From day one, Glen’s car had a faulty clutch. He took it back to the used car dealership to get it fixed, but the dealer insisted that it was just normal wear and tear and wasn’t covered by the warranty. Glen thought that sounded a bit dodgy, so he asked his older brother Darrell to step in.

Darrell called Fair Trading and was told about the complaint process and directed to some letter templates on the Fair Trading website. They wrote a letter to the dealer asking for the issue to be resolved,  but still had no positive response. Darrell also got the dealer’s mechanic to put into writing why they wouldn’t fix the problem. Then he filled in a complaint form and sent it, along with the letters to Fair Trading.

Two weeks later Darrell was contacted by a Fair Trading assessor who came out to look at the car. He said that he thought the problem with the clutch should be covered under the statutory warranty and that he thought they had a case. From that point on the assessor handled the matter for them.

The assessor was in contact with Darrell every step of the way, letting him know the status of the complaint with the dealer.

The final outcome was that the dealer gave Glen the money to cover the repair of the clutch.

“Basically if we didn’t have Fair Trading the dealer would have just strung it right out and not come up with the money…”

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