage.

Their argument centred around the engine failure being caused by Mr S and that had he stopped immediately, the engine would not have been destroyed, although there was no evidence to support this.

The finance company instructed Ace Consultant Engineers to carry out an inspection which concluded the cause likely developed at some point in the past history and had lain latent.

Nevertheless, the finance company and dealer remained intransigent, and we were instructed to assist Mr S which we did under the terms of our fixed price services.

We prepared a case that demonstrated that the Consumer Rights Act creates in effect “strict liability.” This means that liability arises from the manifestation of the fault or defect and therefore the subsequent events have no impact.

The Financial Ombudsman upheld the complaint, the finance agreement was unwound, and the deposit refunded, along with the finance payments made.